Mixed Signs On the State of IT Education

snydeq writes "Advice Line's Bob Lewis comments on the mixed state of IT education in the US, which sees some students graduating with computer-related degrees despite never having written a line of code. And while some institutions are emphasizing the value of teamwork in their curricula, an approach that fosters specialization in lieu of uniform standards, others are simply advertising their 'success rates' in graduating students. 'Education is a marketplace, and if you have the money and want to buy, you can find someone willing to sell,' Lewis writes. In other words, 'If you want a degree that indicates you know something about computers without having to actually know very much about computers, you can get one.'"

Comments

Or you could get an MSCE

[h4rr4r]

An MSCE is much cheaper and it also indicates you know something about computers without having to actually know very much about computers.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[Fluffeh]

When I have people applying for roles here, I have found some rather funny perceptions, in the way that we look at a degree and the person with the degree looks at their degree.

For me, if someone is applying for a role and they have a related degree, I assume that they probably know a little about the theory behind it, but have no clue in terms of how the real world functions. For those with certificates, I generally have an even lower opinion.

Most kids fresh with a degree assume they know just about all there is to know about that field.

The amusing part comes when they find out that even with their degree, they basically come in at the bottom rung of the ladder - a large number seem to think that because they have a relevant degree, they will start off in middle management or a team lead role.

Degree or no degree, when you come to work here, you pretty much start at the bottom and have to prove to everyone that you are actually capable of doing the job we hired you for. That often means working under people without degrees, but ones with years of experience in the real world. For a lot of kids fresh out of uni, that's a bitter pill to swallow it seems.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[Mad Merlin]

An MSCE is much cheaper and it also indicates you know nothing about computers without having to actually know very much about computers.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[nomadic]

Most kids fresh with a degree assume they know just about all there is to know about that field.

Huh? That hasn't been my experience. Most fresh-faced college graduates in my experience tend to be extremely nervous and well-aware of their lack of experience.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[tsm_sf]

Applicants to Assholes Inc. tend to be self-selecting.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[Calsar]

I've actually seen this more from people who don't have a degree. I've had several people apply for jobs that think they are geniuses because they taught themselves to program. I should have kept an email one of them sent me a few years ago after I told him he didn't have the skills to be a senior developer. He went off about how how he starting programing when he was 15 and how awesome he was. By the way WTF and STFU are not proper acronyms for business correspondence. All the top developers in the company started programming when they were teenagers, then they went on to get degrees, and then they still need at least another 6 years of experience before I categorize them as senior level. Some people have 20 years and they still never make it to senior level. The only exception I've seen is a kid who started working for me when he was 16 and worked 30 hours a week while he finished out high school and then college. He actually had 6 years of experience by the time he graduated.

I can usually get an idea of skill level by talking to people, but occasionally people are just good talkers. So I have a coding test. I give them a simple set of requirements and set them down in front of an IDE and have them write an application. The requirements are to display a list of users with add, edit, and delete capabilities. The test takes an hour and it doesn't have to compile or be complete. I'm just looking for how people approach it. I've had people actually complete the application in an hour using XML as a data store, others may get a few classes written, some people produce nothing or cut and paste something from the internet that makes no sense. This weeds out the talkers from the doers very quickly.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[Fluffeh]

Huh? That hasn't been my experience. Most fresh-faced college graduates in my experience tend to be extremely nervous and well-aware of their lack of experience.

I should have specified it in my post I guess, while my background has been in software development, I work under the business side of my company at the moment in a solution and business application role, so the majority of degrees we deal with are business (logistics mainly) based. It probably does make a significant difference in attitudes.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[scamper_22]

We just went through an interview cycle.
It was bad...
I'm not a great software engineer... but I'm a decent one.

The hardest thing I ever had to do was go through these resumes. Everyone seems to know the game. I compare there resume to mine, and yeah.... I couldn't tell the difference.

Two of our candidates had masters degrees in computer science. Couldn't even talk about variable scoping. It wasn't a trick question or anything. I was blown away. I had a literal WTF going on in my head. Are universities that desperate for funding and grad numbers, they will pass anyone.

The other spend 10 years at a bank doing ASP.NET development. The first question I ask people... is what topic would you like me to ask you a question on? So I ask him what little I know of web development... (impersonation, authentication, how do get a message box up...)
I was amazed at how you spend 10 years doing development and not learn anything.

Another I thought would be a good guy to train. He had 5 years at Nortel... seemed like he had hardware exposure. Lots of fancy words on his resume... nothing behind it.

We have a coop student now in her 3rd year at the University of Waterloo (my university... a supposed top engineering university in Canada)... calls me up to solve a problem. I help her out... I tell her to step through some code... she says what? Apparently she has never ran a debugger before. Hooooowwwwwww!!!!

I almost feel the pain HR and recruiters must go through. I'm sure somewhere in the bank of resumes we get are some good candidates... how we'd find them... no idea.
To an extent, I saw it coming as software is viewed more and more as a commodity job. Top talent is not going to enter the field. Top talent has gone back to traditional medicine, legal...The industry could burn through some of the older better trained talent from the old days... but those candidates are dwindling in number. I'm still in Canada, and all we have left are 45 year old ex-Nortel people and the last bits of talent from the tech boom of the late 90s.

And now we have a talent shortage. And you can't replace a grade A engineer with a grade C project manager, a grade C product manager, a grade C requirements analyst, a several grade C programmers.
Nothing gets done. It's like taking all the C students you had in high school and seeing if they can somehow solve the complex calculus problem. Some jobs just require high caliber individuals.
You can't replace a good lawyers with a team of secretaries and a requirements analyst either.

But I digress in my frustrations :P Maybe the industry just needs some good consolidation and the good people can form good teams again.
And maybe... just maybe... we can get back to having senior engineers, and real mentors, and training people.... ah the dream world I live in.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[Fluffeh]

I really liked the end of your post. It's so true. You can't slot it different people into different roles and just expect them to work to the same levels, and you certainly can't expect that a C grade person will work as well as an A grade person.

And maybe... just maybe... we can get back to having senior engineers, and real mentors, and training people.... ah the dream world I live in.

You can. Learn to network. Go in, do your best. Don't be afraid to take extra work to get things done. This will earn you kudos with everyone. As you work with these people, try to determine who the A grade guys are and who is the next level down, and then the next one down again and so on. Now, when you need something done, ask the good guys for help, but try to make it as easy for them as possible. Go out of your way to make their job easy if you are the one asking for the favor. Be sure to return favors when they ask for things in return.

Pay attention to the little things. Need a half hour of someone's time with a solution? Bring them a coffee. Arrange meetings where it will be easy for the OTHER person to be. Above all, treat them like PEOPLE, not resources - even if you outrank them.

That sort of little shit, that stuff REALLY gets noticed by others. That's when you get your "good people" work together.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[IICV]

And now we have a talent shortage. And you can't replace a grade A engineer with a grade C project manager, a grade C product manager, a grade C requirements analyst, a several grade C programmers.
Nothing gets done. It's like taking all the C students you had in high school and seeing if they can somehow solve the complex calculus problem. Some jobs just require high caliber individuals.

This is what sickens me the most about our current copyright system.

Once a grade A programmer writes some grade A software, it doesn't go bad. There is absolutely no reason for it to be trapped in some corporation's walled garden - that company's need is fulfilled, there is no reason not to set it free except to screw their competitors. Apparently, the need to screw your competitors takes far more important than the idea that there's absolutely no need to invent the wheel five times over.

I mean, just imagine where we would be if all software were absolutely in the public domain (overriding any contracts) five years after the first public sale. As long as at least one person managed to save or sneak out the Windows 2K source code, we would have had the Windows 2000 and Office 2000 source code for five years now. This would have have pre-empted the whole Microsoft OOXML debacle; by now, Wine would be effectively Windows compatible, and companies like Stardock would probably be selling their own enhanced versions of Windows.

I can see basically no downside to it - all those copies of Windows 2K and XP and Vista and 7 would have still been sold, after all. The only difference is that the public domain would have been enriched in our lifetimes, with the work of our peers.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[Loki_666]

This is a fair point. I'm a programmer (self taught early age and learnt other languages later) but i'm certainly no developer. Professional experienced developers would either laugh or cry if they saw some of the code I write.

Still, i'd rather have someone like me than someone with an MCSE. I remember one girl who loved to proclaim that she was an MCSE but one day called me to help her because she didn't know how to install Win NT4 Server.... WTF? (I wasn't an MS guy, I was Novell certified).

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[stygianguest]

Just a small note. In Europe it's perfectly normal to only do a Master's. It is the degree you get after 5 years of university. Most people going to industry won't bother doing a PhD, as it costs 3-5 years and generally doesn't pay off.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[rhsanborn]

Unfortunately, there is also a huge disconnect between what colleges teach, and what is required for students to be successful after college. Very little of what you spoke about is taught at a lot of universities. It doesn't mean these students won't eventually make good programmers, but they need something to translate the theory they've learned into somethings that's applicable. It's really daunting.

I've worked in IT (no development) throughout high school and college. All of my "programming" is scripting, and small utility programs that, I now realize, would be destroyed in a code review. And the avenues to learning to be a better programmer aren't terribly clear. I've taken to reading books on good design now, and I'll swing back around to my language books again. Then I'll need some practical experience, and everyone recommends open source projects, but even those are daunting when a young, inexperienced programmer tries to contribute code to a project where the other developers have been programming for 20 years.

So, maybe that 3rd year student will be great in another year when she has spent some time in a production environment and had some practical experience. Unfortunately, short of the universities adapting their curriculum, I don't think we have many other choices to produce new programmers besides slogging through with some bright, young students, who maybe need a little guidance.

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Not sure about the funding in the rest of Europe, but in the UK anyone moderately competent can get funding to do a PhD, which means that they get a non-taxable stipend for the three years that works out close to after-tax amount of an entry-level graduate salary.

I'm in Cambridge, UK, and though I work in industry I still have plenty of ties to the university. I'm afraid I don't recognise the picture you are painting.

In the current academic year, the basic research council funding for a PhD is £13,290.

Under the current tax system, that is equivalent to a gross salary of just under £16,500.

The average starting salary in IT was probably higher than that a decade ago, and much higher if you're talking about working in London and/or working for a big name company that goes after the academic high-flyers.

I also think various friends who are doing PhDs, several of them in Computer Science, would laugh at your description of "spending three years being paid to have fun". Relatively few of my friends have actually completed their PhDs within the "normal" three-year/ten-term window, and many have found themselves writing up and jumping through the final hoops for several months afterwards, while trying to do a full time job as well; funding doesn't extend just because the research/write-up does!

Re:Or you could get an MSCE

[morgauxo]

How refreshing. Why don't more employers use coding tests? Actually programming something and talking sharp in an interview are such different skills; I really doubt they even use the same part of the brain. I think too many people get hired on interviewing skills alone and I doubt it's just this field. Good interviewing skills should get one a great position in sales but that's about it.

You can buy a piece of paper

[Frequency Domain]

but it won't take long for prospective employers to discover that it has utility only if it is perforated and comes on a roll.

It's not just the diploma mills

[JThaddeus]

There are diploma mills that crank out such types for exorbitant fees--Phoenix U, Strayer, etc.--but I don't think the big names are exempt. I once met a University of Maryland College Park grad (B.S. in computer science) who didn't understand pointers and who couldn't grok hexadecimal math. These shortcomings notwithstanding, she was enrolled in their graduate program.

Re:It's not just the diploma mills

[R3d M3rcury]

I once met a University of Maryland College Park grad (B.S. in computer science) who didn't understand pointers and who couldn't grok hexadecimal math.

Obviously a real computer scientist.

Re:It's not just the diploma mills

[Deadron]

A lot of these issues seem to tend from the language of choice in today's colleges. That language being java which is memory managed for you. To alot of the older programming crowd who have used C for years this can seem like a huge flaw and it can be depending on the field. However, alot of programming these days is Web programming and in Java/C# where these skills are uneeded so it is not necessarily such a huge issue. Also, all a Computer Science degree really teaches you is how to learn. There are so many different languages and specializations it is IMPOSSIBLE to learn all the details about everything so you just have to grasp the ability to expand your horizons when needed.

Coding and computer-related degrees

[lyinhart]

I'm not sure how Computer Science courses are at other educational institutions, but my school's Comp Sci program didn't focus much on programming at all. Everything was largely theoretical and we never did much programming at all. If you wanted to fine tune your coding skills, you'd have to do it on your own, or even better on co-op or internship.

Re:Coding and computer-related degrees

[RichMan]

The problem with missing coding skills is you also miss the dependent skills

a) debugging
b) refactoring
and the one they never get to
c) reuse/rework/repurpose
which leads to a greater appreciation of
d) documentation

Re:Coding and computer-related degrees

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the problem with the computer science field. It's really two fields. Computer science which is more abstract and what your school focuses on. The other is software engineering. Those are the two broadest fields I can think of and even they have a decent amount of overlap.

Re:Coding and computer-related degrees

[catmistake]

Really, the problem isn't with the Computer Science field at all. Computer Science is a subset of the study of Mathematics. The problem is with the field of Information Technology, i.e. the field of Computer Practice. The number of IT programs at universities has probably expanded, but many are masquerading as a C.S. program, but in reality Computer Science is ill equiped in either case to fill the field of IT, whether it's theory or software design (it's never really been engineering), I would compare it to expecting medical schools to somehow fill all the roles of the entire medical field, including orderlies, nurses to physicians assistants and pharmacists.

Re:What?

[shimage]

I believe the idea is that an individualistic program requires that individuals know everything, whereas those in a team can specialize since your team mates will handle the things you can't.

The basic problem with certification programs...

[msauve]

Every certification test I've ever taken measures, not knowledge, but rote memorization. Seems that the tests are created by people with no understanding of the subject matter. Questions are created by simply taking material literally from the study material, context and real-world applicability be damned.

As long as you can remember the study materials (especially the company specific terminology) long enough to get through the test, you pass. Understanding/knowing anything useful gets you nowhere.

It's getting better in some places

[AdmiralXyz]

I just wanted to provide a counterargument to the gloom-and-doom scenarios that are probably going to permeate this page: I'm studying for my CS degree at an Ivy League school right now, and the University actually just completed a major overhaul of the requirements for CS, which I think are a major improvement. I know Slashdotters love to complain about how useless college graduates are when they first enter the workplace, but I'm optimistic that I can be at least somewhat handy when I end up getting a job.

The biggest change is that you're now required to declare a concentration, ranging from pretty specific (Database Programming), to very general (Security), there are about fifteen of them and you can create your own with approval from your advisor. This means that everyone is still required to take the theoretical courses (which are useful, no matter what the curmudegons say: I'm a way better programmer than I was before I took algorithms and lambda calculus), but now has time to do tons of practical programming in their field of choice: many of the lecture classes now have 1- or 2-credit electives alongside them which are nothing but semester-long practical projects (for one course in particular, we actually have to find someone not affiliated with the CS department, who needs software written for them, and write it, with our grade dependent on the client's satisfaction- definitely not an academic cookie-cutter project), and in many cases these are now required rather than optional. In addition, while the low-level CS classes (which are taken by all kinds of people across the University, not just CS majors, and so sort of have to be dumbed-down) are junk like PHP and writing Swing GUIs with Java, we have to fight it out with C and Ocaml in many of the more advanced classes.

Again, before a million people complain about how naive I'm being, I'm not saying I'm going to walk out with my degree as a world-class programmer or that I won't have plenty to learn in the real world, I'm just saying that this trend towards easier programming languages and more hand-holding isn't occurring everywhere. And yes, most schools aren't the Ivy League, but if the market demands curricula like this from higher education, it will trickle down. There's hope yet.

It's the opposite of the old complaint...

[damn_registrars]

Now we are complaining that people with

computer-related degrees despite never having written a line of code.

Previously we complained about

computer-related degrees despite not knowing how to troubleshoot a hardware problem or even turn a computer on

So in other words, educators responded to complaints by changing curriculum. We now have some computer-related degrees that have programming as an optional trait rather than a required trait.

And on top of that, what is a "computer-related degree" anyways? CSci would seem to fit that; how about Computer Engineering? Or an IS Management degree?

The ability to keep learning.

[khasim]

If degrees aren't covering what needs to be taught, what ARE the main objectives that would produce the best functioning graduates?

You'll see it all over. People with "20 years" of "experience" who really have 1 year of experience 20 times over.

Next up would be the ability (and desire) to dig to FIND problems. Not just "it compiles" or "it doesn't crash".

After that would be the ability to think in pluralities. Anyone can handle a single system with a single purpose used by a single user. Can you scale to multiple servers? Multiple users? With multiple services?

And finally, maintenance. Design your design ... to make maintenance easy. Implement your design ... to make maintenance easy. Design and implementation are fun. Maintenance is a bitch. Now people are using it and it is "business critical" and you only have a maintenance window of 1 hour at 11pm on Sunday.

Even if you are NOT perfect at all of the above ... at least be aware of them and WORKING to improve your abilities in them.

Re:Job applicants have cookie-cutter knowledge

[ceoyoyo]

"has no idea what, for example, the term 'object-relational impedance mismatch' might mean."

I have to say, having gone through a real CS program (quite a while ago now) that covered everything from assembler to algorithm analysis and theoretical proofs, "object-relational impedance mismatch" set off the buzzword warnings.

A Google search confirmed my impression. The problem it describes is (sort of) real, but the term is idiotic. The kind of thing they'd put on one of these newfangled multiple guess CS exams.

Re:Job applicants have cookie-cutter knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

that's because comp sci isn't about creating software systems. that would be the "software engineering" major.

What training is required for "Advice Line"?

[Animats]

The original article is almost devoid of facts. What training is required to speak for "Advice Line"?

It's not at all clear what training is required for IT today? The Cisco "Rack Test"? How to fix broken Windows systems? J2EE programming? Linux server administration?

CS is even tougher. Robotics? AI? Machine learning? Graphics? Digital logic? "Cloud" programming? There are too many narrow niches. Pick the wrong one and you're toast.

You can't have it both ways...

[pankajmay]

A lot of you are complaining about the lack of coding skills, as well as lack of theoretical knowledge.
The sad part is that more often than not excellent coders are not the best theorists -- some top coders get so involved with a particular language or technology, that they are effectively locked into it and vice-versa.

As mentioned earlier in one of the replies to this post -- IT and CS seem to be two siblings with diverging goals.

There are very few people who are both excellent coders as well as well-versed with theory and reality behind.
The truth of the matter is that these people have either worked very hard or have accumulated this expertise over long years of experience. So, to be honest -- you cannot really expect an AVERAGE fresh BS graduate to be highly honed in both.

I don't think many recruiters come with reasonable expectations themselves. (In interest of fairness - I am a masters student in CS, and I am from India)
Many come in ready to find someone who is tailor-made all-in-one panacea for their jobs.

Sure there are some students out there who feel entitled, but there are definitely people out there who genuinely intend to learn, fit in, and improve themselves.

May be the change needs to be mutual, not just on the colleges' end, but Recruiters and Companies also need to realize that there are distinct categories of CS graduates out there. If the job requires someone with both skills and you are having a hard time finding one person for it - then may be you need to split the job into theory-centric and code-centric part. Hire the best theorist out there and couple him/her with the best coder. Recruit them in such a way that they work together well -- and pair them for the tasks.

I am aware that many recruiters become jaded and form prejudices against classes of candidates (you can see many examples of that above) -- and may be there is some truth to that, but has it really been looked upon objectively?

Re:The basic problem with certification programs..

[Darinbob]

MS cert tests are worse, they measure rote memorization of marketing material.

Re:How is this news?

[keeboo]

but (nearly) all good computer professionals are musicians.

Then I'm doomed. Even my fart is off tune.

Re:What?

[dangitman]

By your criteria, the cashier at McDonald's is an IT professional

I never said "IT Professional," but yes, they are involved in IT. Nearly everybody is, it permeates all of our lives. Which is why we should use more meaningful terms like "programmer" or "software developer" or "database administrator." The term "IT" is malformed and useless.