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Western Washington Univ. Considers Cutting Computer Science
An anonymous reader writes "Due to Washington State budget concerns, Western Washington University is considering cutting their Computer Science Department. The news comes even as local stations report a hiring boom in the tech sector. The WWU administration seems completely out of touch with the current state of the department. This story has gotten a lot of attention and support from local industry and the University of Washington professors."
I am honestly not a troll here, but most of the big companies prefer Indian workers who can work for much cheaper and can't leave for better working conditions as easily. Many fortune 500 companies only have 6 or 7 employees that even deal with I.T. as they switch to salesforce.com and outsourcers and leave it very lean and barebones to satisfy Wall Street investors.
This is similiar to obtaining technical certifications for factory jobs. Americans simply do not do them anymore in a global economy.
If the university notices that students who graduate with these degrees do not find work compared to other majors then it makes sense to encourage these students to major in more profitable areas.
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In Modern America, there just isn't any place for science, mathematics, engineering, and anything else that's remotely technical.
In Modern America, it's important to know about sports and Christianity. That is all that one needs to know.
In Modern America, why is anyone surprised when universities start cutting technical programs? That's just not what American culture is about today.
We're running out of money in WA. Nobody wants to pay income tax. You get what you pay for.
Let's face it: 97% of "computer science" graduates end up as code monkeys or cable stringers in jobs that a six-week trade certificate would be entirely sufficient to qualify for.
We're all born with nothing.
If you die in debt, you're ahead.
WWU isn't in business to educate kids; they're in it to stay in business, and liberal arts majors vastly outnumber technical majors. In trying economic times, the money sinks are going to be the first to go.
As for the utterly irrational economic policies that have resulted in scores of directionless kids heading to college and picking the easier majors, distorting the market for technical degrees and leaving us with bottomless piles of college-educated baristas, well... I don't know where I'm going with any of this.
America: We're getting what we deserve.
I look forward to the law/medicine gold rush.
Well, it'll be nice to see as many doctors as in Cuba, and paid similarly.
Lawyers/"business"? It's hard to put value on nonproductive work.
A longer story with more info can be found in the WWU student newspaper:
http://westernfrontonline.net/top-stories/13487-westerns-budget-balancing-act-rumors-of-elimination-shake-up-a-trio-of-academic-departments
They say nothing's been decided yet, but at a minimum Computer Science has been singled out as a candidate for elimination or at least "restructuring" (and not in a good way).
The tech industry should be giving us money if they want the program to continue. Lots of money. We purposely started talking about cutting the computer science program because we know the demand for that major is so high, we figure that the easiest extortion opportunities lie there.
We all know that when publicly funded institutions face budget cuts that the first thing they cut is the thing everybody actually wants them to do because then they pony up like good little tax payers and we can continue spending money on all kinds of ridiculous things that don't actually matter to anybody in particular at all. Why are you all so surprised about this?
Seriously, that's exactly what I get out of reading this. "Forging ties with local industry." sounds an awful like to me like "Shake them down for some money.".
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I am attending Western Washington University as a Computer Science major. Thankfully, this report may be jumping the gun, as there hasn't yet been any confirmation to the future of the department, but it is certainly on the chopping block.
The students and the faculty have no idea what actually is going on. In an attempt to ensure that the students in the department can graduate, professors in our classes have told any premajors (including myself) to declare immediately. We've pushed 70 new applicants this week. The department involved in making the budget cut decisions have not been forthcoming in their intentions, and there is fear that they may be attempting to push this beneath the door, so to speak, so any publicity, especially here on slashdot, is very welcome.
We're speculating that this may be a public relations tactic to try and get some external funding, which the university desperately needs. Unfortunately, our fate is still undecided at this point, and I'm awaiting news just as earnestly as my professors are.
I look forward to the law/medicine gold rush.
Well, it'll be nice to see as many doctors as in Cuba, and paid similarly.
Lawyers/"business"?
I don't really think there's a medicine gold rush. The time it takes to finally get to a real job (7-11+ years after college depending on specialty) puts a damper on that. Not to mention the number of medical schools there are in this country. They're difficult to establish.
It's hard to put value on nonproductive work.
Depends on the work. For example, solicit prices for plumbing work from different plumbers and you should get a good idea of what that work should cost.
the media has been doing this for years: declaring a hiring boom anywhere our rulers want to depress wages. They did it with engineers, they did it with tech, and they're starting in on it with nursing. As has already been pointed out most of the jobs are meant for H1-B visas, and the only reason they're listed is to meet the legal requirement. There's tons of ways around hiring Americans.
Said it before, will not doubt say it again: stop voting Republican, put a majority of Dems in office. At least the Dems have to pretend to be pro-labor. It puts a limit on the crap they can do. The Republican's core philosophy boils down to: screw labor, the free market
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I don't really think there's a medicine gold rush. The time it takes to finally get to a real job (7-11+ years after college depending on specialty) puts a damper on that.
5 years of medical degree before salaried employment begins in the UK - sure, you do foundation training and then specialisation, but you're already earning and comfortable. Contrast with many other professional careers where you also only really begin your specialisation after you start employment but there's less in the way of job security.
It takes a doctor to tell everyone how insanely tough and long-winded his journey to qualification was. Yes, it's a more lengthy journey in the US, partly because you don't have A-levels in the UK (or used to be - they've got way easier) comparable to first year of US university and partly because it's typical to do a separate undergraduate degree rather than a medical programme straight out of high school. Again, though, this is typical of professional qualifications. And, in terms of academic skill, someone pursuing a PhD is expected to reach far higher in a similar number of years.
solicit prices for plumbing work from different plumbers
How is a plumber nonproductive? Or am I missing the sarcasm tags?
Provost@wwu.edu :)
address of the Provost's office. Of course, your thoughtful comments will be handled by one of her staff. Or... maybe more than one
Western is only 90 miles away from the University of Washington, which has one of the best public Computer Science departments in the country, so any Washington resident smart enough to deserve a subsidized education in CS has a *way* better option just down the road.
I see so many comments here on slashdot to the effect that recent computer science grads are perhaps 10% excellent, 35% trainable, and 55% total morons, yet when someone suggests closing a computer science department you all rush to criticize. I think it's the right thing to close this department, especially if it means making the department at UW a little bigger. Less duplication of resources, fewer incompetents admitted to CS programs in Washington state, and those who go to UW rather than Western will get a much better education.
There's no need for every basic discipline to have a degree granting department at every school, either. What's wrong with downgrading the department at Western to a non-degree granting teaching department, offering a minor and specializing in synergy classes for other sciences?
The university's statement (referenced by the article) is remarkably poorly written, especially given its source. Consider, for example, the first paragraph under the heading 'Academic Programs', which begins thus: "Rebasing does not mean, exclusively, looking at the programs we will have. And, those we will no longer have."
Speaking as somebody who has seen what sort of things can happen in campus politics, I see three reasons for what is going on.
1) The department of CS has become... clogged... with under-performing faculty..
2) The administration is playing a brinkmanship game with those above them.
3) The administration is incompetent.
Now, I've listed these in order of most likely to least likely. The administration could be incompetent, but do you really believe anyone could be that stupid? There may be a lot of liberal arts majors, but those are the money sinks; the smart money on alumni donations is still engineers, doctors, and lawyers. Rather than the administration being stupid, there are other explanations, which are far more likely.
They could be playing a political brinkmanship game. I wouldn't be surprised if the plan to close the CS department is just a threat, and nothing more. It would make sense; in a time of mild to moderate budget crisis, it is not uncommon to threaten to cut something popular in order to garner more money for other things. If the threat was to cancel the history department, would there be a big stink? Absolutely not (unless there are a bunch of history buffs in the state senate... who knows? Maybe sports psychology, or sociology, or some other useles.... I meant, less practical... major).
It is very unfortunate, but I think that the most likely reason for this is that the faculty in the CS department are not up to snuff. It could well be that they are, collectively, getting older and tireder, and just not putting the effort into teaching that they could be. It could also be that they just weren't that good to begin with. But, what I think may be the case, is that the CS department is populated by... faculty from an older time. Faculty who, when they were hired, it was a rock solid CV if they had a single top-tier publication. When they got tenure, a solid case had 1 top tier publication plus a smattering of lesser accomplishments. WWU's faculty could think a wonderful accomplishment is a single pub a year.
That is to say, WWU could possibly be staffed by professors who would be laughed out of the room if they tried to defend a thesis today. It isn't that they weren't worthy when they were hired; it is just that standards have gone way up. I personally have a better publication record now than Randy Pausch (famous for "The Last Lecture") had when he was made a full prof; I don't even rate an interview at top schools today. WWU may simply be looking at what they have, and then looking at what the supply of desperate fresh grads are, and deciding that the logical thing to do is to wipe the slate clean, keep maybe one or two of the old faculty, but to otherwise start fresh with, talented, sharp, bright-eyed, and coincidentally desperately eager, newly minted faculty. I've seen it happen at much more prestigious institutions.
I graduated in '03 and they just cut the CS program this year. I'm not privy to the reasons for it, but I suspect:
1) the dept was too small to be really good, and it's at a smaller university anyway
2) most of the CS grads didn't go on to be computer scientists, but rather programmers and IT monkeys.
The program's been split into the College of Business for an Information Systems-type degree, and the College of Technology for an Electronics Engineering-type degree.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Western's CS program is one of the ones that grew out of a math base. It's pretty hardcore on the theory, but you're sort of on your own for learning the stuff that business wants. Which is fine.... even if the program focused on exacty whatever buzzwords corps want these days, corps don't generally hire CS grads straight out of school. The stuff you learn in the 400 level classes is great for senior developers to know....but you're not going to start out as one. It wasn't till my 3rd job out of college (which I'm still at) that I actually got to touch source code at work. For long term personal growth, I'm really glad that I had my ass kicked with the theory; I find that the rigorous methods that were drilled into me really help me tackle the hard problems I work on every day. (debugging nasty kernel mode race conditions in code written by others for example). Besides, if you can handle the proofs and algorithm stuff, you can handle anything else, though you'll sure as hell not enjoy writing silly business apps over and over.
You know what the job finding foks at Western tell you about finding a job once you graduate? They tell you to forget about finding anything remotely in your field. The real difficulty in getting hired after college has less to do with your skills and what you're taught and more to do with risk aversion for employers...they don't like hiring green kids who don't understand corporate politics yet. You have to persevere in order to get to do what you love.
Computer science is supposed to be hardcore...unfortunately there is a huge variation in what different universities consider to be computer science, let alone what the business world thinks. For some, any old programming is CS, for others, they focus on software engineering methods, and some hardly touch on theory and math at all; others still consider web page design to be CS. CS is about understanding the extreme limits of what computers and software are capable of and pushing the limits of what's possible....it's not supposed to train you for "IT" (which most businesses consider to be the guys that fix their computers).
You really should not be doing a computer science degree unless you are going to be some kind of developer and you get off on things that require in depth knowledge of how to design and compare the performance of different algorithms, want to fix bugs no one else can, want to write really hardcore software (such as doing speech recognition, computer vision, or 3d rendering) at the bleeding edge, and need to be able to prove why your design is better than someone else's design. The industry is already full of very experienced, very compentent people who don't have CS degrees. In fact, many of them started before such degree programs even existed. They know how to code, but they generally don't have any exposure to the more advanced theory stuff and are therefore not inspired by it, nor do they generally value it. The degree is MUCH more a long term investment for your career than a credential to get your foot in the door, as you'll eventually get to apply the theory and start doing things that wow. After you've taken your lumps that is.
I'm serious. Should a Uni, and yes I am aware of what the root meaning of "university" is, be all things to all people? Or should they be a bit more specialized, e.g. some be more focused on the Liberal Arts, others Science and Research, other on Engineering, and others on Athletics (I was just joking about that last one ;)
Specialization may make a school better at what it does. That does not man a couple of technology courses will not be taught at a Liberal Arts school, or Liberal Arts at a SMET school. I think diversity is important. But I think a more focused mission may make a school better at their mission.
Who agrees or disagrees?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
A degree in CS is not prepping you to be a sys admin. CS is an academic discipline, not a vocation. Also, going to a University is not a vocational move. Universities do not teach you job skills. They disseminate and create knowledge.
If you think students should have the opportunity to learn IT skills, it should not be done in a CS dept at a University. It should be done in a vocational school.
thats what i call an 'efficient market'.
Well, QA at Microsoft are also developers - they write and maintain test automation systems, and specific tests for those systems; it's not clicking through dialogs according to the script or other suchlike routine stuff. And those automated tests and frameworks can get pretty complicated at times, especially when it comes to accurately measuring various perf metrics (and figuring out what to measure in the first place). Personally, I wouldn't look down on that work, having seen some of what they do.
Oh yes, and they get paid accordingly, as well. So it is by no means something to frown upon.
Your points seem more or less valid, but somewhat irrelevant to the situation: CS is not IT, and university is not vocational training. Even putting that aside, it strikes me as an odd choice of department to cut - I can't imagine running a CS department costs much, in comparison to engineering or physical sciences.
Cutting CS makes sense from a political point of view. Its equivalent to a city threatening to cut police, fire or K-12 teachers. The goal of the politicians, government or university, is to maximize outcry to get a budget restored. If a city announced cuts to administration, or a university announced dropping its Canadian Studies program, no one would care rather they would approve. This is all about restoring a budget or "punishing" those who called for budget cuts to prevent a second round.
It is, unfortunately, a pissing match that is all the higherups care about. What brings a school money? Students? Naaah. GRANTS bring the school money, for engineering -- And maybe that's only so true because at UF (where I attend for CS), tuition is dirt cheap. It's gone up like... 40% since I started, I think? and is still like $150/cr. And what brings grants? Research and papers and publications and. . .
... lecturer. Said outstanding lecturer is being let go because he doesn't have a PhD (from the campus newspaper). Compare him to the professors I've had that phone it in. The ones that show up 10 minutes late every lecture and read off ppt slides. The data structures prof I had who used the book and slides that our department chair wrote 10 years ago that I've even heard professors say are godawful, let alone everyone that takes the class. Grumblegrumble.
I've had more mediocre professors at UF than great ones, by far. In the CS department, there's been one good prof, one great prof (He even posts on here, actually...), and one OUTSTANDING
When you look at corporations these days, the emphasis is all in management. People who rise in the hierarchy are "people people", they are managers, good at getting other people to do what needs to be done.
That's all great and worked well while all the jobs had to be done by people. Now advance to a time when work is done by computers. Who gets computers to do what needs to be done?
Managers today are just middlemen, they are there to get programmers to get computers to do what's needed. I wonder how long it will take for investors to start noticing that. They are used to cutting labor costs by trimming the lower layers, how long till they notice that they can get much better results by cutting the upper layers, where the big salaries are?
I read lots of comments here saying how software companies only want outsource everything and how CS is doomed based on the decision of one minor university in Washington State. You are wrong. I work as a manager in a major software company and frequently participate in interviewing and hiring decisions for jobs with 6-figure salaries. There is still a HUGE demand for good software people - HUGE. Even in the depths of the recession, we had a hard time finding good, qualified people. Then you might say - I know 100s of unemployed IT/Software professionals, what are you talking about? The problem is that high technology doesn't require some average guy from some average washington state university. Computers are complicated beasts. Writing good software is HARD. Most of the people who come in for an interview tank it very badly - they simply don't get it. So without going much ahead in why most people in this profession aren't qualified and won't ever be qualified for a high end software job, it's possible that simply this university doesn't have a good CS department and didn't have a future as a competitive college in a field with such high requirements - we did have some very good interviewing runs at major american universities, where americans and people from other countries were hired. It really doesn't make a difference if the university is american, indian, chinese or brazilian. When good people are rare, you need to look for people everywhere. But relatively speaking, we still find the majority of good people in the United States. Or it's just that the dean is an idiot and it says nothing about the future of the CS field - he could be making a bad business decision and that's all there is to say about TFA.