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.'"

Comments

The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[eldavojohn]

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?

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[reginaldo]

American football where I grew up was a right of passage, and pretty much mandatory. It helped teach me self confidence, teamwork, and the ability to bash my head into things. Mostly the head bashing, though.

I use that skill almost every day as a computer programmer, and it is an invaluable part of my toolkit. Poorly written business requirements, bash head. Last minute changes, bash head.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[Eli Gottlieb]

It's a problem of values. Americans, actually less so among the young generation now, tend to be anti-intellectual and revere anyone who can entertain them. What we need to do is remove our culture's obsession (including its sexual obsession) with the entertainment industry, which all too often traces back to the entertainment industry just flagrantly masturbating. How many movies exist about musicians, writers, and actors? How many songs are about music and dance? Too many. How many movies or songs deal with technology, science, or engineering other than the ones about "tell NASA to assemble our hottest astronauts" Hollywood Science? Not at all that many.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[amicusNYCL]

I got the same education by listening to heavy metal.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[countSudoku()]

OMFG, how dare you hit the nail on the head instead of writing a throwaway line to be frist psot! Actually, I am writing to complain because you have just given away some of the points in my own idiom on how to raise my daughter in a world filled with stupid people hell bent on being "football heros|rock stars|famous actors" instead of what makes us more effective, happy people; learning a useful skill and living a normal life. This goes against the Ralph Cramden ethic of anything to get rich quick, but it's the "secret" to what has made my life and career so enjoyable. This is what I want for my little bot, only with more STEM and a degree.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[Chris Mattern]

The mean annual incomes of professionals in the fields of computer science and football might call into question the "monetarily rewarding" part of that statement.

No, they don't, because you're skewing your data. You're looking at the entire comp sci profession and comparing it to those who play football in the NFL--in other words, the general field of one against those who made it to the very top in the other. You need to compare the average per capita income from IT jobs of those who took a computer-related degree against the average per capita income from football of everybody who played varsity football in college. Who wins that contest? Or reverse it--compare NFL players to the likes of Bill Gates, who are the IT field's equivalent of NFL players. Again, who wins that contest?

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[h4rm0ny]

And in the UK, we play rugby with similar effect. First thing the US needs to do? Get rid of this fucked up idea that there is any dichotomy between being good at sports and being good academically. Second thing it needs to do is to ditch the idea that because you have an interest or work in a particular field, you have to be some media stereotype of that field.

Then people can do what the fuck they want without society telling them they fall into some particular clique.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[awyeah]

Its not the media's fault.

Damn right. There's a serious lack of personal responsibility in our culture.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[tixxit]

People like to watch things they can relate to. I think most people revere real skill in talent in any field, whether that is singing, math, business, or what-have-you. Einstein is as much a household name as Elvis is. However, your average person cannot go pick up Einstein's special theory of relativity and read it. They can, however, play some of Elvis' music and bop their heads to it. It is a lot easier to (poorly) emulate a football player or a singer then to emulate a mathematician.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[FooAtWFU]

And in the UK, we play rugby with similar effect. First thing the US needs to do? Get rid of this fucked up idea that there is any dichotomy between being good at sports and being good academically.

House Hears Testimony On Football, Head Injuries

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[CannonballHead]

It's not just football, of course. There are a lot of misappropriated priorities.

And parents appear to not care. They would rather feed their kids entertainment to keep them happy (and out of their hair) than to actually take the time, effort, and "pain" to instill the correct priorities and education and whatnot in them. It's easier to give them $3000 in entertainment gifts per year (you know .... ipod, xbox, games, car, etc) than to take the effort to try to influence their priorities.

And then there's the whole thing that we should just let kids do wha tthey want and what comes natural and not "force" our "beliefs" on them... which apparently includes education, drugs, religion, morals, ethics, family values, holidays, food choices, etc. Basically, kids should grow up by themselves! (and "by themselves" we mean "by the government/public school system")

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[DreamsAreOkToo]

I'm 23 and know a bunch of people who are into football. Football isn't about going outdoors and getting exercise, it's about sitting on a couch, getting drunk, and yelling at the other team and refs for being unfair (no, it isn't that your team sucks). Instead of working on homework, they are practicing intoxication, anger, tribalism, and blaming others for personal failure.

Worse yet, they have this idea that if they're stubborn enough, they'll get their way, even though they've spent their time watching sports instead of learning

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[PitaBred]

The problem is that it really isn't the media's fault. It's the fault of the parents who use media as a proxy to raise their children.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[interploy]

Get rid of this fucked up idea that there is any dichotomy between being good at sports and being good academically. ... Then people can do what the fuck they want without society telling them they fall into some particular clique.

I would bet money this will never happen. This is what's called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Kids find out they excel in certain areas, and and rather than trying to improve where they're weak, they simply try to do what they're good at. As kids grow up, they tend to divide into groups of like-minded people - or cliques - so they can continue to do what they like doing. And of course, everyone wants to think their clique is the best, so they belittle the other groups to boost their standing. This is particularly useful for the physically-oriented groups, one because on an instinctual level, able-bodied/beautiful people are more desirable, and two because physically-oriented groups can belittle the others in the most direct ways (very easy to see when someone is better looking than you or can/will beat you up). Later on, once these kids are adults and having kids of their own, they impress upon their kids the values they grew up with, driving their kids to see if they too can follow the same pattern (based on another human instinct to find a survival pattern that works and follow it, which is much easier to do when someone shows you the way, and amazingly difficult to get change once established, because destroying a survival pattern that works - flawed as it may be - is instinctual suicide), thus inculcating the pattern for another generation. Most times those kids follow in their parents footsteps, though some either don't or can't (the black sheep), but it's not genetics that foster families with a history of artists, or doctors, or laborers.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[Tekfactory]

Forget that it is less than 50 teams, with 53 roster slots each and so landing a job in the NFL is like winning the lottery. Now take $770,000 dollars per year median salary in the NLF times the three and a half seasons your career is actually going to last according to the NFL Players Association.

$2,695,000 before taxes. That may seem like a lot, but unless you save or invest it, it isn't going to last, and generally these guys don't have many other skills to fall back on.

Now sprinkle on knee/ankle injuries, head injuries and back injuries you are guaranteed to get. Add in any possible career ending injuries on the field, and tell me that IT doesn't win hands down.

There is a reason the NFL is looking into all the head injuries, and that so many former players are broke and the Players Association is taking up collections to help them get surgeries when their body breaks down 10 to 20 years later.

They also have to try to keep guys active when they leave the league because a lot of them get huge from eating the way they were trained to when they played, then when they aren't exercising hours a day they can't metabolize all that food.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[hazydave]

For me, two years of Judo and five years of Aikido practice. But the software guys don't mess with me, either... there are wrist locks that send regular folks into new and painful places. Imagine if you have carpal tunnel syndrome! And I know how to fall, after bashing my head too hard.

I don't think, in this age of unprecedented teenage sloth, it's wise or necessary to cut down the value of sports just to raise up the value of the sciences, computer or otherwise. What we need to really address is "fat kid on a couch, playing X-Box and eating chips, for hours after school" as a standard and acceptable behavior.

There's a commonality between these, too. When you get good at a sport, you get pushed to new physical plateaus... places you never imagined going. But you go there primarily with your mind, or you fail... most people give up mentally long before their bodies just stop working (which they absolutely will, if you can keep pushing hard enough, long enough... but that's good too, as long as its not a destructive failure).

  It really is two sides of the same coin, physical and mental development. This occurred to me again last Sunday, during a 6 hour, non-stop, snow shoveling session, clearing my 1/5th mile driveway from a 24" blizzard. You need to go to the same place on those three-or-four-days-without-sleep marathon hacking sessions as well (in the old days at Commodore, this was otherwise termed "between Christmas and New Years"... that annual week of sleeplessness, getting ready for the CES show). But I digress.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[Eli Gottlieb]

You don't get it. In the USA, football is Serious Business. People spend hours a day training and practicing, even at the high-school level. This is the underlying reason for the dichotomy: you can't play high-school, college, or professional football without using time for training that you otherwise could have used for studying. So while many people have the talents for both football and academics, it takes someone extra-gifted to get great at both in the time constraints.

Re:The Onus Should Not Be on the Nerds

[natehoy]

It all depends on how far you take "being good". Many football coaches here want to raise a star player, and in order to do so they'll drill the living snot out of the players they have who look good. Your average teenager needs 10-12 hours of sleep a day, has a homework load that runs 2-3 hours minimum after a 7-hour school day. That leaves 4 hours for eating dinner and any other activities. When the coach wants daily 3-hour practices and twice on Saturday and Sunday, something's gotta give. Maybe one in 1000 of those kids is actually going to go on to a football career, if that, but in the meantime there is a pull to specialize in a sport at a cost to academia because, well, you want the school team to win, right?

When I was growing up, many of the most talented football players were pretty much guaranteed at least a minimum passing grade regardless of actual academic merit or effort, simply because a good football team was a form of PR to the community and garnered support for the school. The coaches were directed to drill the kids hard, and the teachers were expected to ease off on the homework and academic load for the best football players so they could focus on the game. Some of the players reacted by working really hard academically, but some just took advantage of the opportunity to coast their way through, putting in just enough effort to keep from being held back, and in some cases intentionally being held back so they could have an extra year or two in the high school athletics program.

Just in terms of hours in the day, there is at least partly a dichotomy between being good at sports and being good academically. Players who genuinely want to succeed academically find themselves constantly torn between practice, homework/study, sleep, and downtime/personal time/social time. Their major influence (second to their parents) is probably going to be their coach, and his priority is to build good players and a good team, so he's going to want them to put in a LOT of practice.

And here is the counterpoint

[E IS mC(Square)]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/nerd-and-geek-should-be-banned-professor-says/

"David Anderegg, a professor of psychology at Bennington College, says that merely mentioning terms like nerd or geek serves to perpetuate the stereotype. The words are damaging, much like racial epithets, he says, and should be avoided."

Re:And here is the counterpoint

[PitaBred]

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.

Oh really?

[KermodeBear]

'The fear is that if you pursue computer science, you will be stuck in a basement, writing code. That is absolutely not the reality.'

Yeah. The reality is that you will be stuck in a small cube writing code instead.

Re:Oh really?

[Jimmy King]

What do you mean "stuck in a small cube"? I've got tons of space. My employer has reduced our local development team from 7 people down to just me and now I've got the entire area to myself.

Re:Oh really?

[Nadaka]

You think thats bad, they just moved me to a badly lit closet in the basement, completely surrounded by boxes. And someone took my red swingline stapler.

Re:Oh really?

[socsoc]

At least now you can listen to your radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven.

Re:Oh really?

[thenextstevejobs]

'The fear is that if you pursue computer science, you will be stuck in a basement, writing code. That is absolutely not the reality.'

Yeah. The reality is that you will be stuck in a small cube writing code instead.

This story speaks to me in a lot of ways.

My only exposure to anything related to programming before college was HTML. I had no idea of the 'magic' of programming until I was in a college level programming course. Which I was only in because it was a requirement for electrical engineering classes I was interested in because I wanted to understand synthesizers and analog circuits better.

I grew up under a lot more pressure to be an 'artist' or creative-type than engineer. Most of my friends are from this world as well. From the outside, computer science looks pretty bleak. My idea of it was as follows. You sit at a computer terminal for your entire life, typing. And no one even reads what you write. If I was going to sit at a computer, why wouldn't I at least write for an audience? Why would I choose a job that seems solitary and unexciting? It seems like what you'd think being an accountant would be like.

Having just graduated and spent the last few years doing programming internships, it amazes me how wrong I was about the rewards of programming. No one told me the 'power' I would wield, the infinities of computing, the vastness of what you can express with programming language. That I'd confront hundreds of problems with thousands of solutions, and use my creativity and cunning to apply the most elegant and effective one. That the 'barrier to entry' of creating your own startup that could influence millions of users is little more than some education and a laptop and a server in your closet.

I feel like I found a goldmine that no one was hinting at. It is a primary goal of my professional career to expose more kids like myself to programming. The sentiment of the article is right on. Computers are not leveraged nearly enough in the fields I'm interested in. And it's due primarily I think to a misunderstanding about what programming is, and how it feels to do it. I encounter this firsthand often in Linguistics (also something I focused on in college) where many problems of data collection and analysis are considered impossible by my peers but understood as a solvable engineering problem to me.

I hope that this continues to be in focus. Too often it is a dichotomy between being a 'computer-person' or not, and I think many of us who were into other things got sucked into computers when we discovered them. It's a deep field and difficult to get a handle on, I think, coming from another area. But the benefits are too great to ignore.

Fear of Being Stereotyped? Really?

[introspekt.i]

Not enough young people are embracing computing, often because they are leery of being branded nerds.

I think a lot of young people just don't find it interesting. I think a lot of older people feel the same way. People tend to do what they're passionate about, and passionate people tend to think less of the opinions of others and more about what they want to do. Do we really need to press this field on more people?

idea

[rubycodez]

they'll be sitting in mom's basement e-mailing resumes, employers don't want fresh-out-of-school grads. maybe we need a national apprenticeship program to give young people experience in the tech fields.

Re:idea

[Anonymous Coward]

they'll be sitting in mom's basement e-mailing resumes, employers don't want fresh-out-of-school grads. maybe we need a national apprenticeship program to give young people experience in the tech fields.

I can agree with this. Germany has a good approach towards engineering education. Students go through the typical University level engineering education with math, physics, engineering, etc, but then it is also paired with apprenticeships where they are mentored with real hands on work (note: there is a difference between apprenticeship and "intern" or "coop" like we have in the USA where a college student sits in front of a computer all day with no hands on work). Also, if you want to get an engineering PhD you have the option of being paired with a private company and basing your thesis on real work you do at a real job. USA academics look down upon private sector work and consider it work done by people who couldn't cut it in academia, so our university system tends to produce ivory tower academics rather than practical ones like Germany that are useful to the private sector economy (that's NOT to say that academic engineers aren't important, but we seem to not have a balance here in the USA). So, I think our university and corporate system is partially to blame here.

Culturally we have a real problem with where scientific and engineering work is placed both economically and socially, just like the article summary suggests. Here, patent lawyers get paid more than the engineer(s) who designed and built the product they are patenting and it says a lot about our society and system of governance. In Europe, getting an engineering degree typically indicates that you are solidly in the upper ranks of the social hierarchy--the same definitely can't be said in the USA as I'm sure everyone here knows. It makes me worry we are riding on the heels of the 1950s where all the good scientists and engineers emigrated here to escape the World War, and that slowly but surely we are turning into a South America type banana republic while the world economy and intellectual activity shifts back to Europe and Asia.

Solution is easy

[im_thatoneguy]

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.

Re:Solution is easy

[DragonWriter]

It's quite simple. Give the technology classes to people who actually understand the subject and can teach interesting aspects of computer science.

And how, exactly, do you get those people to accept the combination of pay and working conditions given to high school teachers?

Re:Solution is easy

[scamper_22]

ummm, I've known many engineers who left the field to be teachers.

Teaching is not a poor profession. In places like New York you can reach 6 figures with a pension and job security.

If anything, this kind of article misses the point entirely.
You do not need to make science *cool* or hire *cool* teachers or make science *fun*.

I've seen colleagues leave the field. They love the cool part of their job. They just hate their actual job. They feel underpaid, overworked, no job security...
You know the things you eventually find important after you get out of the naive student stage.
So if these people who *love* science would probably choose a different career path if they could redo everything... is the problem really about making science *cool*?

Indeed, I would say there are more than enough people interested in science. The difference is in terms of actual working conditions.
In India/China... getting into tech is a world full of riches and opportunity. Hence, their best and brightest go into it.
In today's America/Western World, getting into tech is a middle class job with no job security. Hence a *perceived* shortage of talent. It is not a real shortage, as their are plenty of capable people. They are just choosing other fields.

If you are talented enough to be a good scientist/engineer... you're smart enough to be a doctor, lawyers, teacher, nurse, banker... and that is where the talent goes.
As a matter of fact, paying teachers more will only make this problem worse. As it makes another profession even more appealing than engineering. Case in point... me ... I got my B of Education, but unfortunately, where I live (Ontario, Canada), teaching pays very well and such the jobs are hard to come by. If I could get into the school system, I'd leave my engineering career in a split second. Pay, pension, lifestyle, vacation... oh hell ya. And yes, I taught and I've done supply teaching. It's a great job to be a teacher.

Cool? You don't know cool.

[Trigun]

What about Turing? Tesla? Archimedes? Einstein? Hawking? Those guys from 'Big Bang Theory'?

How much cooler do you want?

We have enough.

[girlintraining]

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...

Re:We have enough.

[NiteShaed]

payscales for software developers in Silicon Valley continue to well outpace inflation. Where are you working where business do not pay more?

Isn't that a little like saying that while living in Beverly Hills you haven't seen evidence of this "homelessness" thing that people talk about? Silicon Valley may not be representative of the U.S. tech-job market in general.

Re:We have enough.

[CodeBuster]

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

This is a good point and it highlights a problem with current government attempts to encourage more youngsters to pursue careers in STEM. We say that we want "smarter" high school students and more interest in STEM professions while at the same time we continue to see outsourcing, visa fraud, and even less savory tactics used by employers to avoid paying for skills and expertise they say are needed to compete in the 21st century economy. The smart high school students are going to ask, "Why should we bust our butts to earn an engineering degree for a job that is underpaid, relative to the time, effort, and expense required to train for it, and is under constant threat of being cut, outsourced, or downsized"? They will choose to go into law, business, or medicine (although poorly implemented health care "reform" may soon ruin that career path too) instead.

A career in STEM is in many ways a lifelong commitment requiring high levels of ongoing participation both to stay current and to grow in one's chosen area of expertise. People are reluctant to make these sorts of commitments where employment is no longer guaranteed, jobs get outsourced at the drop of a hat, and STEM gets little or no respect from upper management. In fact, many upper management types are actively hostile towards STEM and resent the "high" wages earned by "skilled" workers (especially in IT) who are not, in their eyes, involved in "leadership" roles. This is compounded by the fact that many R&D oriented STEM careers require higher levels of independence and creative freedom than most MBAs are comfortable granting.

How then can we convince a "smart" student that STEM are great career choices? Given the present reality, I am not sure that we can.

Re:We have enough.

[fermion]

Pretty much I have to agree it is the pay. There was a time when a person could get paid to make something. I don't want to turn this into a debate about the declining manufacturing capability in America, but I do want to state some facts. Much of the debate of 2008 and 2009 centered around the failing car companies, and that American car companies paid their employees a livable wage, meaning their families could eat, have a house, and good medical care. In this debate, it was seldom mentioned that the managers negotiated contracts that traded short term payments to the employees in exchange for long term payments. That is, the employees would take less money now with the knowledge that the money they did not take now would be used to take care of the employee later on.

The problem is that he managers were not competent and those promises were never kept. Rather than admitting failure to keep a contract, the managers blamed health care costs. Incompetent managers were allowed to receive huge pay and workers were shafted out of their contracts.

I will ask this. If you were a rational, intelligent, and educated worker with choices, would you put yourself into a position where you could lied to and cheated, or would you try to get into a position where you can be an incompetant and still receive a million dollar bonus? In other words, would you be a person how made something, or pushed paper around. I think we all know the answer to that.

The average engineer can make a middle class income after college, but will be fired a drop of a hat. A competent software developer can make quite a bit of money, if the money if being invested in infrastructure instead or paying off foreign governments and mercenaries and flipping houses. If flipping houses and toppling government is a better investment that is where the money will go. If such things are structurally limited, them more money will go into infrastructure, and the people who make things will have well paying jobs.

For the past 8 years or so the best placed for semi-skilled worker to go is in the military or a prison guard. If that is not a communist government, I don't know what is. There simply has been no capital to do anything truly creative. Recall that Google was 1996.

Re:We have enough.

[sowth]

It seems to me with everything being run by large corporations, you are essentially living in a manorial type society. You plead fealty to your lords, and they give you wages in return.

The problem with this is it you create a massive top-down hierarchy where you are totally dependent upon the honesty of those at the top. If anyone in the management structure wants to siphon most of the wealth into their own pockets, there isn't much to stop them except the manager above. At the top, there is no one above, so they don't have any one person to stop them.

This is where communism fails. You can't really depend upon people to be that honest, plus most normal people don't want that level of responsibility, so only people who want to take advantage of the situation strive for the top.

It seems to me the only obvious solution would be to just get out of their game. Find a way to run your own small business, so if one of your clients is screwing you, you can just drop them when you can. This has more risk (you don't get a steady paycheck) and requires more effort, but if you can do it, in the long term it could be the best way.

Secretaries

[digitalhermit]

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.

Re:Secretaries

[frank_adrian314159]

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.

And it wasn't that long ago when even first-level managers were in the same boat. And it's a shame those days have passed. No longer do you see cute young female secretaries and file clerks with pert bosoms and short skirts roaming the hallways, ready for a little bit of office work. It is a sad era we live in, indeed.

Media Branding

[decipher_saint]

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!

Re:Media Branding

[thisnamestoolong]

We could stop using the word 'nerd', but I prefer to do what I can to make the word a badge of honor. That, to me, is a much easier fight.

Re:Cool? You don't know cool.

[Trigun]

Only due to era.

Affairs

[FlyingBishop]

Clearly, Bill Gates, and some of the other titans of the industry need to bite the bullet and have some very public, scandalous affairs so that the media will start talking about how immoral and terrible people software designers are. Then suddenly sportsmen will become model citizens and no one will want to go into sports anymore.

That's me!

[Jorgandar]

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.

I've seen things swinging the other direction.

[NoPantsJim]

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.

Loans... again? I would love to but...

[HerculesMO]

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.

Re:Fear of Being Stereotyped? Really?

[FLEB]

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.

Re:Fear of Being Stereotyped? Really?

[DragonWriter]

I think a lot of young people just don't find it interesting. I think a lot of older people feel the same way. People tend to do what they're passionate about, and passionate people tend to think less of the opinions of others and more about what they want to do. Do we really need to press this field on more people?

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. Given that computing is a fairly fundamental tool of modern society in every field, a certain baseline understanding of the basic principles involved may be quite reasonable to expect as a core educational requirement.

Computer Science is just a problem-solving tool

[jmac880n]

... 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.

Re:No..

[gbarules2999]

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.

Re:No..

[socsoc]

Some, not necessarily myself, say that he is one of the most successful VPs in recent history based on pursuing his agenda, which is what they all do.

Re:Takes one to know one.

[LOLLinux]

Nope, that's not it, because when you get together in groups for stuff like users groups meetings or for a game fest, you're still ridiculed for it.

I've been to many LAN parties in my day. Most of those people are quite deserving of the ridicule they get.

Re:I think us nerds are doing fine...

[thisnamestoolong]

Jesus dude, it was a joke (well it really happened, but it certainly did not actually make my life). I bet people hate watching movies with you...

Re:Fear of Being Stereotyped? Really?

[vlm]

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.

Re:Oxymoron anyone? cool... nerds

[MozeeToby]

You'd be surprised what people find sexy and cool. There's an entire generation of engineers and scientists who think the Apollo program is and was the coolest thing humanity has ever done. Some percentage of them almost certainly were inspired by that cool factor to become the professionals they are today. Even outside the technology fields I'll bet the vast majority of people can name the first people to step on the moon (poor Micheal Collins, probably not though). If you want to inspire people you have to show them how something they think is impossible is possible with technology, something that is becoming very hard as people are slowly becoming accustomed to rapidly advancing technology. Even landing on Mars won't do it because people don't actually understand how much more difficult that is than landing on the moon, they assume it would just be an extension of the Apollo technology.

The only thing I can think of on the horizon that could inspire people in that way would be the building of a space elevator. When I explain to people how a space elevator could work, it's amazing. People not in technology or science fields start asking distinctly sciency questions, questions that could be the launching point to detailed discussions about orbital mechanics, centripetal force, rockets, materials sciences, photovoltaics, and lasers. Things that push the boundaries of what people think are possible make them want to learn; which is of course the most important step in teaching something.

Re:'Cool' Nerds

[vlm]

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.

Re:Fear of Being Stereotyped? Really?

[couchslug]

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.

Horrible Idea

[elnyka]

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.

Bad idea (not unless we are talking about people who have a BS/BA degree in a technical field pursuing another BS/BA degree - or even a MS - in another technical field. Now, THAT'S A HYBRID CAREER. We already have a problem with watered down CompSci and MIS programs churning chumps who can't code for shit themselves out of a wet paper bag. CompSci, MIS, Software Development and IT, these are fields that call for people that are domain experts and specialist, not watered down hobbyists with superficial and inadequate training.

It is quite telling of our society that when facing with a shortage of scientific/engineering talent, the solution is to make it more "cool" as opposed to raising the scholastic expectations of kids. As if "cool" makes up for the grey matter required to be a (good) software developer. Either the author thinks software disciplines are shallow enough that they can be weaved in with a medicine, journalist or even an arts curriculum (an art curriculum takes quite a lot of work to get through.) Either that, or he thinks these other disciplines can be watered down so as to allow someone to be graduate in both (notice that I say "graduate", not "be sufficiently competent.")

How come you don't see that type of mentality in India, China or, say Eastern Europe? You want kids to be interested in hard sciences (not just software disciplines)? Then raise the bar and academic rigor starting from 2nd grade all the way to 12th, where the objective is to learn and not simply to pass. You don't solve an educational deficiency by painting "cool" all over it.

On another note, I stopped reading the article when I hit this:

Today, introductory courses in computer science are too often focused merely on teaching students to use software like word processing and spreadsheet programs, said Janice C. Cuny, a program director at the National Science Foundation.

Say fucking what? I know that Computer Science curriculum in most universities have been watered down into Java/C# schools, but give me a fucking break. Either the journalist is misquoting Cuny, or she actually said - and I quote - that introductory courses in computer science are too focused on software like word processing and spreadsheet programs. If it's the later, someone kicks her out of the NSF. There is no "science" in that kind of stupid remark.

Re:Horrible Idea

[tamird]

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.

Industry knowledge is simply not valued

[Tablizer]

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.
       

Former NFL star Dave Pear is sorry he ever played

[Paul Fernhout]

"Former NFL star Dave Pear is sorry he ever played football"
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/jeff_pearlman/12/18/pear/
"""
"I wish I never played football. I wish that more than anything. Every single day, I want to take back those years of my life ..."
The words are not subtle. They spit from Pear's mouth, with a blistering contempt normally reserved for drunk drivers. We are speaking via phone. I am in New York, sipping a hot chocolate, leaning back in a chair. My two young children are asleep. A Pretenders song, "2000 Miles," plays in the background. No worries, no complexities. Pear is sitting at his home in Seattle. His neck hurts. His hips hurt. His knees hurt. His feet hurt. When he wakes up in the morning, pain shoots through his body. When he goes to sleep at night, pain shoots through his body. ...
Be a man! Be tough! "Those last two years in Oakland were very, very difficult times," he says. "I was in pain 24 hours per day, and my employers failed to acknowledge my injury. Sure, I won a Super Bowl ring. But was it worth giving up my health for a piece of jewelry? No way. Those diamonds have lost their luster."
Throughout North America, many of Pear's retired football brethren hear his words and scream, Amen! Conrad Dobler, the legendary Cardinals offensive lineman, is about to go through his 32nd knee surgery. Wally Chambers, the Chicago Bears' three-time Pro Bowl defensive end, spends much of his time in a wheelchair. Earl Campbell, the powder blue bowling ball, struggles to walk and underwent surgery to remove three large bone spurs. The list is both heartbreaking and never-ending -- one NFL player after another after another, debilitated either mentally, physically, or both. I'm currently working on a book that has led me to interview more than 150 former players. I'd say 60 percent experience blistering pain from a sport they last played two decades ago.
    "And the NFL," Pear says, "doesn't care."
    Hence, he is fighting back. Two years ago, Pear started a blog, davepear.com, with the intent of supporting hobbled NFL veterans and calling out the league's laughable disability policy. ...
"""
    http://davepear.com/blog/

Re:Labor Law

[NormalVisual]

Over the past decade, some states have carved out special exemptions applicable to information technology workers in their labor laws.

Fortunately that's not a problem here in Florida. We simply don't have any labor laws *at all* worth a damn here. Get screwed by an employer, and pretty much your only recourse is the civil court system if you're paid at all above minimum wage.

Hanging around too many football players?

[ClosedSource]

"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.