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The US Economy Needs More "Cool" Nerds
Hugh Pickens writes "Steve Lohr writes in the NY Times that the country needs more 'cool' nerds — professionals with hybrid careers that combine computing with other fields like medicine, art, or journalism. Not enough young people are embracing computing, often because they are leery of being branded nerds. Educators and technologists say that two things need to change: the image of computing work, and computer science education in high schools. Today, introductory courses in computer science are too often focused merely on teaching students to use software like word processing and spreadsheet programs, says Janice C. Cuny, a program director at the National Science Foundation adding that the Advanced Placement curriculum concentrates too narrowly on programming. 'We're not showing and teaching kids the magic of computing,' Cuny says. The NSF is working to change this by developing a new introductory high school course in computer science and seeking to overhaul Advanced Placement courses as well. The NSF hopes to train 10,000 high school teachers in the modernized courses by 2015. Knowledge of computer science and computer programming is becoming a necessary skill for many professions, not only science and technology but also increasingly for marketing, advertising, journalism and the creative arts. 'We need to gain an understanding in the population that education in computer science is both extraordinarily important and extraordinarily interesting,' says Alfred Spector, vice president for research and special initiatives at Google. 'The fear is that if you pursue computer science, you will be stuck in a basement, writing code. That is absolutely not the reality.'"
Rather, the burden of change should be placed on the populace (parents especially) and media.
I'm going to make some statements with absolutely no sort of proof, weight or even statistics behind them. Statements which need no proof because if you've gone through the American educational system, you know that what I am saying is the truth.
Football (really sports in general) is more important to teenagers and parents than computer science.
Computer science is far more practical/pragmatic (and really productive for society as a whole) and monetarily rewarding later in life than football.
This isn't pressure from the kids. Kids don't develop these hierarchies of what's more important than other things on their own. They get this from their peers who in turn get it from their parents, teachers and--most importantly--the media. Football is the entertainment industry. There are a small percentage of high school football players that go on to hold all the wealth. All the wealth is controlled or pushed through a single league--the NFL. Kids don't realize that their chances of playing in the NFL are equivalent to winning the lottery. And they pass up much more applicable things like math in order to be better at sports. This is what's wrong with the picture. Don't blame nerds for not being iconic enough or cool enough or social enough.
This has slowly turned as shows and parents have realized that the brilliant nerds they graduated with--the ones that spoke Klingon--actually went on to do really cool things with technology. Not only are they really cool but the whole world is trying to throw cash at them in exchange for their services. Compare that to captain of the football team.
I don't want you to write off sports entirely, a healthy body is necessary to live a long life and moderate exercise is actually good for your intelligence. What I'm asking people to do is when they sit down as a father and spend three hours cheering for their team, they should realize that in order to instill a more pragmatic value in their child (who watches and mimics their every move) they should turn around and spend an equally amount of emphasis on how important math, academics, computer science, etc is to their child.
That's not happening. Our economy is suffering from irresponsible parents breeding a generation of gamblers. And by and large they lose--there's just not enough money in entertainment to go around to every high school football player. There is, however, more than enough money in technology to go around to every high school hobbyist that got out in the real world and applied their knowledge.
I'm not a parent but I'd like to ask all the Slashdotters that are parents that have pushed their children in sports and physical abilities to devote more time to that than reading or studying: why do we do this to our kids? And secondly, do you realize you're creating an ecosystem for other people's kids when your kids reinforce the idea that sports are more important than knowledge and they are the path to success?
My work here is dung.
Yeah. The reality is that you will be stuck in a small cube writing code instead.
Love sees no species.
It's quite simple. Give the technology classes to people who actually understand the subject and can teach interesting aspects of computer science.
All of my computer courses were either run by secretaries "Learn excel!" or mathematicians "Learn esoteric matlab graphing!"
Teach kids something more entertaining for a broader swath of students like visual effects. Write a renderer in a compositing application. or Teach kids Torque Game Builder. Something simple but creates a product the students actually are interested in.
What about Turing? Tesla? Archimedes? Einstein? Hawking? Those guys from 'Big Bang Theory'?
How much cooler do you want?
We have enough raw labor resources in this country to meet any technology demand. Don't blame the culture or this lame-ass idea that people are afraid of being labelled nerds. If I made six figures, they could call me the pink tutu goddess of networking and I wouldn't mind.
The problem is that businesses don't want to pay highly-trained and specialized workers more. They've tried outsourcing, right-sizing, downsizing, globalization, and every other way possible to screw people out of wages. And curiously enough, we keep coming back to the same problem -- no matter how big you make the labor pool, the required training and experience required to do these jobs demands a certain minimum income. Keynesian economics, I'm looking at you -- your adherents continue to believe that if they keep expanding the labor pool they'll reach a price point they want. Well, good luck with that...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It wasn't *that* long ago that executives didn't type their own memos and letters. Ask one to use a typewriter or a word processor and they would have laughed or wouldn't know how to do it.
More and more computing skills are becoming basic skills. Maybe only the dinosaurs continue to use word processors and spreadsheets, but people still want wikis and PDFs. And by dinosaurs I don't mean the old schoolers, but those who still cling to the idea that in this age, the best way to disseminate knowledge is to print it on an 8" x 11", un-editable, fixed document stuck in a binder...
And that's part of the problem. In my day to day work I don't need a word processor or a spreadsheet except when a manager specifically asks for documentation in that format. So I gather my data and run it through a utility to convert it to a pretty Excel sheet, or convert it to a nicely formatted PDF, or make it into a web page. We're teaching kids to use tools that don't work all that well for the media-rich environment we have today.
Teach them to write a Facebook app or use a content creation tool.. That will be more useful than learning how to print mail merged letters.
How about this, stop calling people who use computers to get things done as "nerds" ("geeks", "techies", etc).
Look at any magazine or television commercial, you think all that crap was hand carved out of stone and painted with the tears of virgins? I guarantee a computer was used at some point or another in the creative development behind it. Hell, music has been constantly fusing with new technology for ages, was Les Paul a "nerd"?
Technology, computers especially, penetrated society long ago, the only thing that creates this "us & them" rift is constant stereotype re-enforcement through the media.
Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go re-alphabetize my D&D collection while being bad at sports, good day to you sir!
crazy dynamite monkey
Happy to see somewhere out there someone believes in the cool nerds. (i'm also the gay one, and at work that means i'm triple times fabulous ;). I no longer work in IT but i work in regulatory compliance. Where do i find still my undergrad degree in computing sciences useful? EVERYWHERE and EVERY DAY!!! I believe the biggest mistake of this century is for businesses to isolate their "tech" employees to an IT department. This structure ensures that all computing knowledge is isolated from the rest of the business that could use it to increase productivity! I've written countless scripts, reports and other programs to perform simple otherwise labrous tasks and free business workers to focus on important things. People think i'm some sort of miracle worker. The reality is that i'm simply an anomaly at the firm - a person with a computing background who works in the business side. There needs to be more of us - many more!! When i'm CEO - there will be people with computer science backgrounds positioned everywhere in the company. They are the key to connecting the business with technology needs and making business far more efficient. An "IT" department, no matter how good, isn't as good as mixing knowledge of technology in the business side directly.
Since that question is framed in a way which is both extremely awkward and does not have a correct answer, "?????" is an appropriate response. There are usually several former Vice Presidents of the United States of America -- even if you restrict it to living former Vice Presidents, otherwise there have been more than one since the second VP left office and that will always be the case -- at any one point of time, much less in any eight year period. Except when there is only one such person, none is "the" former Vice President at the time.
Every time I go out somewhere, I can overhear idiots bashfully proclaiming to be "total nerds" to impress girls, despite not being able to string a sentence together or use a word with more than two syllables.
Don't get me wrong, the whole nerd chic thing has been great to me, but guys who used to beat up guys like me calling themselves nerds just to get laid is a bit annoying.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
At the moment in a purely IT role (some management, some hands on, etc), I make about the same amount as an average doctor and work less hours. Granted I'm sure that some specialists make a lot more, but the simple fact is that there isn't a motivation to move.
To be honest, I have considered pursuing a medical degree -- not for the money, but for my own interest. Looking at the amount of time I have to invest, looking at the amounts of loans I have to take out, looking at the long term gain -- it's not worth it.
The way government controls behavior is through taxation. If they want people to drive hybrids, they can tax gasoline. That's why europeans drive smaller cars -- because gas costs more due to taxes. If they want people to stop drinking, or stop eating McDonalds or whatever -- they can tax accordingly. But unfortunately in the last few years of our economy, it's become abundantly clear that people with a finance degree and the ability to reap rewards on a short term (bonuses) while screwing other people out of the long term is what is valued in our country. Do we value educators? Do we value doctors? Not really -- many articles surrounding healthcare debate lie in the idea that "doctors make too much", when given the lifestyle and hours they work, they should honestly be paid more.
Making a person like me jump from IT into healthcare or be crosstrained in order to better the country as a whole to me, is a great idea. I just can't burden the expense -- again. I have gone through the system that is there, and wound up many thousands in debt due to school loans. If we want more 'cool nerds', then somebody has to start putting the emphasis back on aspiring to be a doctor, a teacher, a scientist (the kind with beakers, not computers), etc. Not having kids aspire to be the next Michael Jordan or Jay Z.
Unfortunately it's a myth that is perpetuated and we keep buying into it. Sadly, other countries see our folly and already accelerate ahead of us (the US) in many, many areas. We are the best at a lot of things, but for how long? Hopefully our behaviors can change so that a person like myself that actually wants to contribute in a meaningful way, can.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Along those same lines, I'd agree with the summary (RTFA? Me? Never!) that early computer education needs to be divorced from only the dull and pointless (MS Office training) and the specialized (programming) to include a wider range of activities that use computers as a tool. Computers have advanced in usability to the point where interacting with "the computer" is overshadowed by interacting with software, websites, and people. Frame computer literacy not in terms of "computer classes", but in terms of art, writing, design, engineering, yes-- programming, and all the creative endeavors that use the computer as a tool.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
... just like Mathematics.
It means nothing by itself, except as a means to an end of solving practical problems.
That said, it makes all the sense in the world for most Computer Scientists to learn other domains of knowledge to apply to.
The more disciplines you are familiar with, the more adept you will be at applying your programming skills to solving real-world problems.
Way to base your assumptions of an entire generation on one person, and then based on a stereotype call for the mudering of them all. If you had said that based on race and not age, you would have been decried a racist or worse.
employers don't want fresh-out-of-school grads
employers love fresh-out-of-school grads, as long as they aren't Americans.
A lot of young people don't find reading, writing, or basic mathematics -- or general science, civics or economics -- interesting either, and we press those on people as educational requirements.
On the other hand, they don't like foreign languages, shop class, literature classes, or home ec class, so we dumped them.
Whats the difference between computing class, and German class? I don't think "computing classes" are, by and large, needed.
The biggest problem is the demand that kids learn something old, so that decades later they'll have amazing 'puter skills. Nothing could possibly be more useless than the time I spent in 1st grade learning "bank street writer" on a C64. Or my amazing "Winders fer Workgroups" sysadmin skills.
There is a willful blind spot preventing people from understanding how the hiring managers of future decades will view their amazing firefox 3.5 talents. If MS Office completely redesigns their UI every two years, then "training" usually solely based on memorizing the UI is useless within two years.
At least if you learn German, you can visit oktoberfest 40 years from now, in theory.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
but I had to hide those talents as employers didn't like me having them and I had to take them off my resume to get hired.
I've noticed this is a peculiarity of the technical field. Hiring managers only want to hire people with precisely 2 years experience, nothing more, nothing less. If you thought the newbies had trouble with zero experience, trust me, its no better for the old timers, we have a nightmare of a time figuring out what to hide or delete so they won't either "have the wrong qualifications" or be "overqualified". If I slip up and include the wrong experiences, my resume is trashed.
Also as per the above poster there is a certain list of permitted hobbies, stuff like ham radio is OK, but you'll have a very difficult time being hired if you admit you do artsy or athletic things, which seems very strange. It would be like never hiring a doctor unless their ONLY hobby was dissecting the neighborhood pets or never hiring a graphics artist unless their ONLY hobby was doodling on a notepad.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
We no longer need computing class, and we should avoid attempting to mass produce "geeks" because the more of them there are the lower wages they will command. We don't need more Cool Geeks to impress the public.
Fuck the public. Let them pay for what they want from us.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
So I'm not white, I'm "European-American"? That smacks of PC bullshit. I'm not "European-American". I'm American. I was born here, from parents who were born here. The only types of people who have claim to be "African-American" are my niece and nephew who were adopted from Ethiopia. THAT is an African-American. A geeks and nerds are perfectly acceptable terms to people who identify with that culture. "Perpetuating" the stereotype is not the problem... the problem is what the actual stereotype is. And THAT is what's changing, as more people realize that it's "cool" to be a nerd.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Many of my fellow techies have observed that "domain knowledge" is simply not valued. It's always a specific set of tools and IT buzzwords companies are looking for, not domain knowledge. One time industry knowledge on my resume helped me land a contract, but it was still the tech tools/languages that got me on the review list. If companies value domain knowledge more than tool knowledge, they don't act like it. This article simply contradicts my multi-decade experience in the IT field. Something is out of whack.
Maybe the article is simply a big euphemism for "nerds need more people skills". That may be true, but they seem too timid to outright say it. Sure, every company wants somebody with A+ people skills and A+ tech skills and wants to pay them D wages. And I want a Ferrari that runs on water.
Table-ized A.I.
Just like the NY Times article, you're missing the point. We don't need people with 'hybrid careers', that's just an ambiguous marketing term that sounds great in a newspaper article. What we need is basic training in algorithmic thinking for the masses. Think of the horde of paper-pushing people who could use regular expressions or very, very basic looping structures to save themselves hours of manually manipulating text. From personal experience I can tell you that even 'technical' people like mechanical engineers are total fucking morons when it comes to automating their drone tasks. Nobody is talking about teaching secretaries to write compilers; your crying about the degradation of computer science is totally out of place as a comment to this story.
"If we really want "'cool' nerds" we need to eliminate any idea that someone else is going to earn/provide a living for us."
I guess you're confusing football players with "nerds". I don't think I'd be going too far out on a limb to claim that "I deserve it" is a mantra much more adopted by athletes than CS and IT folks.
If being "cool" is about working hard and making the extra effort, I'd say we're pretty cool already.