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Fewer Computer Science Majors

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the who-will-build-the-turing-machines-of-tomorrow dept.

skrysakj writes "USA today reports that there are fewer undergraduate students choosing computer science related majors in the USA. What really woke me up was their statement that only 6% of the worlds engineers are educated in the USA. Before there was a dot-com bubble to burst, I knew lots of *amazing* programmers and IT professionals who had non-IT degrees, so how is this new trend any different than before?"

3 of 901 comments (clear)

  1. as opposed to ... by mikieboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    about 75% of the worlds lawyers. maybe that why sco in such a pickle

  2. Re:MCSE? Are you serious? by TheHonestTruth · · Score: 5, Funny
    Learning to do A,B or C if X,Y or Z happens is NOT computer science!

    Really? Because I really don't understand finite state automata then. Crud. :-)

    -truth

    --

    I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...

  3. Re:MCSE? Are you serious? by Wolfgame · · Score: 3, Funny

    hear hear!!

    I'm a windows admin. I've been working with Windows since version 2.0, and NT since version 3.51 (couldn't get my hands on a copy of 3.1 when I was 14). Every job that I've had that has had MCSEs, MCPs, etc..., I end up taking over the majority of the department. It's not my intention when I go in, but the amount of incompetence that I see in these guys is astounding.

    The problem with MCSEs, and more recently CCNAs (the only cisco cert that I still respect is CCIE, because it requires you to actually work) is that the people taking the tests rely on classes that guarantee you the cert or your money back, or they'll rely on braindumps to take the tests. They don't actually bother to learn anything. And then once they have the actual cert, they know nothing.

    Fun things to ask MCSEs:

    Name some commonly used services and their associated ports: ie ftp tcp/21 smtp tcp/25, pop3 tcp/110, rdp tcp/3389, netbios-session tcp/139, so on and so forth

    also, ask them to describe the difference between similar basic protocols, like pop3 and imap4. I once had someone try to tell me that pop3 was mail, and imap4 was for file transfer, which while it's kinda sorta technically correct, it takes a lot of lenience to let that go.

    And my personal favorite for getting the steam pouring out of their ears: ask them to think on their feet. Give them a weird scenario (server rebooting every 5 minutes on its own), and ask them how they'd troubleshoot it.

    --
    -- My childhood bathtoys were Toaster and Hairdryer