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MS Tackles CS Education Crisis With Popularity Contest

Posted by Unknown on from the least-cool-wins dept.

theodp writes " The lack of education in computer science is an example of an area of particularly acute concern,' Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith told Congress (PDF) as he sold lawmakers on the need to improve 'America's access to high skilled foreign talent'. Smith added that Microsoft also wants to 'help American students and workers gain the skills needed for the jobs that will fuel the innovation economy.' Towards that end, Microsoft will award $100,000 worth of donations to five technology education nonprofits 'who teach programming and provide technical resources to those who might not otherwise get the chance.' So, how will Microsoft determine who's most worthy? With a popularity contest, of course! At the end of October, the top five vote-getting nonprofits — only Windows AzureDev Community members are eligible to vote — will split the Microsoft Money. By the way, currently in second place but trying harder is Code.org, the seemingly dual-missioned organization advised by Microsoft's Smith which has reached out to its 140,000 Facebook fans, and 17,000 Twitter followers in its quest for the $50,000 first prize."

33 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. A whole 100,000 bucks? by korbulon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doesn't even pay the tuition plus living expenses for an *average* college.

    1. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Makes you wonder how much they gave to congress for more H1Bs. A lot more than $100K for sure.

    2. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? by korbulon · · Score: 2

      Let's take the alma mater of my favorite modern day philosopher, Dr Phil. This would be University of North Texas. Tuition and fees alone will run you $19,608. So if your living expenses exceed $5400 p.a., guess what?

      "You need to wake up!"

    3. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? by LifesABeach · · Score: 2

      One could suggest that the H1B visa system be inserted into an area of Brad that would be anatomically improbable; I'd watch that on Pay-Per-View.

    4. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you're paying $100k out of pocket, you shouldn't attend. Bust your buns and apply to Stanford for a top school. All but the wealthiest of parents get a subsidy that knocks it way down. If you can't get into a top school like that, go to State U in-state. This might even mean living with your Aunt Sue in Hicksylvania; for the last year of high school; but you gotta do what you gotta do. Get creative. Get the paper and learn to program wicked circles around the other guys. You could have a degree from Leningrad and it won't matter. Yes, I actually worked with a guy from Russia who got a degree when it was still Soviet. He could code you into the dumper. That's what matters.

    5. Re: A whole 100,000 bucks? by iamhassi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Simple: give congress millions for more h1b visas, but look like you're helping Americans by having a $100,000 prize!

      Want to encourage Americans to get CS degrees? Stop shipping the jobs overseas.

      --
      my karma will be here long after I'm gone
    6. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? by plover · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, it's not $100,000. It's $100,000 worth of "donations". That means they'll get licenses for 50 seats of SQL Server 2013, 100 licenses for Office 365, 80 licenses for Windows Server 2013, etc.

      If only I could have gotten my college to accept tuition payments in the forms of software licenses. "Dear Bursar's Office, please accept this voucher worth 10 licenses to install Debian."

      --
      John
    7. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? by dcw3 · · Score: 2, Informative

      And you must be a troll if you don't think it's part of the total package of getting a four year degree.

      --
      Just another day in Paradise
    8. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? by Massive146 · · Score: 2

      Doesn't even pay the tuition plus living expenses for an *average* college.

      That certainly more than pays for tuition and living expenses for in-state residents at a public school (often above average schools).
      Spring 2013 Tuition at University of Wisconsin-Madison: $10,400/year [1]
      Which would leave $14,600/year for living expenses. More than enough.

      Non-residents have to pay $26,600/year so tuition would be nearly covered, but not living expenses. However, I think most states have an "average" public university, or reciprocity with a near by state which does. I've even heard of state universities offering free or highly reduced tuition for students who have decent grades or ACT/SAT scores. These numbers, of course, don't include any other financial assistance or scholarships.

      [1]http://registrar.wisc.edu/tuition_&_fees.htm

    9. Re: A whole 100,000 bucks? by Shortguy881 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Its not shipping overseas if we bring the talent here via H1B visas.

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    10. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3

      Yes, I actually worked with a guy from Russia who got a degree when it was still Soviet. He could code you into the dumper. That's what matters.

      I hope that nobody is surprised than people from the land of actual mathematical education can program others into dumpsters.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    11. Re: A whole 100,000 bucks? by spike+hay · · Score: 2

      H1Bs are effectively the same thing as outsourcing. Temporary cheap labor, and then they go back to where they came from.

      Real permanent immigrants (especially skilled ones) are a net benefit as they tend to be entreprenurial and create jobs. H1Bs can't start a business. They are cheap labor benefiting corporations like MS at the expense of American workers. That's it.

      --
      If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
    12. Re: A whole 100,000 bucks? by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 2

      Yeah because they're hiring Americans...by going overseas...idiot...

    13. Re:A whole 100,000 bucks? by bzipitidoo · · Score: 2

      people need to be handed MORE and MORE money so they can go to school?

      Sort of like high school, you mean? Last I heard, high school is still provided gratis. Really, college should also be free for the students. If these businesses were serious about addressing this supposed skills shortage, they would push for free college. And I don't mean necessarily by pumping money into universities. How about instead we stop screwing students over with all the money making schemes that infest college these days, things like required textbooks costing at least $100 each, and rapacious parking enforcement? The main idea of dorm living is to save money, and free up more time for studies by providing meals, however bad, and eliminating the expense and time of commuting by car. Why else put up with dorm life? Yet somehow dorms have been turned into luxury apartments, seemingly to justify raising the charges for room and board. It should be no wonder that the young are running away from the traditional university as fast as possible. They're hardly educational centers any more, they're company towns. And we see crap like student loans being held apart from all other kinds of debt in that they cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. And the latest thing is Congress dragging their feet on student loan rates. We assume the young can bear heavier burdens because they are young and healthy. But they can't, if there aren't any decent jobs. These jerks complaining of a labor shortage are insulting us.

      Then a guy like you sticks your two cents in, and blames it all on the students' poor financial decisions. I grant they need to learn that, and many aren't serious about their studies, partying until they flunk out, but damn is the deck stacked against them. Get a job, you say? That sure blows a big point of dorm life. Yeah, live in the dorms to free up time for studying, then spend all that time working, to pay for the dorms?!

      But businesses never were serious about the alleged skills shortage. The shortage would have never happened, because there never was a real shortage. It's purely a manufactured shortage, a non-problem that businesses have created out of nothing, evidently to give them something to complain about. Takes real chutzpah to make such complaints in the midst of the Great Recession.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  2. Ah, the mythical CS skills shortage by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's no shortage of skilled CS workers, just a shortage of companies willing to pay them decently.

    The goal of this effort and similar ones like FWD.us (Facebook's Wealth Demands Unlimited Slaves?) is to make sure every kid can program when they leave high school, so that you can pay entry-level programmers the same as gas station attendants.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:Ah, the mythical CS skills shortage by AmazingRuss · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I still don't think it will solve the problem. How are programmers gonna buy those 400k Redmond tract houses on a 40k salary?

      There are too many vultures looking to exploit the next generation, and not enough meat to go around.

    2. Re:Ah, the mythical CS skills shortage by Z00L00K · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And there's a shortage of companies that still has a decent moral compass.

      If you want to improve and attract coders then it's important to provide a platform that is usable and cheap and that provides tools that are useful when you actually learn to code. For example you need Visual Studio Premium or Ultimate in order to get the Code Metrics feature - something that is really useful to those that aren't professional coders.

      Another problem is as mentioned - the inability to pay for skills - many organizations hires developers for the same amount of money per hour regardless of skill, but a skilled person may produce result a lot faster and with higher quality than someone fresh from education.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    3. Re:Ah, the mythical CS skills shortage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not to mention that critical thinking has been removed or dumbed down in many schools. Can't have kinds thinking for themselves.

    4. Re:Ah, the mythical CS skills shortage by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      "And there's a shortage of companies that still has a decent moral compass."

      That's because they go out of business.

    5. Re:Ah, the mythical CS skills shortage by plover · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Their goal is obviously more noble than that. They want to underpay a bunch of United States Citizens so they don't have to underpay a bunch of H1B workers. Those visas don't come cheap, you know.

      --
      John
    6. Re:Ah, the mythical CS skills shortage by David_Hart · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "There's no shortage of skilled CS workers, just a shortage of companies willing to pay them decently" and are willing to train them.

      There, fixed that for you. College is not about learning specific job skills which expire in 3 years, it's about learning a larger scope of skills that will stick with you throughout your career. Companies complain about a specific set of skills not being available in the marketplace and are unwilling to train or mentor graduates. Instead they go the green card route...

    7. Re:Ah, the mythical CS skills shortage by More+Trouble · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Spending a big $100K on a popularity contest isn't going to ensure every kid can program. That's shut-up money, "Look, we tried, but USians just aren't up to snuff, give us more H1Bs!"

    8. Re:Ah, the mythical CS skills shortage by interval1066 · · Score: 2

      EXACTLY. I've been working contract jobs for the past year hoping to land on some permemant gig, but they keep asking me idiotic questions in the interviews like How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?. Then I never hear from them again and they go crying about a "shortage of talent" and they run to the H1B's. I'M RIGHT HERE YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
  3. Re:computer science by milkasing · · Score: 2

    Programming does not require a lot of math, but Computer Science is a branch of Math. If you wanted programing without the math, you took the right path.

  4. Re:computer science by OffTheLip · · Score: 2

    The math requirement should be a part of a CS degree. When I graduated back in the 80's math through differential equations and linear algebra was a given, then you could take math electives or CS based math courses such as Algorithm Analysis. Programming courses were 1-2 hours per semester and really not the meat of the program.

  5. Simple fix to the problem by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Fix the imbalance with minimum wage H1B visas and US unemployment rate. Also, stop offshoring your entire freaking business.

    --
    Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
    1. Re:Simple fix to the problem by Mike+Frett · · Score: 2

      Call me crazy, but what if Microsoft just packs up and completely leaves the USA?. They could move all their operations to India or China, that would pretty much solve their H1B problems right?. I wouldn't mind if they left, not at all.

  6. one idea... by Connie_Lingus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    maybe if corporations (like Microsoft for example) stopped the practice of refusing to hire developers with 25 years of experience (like myself for example) with 13 year-old drug-possession felonies (like myself for example) they wouldn't be so desperate to hire foreigners...

    --
    never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
    1. Re:one idea... by EMG+at+MU · · Score: 3, Insightful

      maybe if corporations (like Microsoft for example) stopped the practice of refusing to hire developers with 25 years of experience (like myself for example) with 13 year-old drug-possession felonies (like myself for example) they wouldn't be so desperate to hire foreigners...

      I think the number of people in your scenario is not large enough to have any effect in the supply of software engineers. But since we're off topic anyways lets continue.

      I do think you have a valid point, and it is a subset of a larger problem involving rehabilitated criminals.
      In the US, the laws are setup so that any criminal mistake you make will follow you for life. There are companies whose only purpose is to scrape the internet to grab your mugshot from your pot possession arrest when you were 18 and keep it on file forever so they can sell it to potential employers. These companies have no concern for privacy laws if they exist (for the most part they don't unless you're eligible for expungement).
      Further compounding the problem is that even without the private companies compiling public records, there are still public records; and if your name pops up in a record search your probably not getting a job.
      The whole point of having a rehabilitation based criminal justice system is to return criminals to society in a way that allows for them to rejoin society in a productive and healthy way. Attaching a stigma to them for the rest of their life is preventing them from becoming productive and healthy members of society.

      What's not so simple is actually publically saying something that can be viewed as soft on crime. It's popular to say "I think we should track every criminal because of the children" and is not popular to say "I think we should allow rehabilitated criminals privacy so they can move on with their life". Of course there is a gray area, murderers are different than minor drug offenders. But in our society, there are no gray areas, only criminal or not.

      /offtopic

  7. Microsoft PR is Sick by tuppe666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They recently brought PM Man Bill "I have a charity" Gates our (again) to explain why he (and they) did not have to pay Tax...You know the sort of thing that pays for Education (and Hospitals..roads...etc).

    This Disgusts Me

  8. Re:computer science by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 2

    Programming does not require a lot of math, but Computer Science is a branch of Math. If you wanted programing without the math, you took the right path.

    Some programming does not require a lot of math, but you need math to be able to do the really interesting things with programming, like simulations, graphics or games. Also, a good understanding of discrete math & logic will help you even with the programming for which you don't need a lot of math by helping you write better algorithms.

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  9. don't just train, hire!!! by swschrad · · Score: 2

    stop whining and build something. if you really want better training and are even willing to sponsor it, then hire the people when they come out. don't go running to East Sub-Nirvana for code at pennies per day and then whine there are no programmers in the shadow of the CEO's mansions.

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
  10. Disingenous campaign for more H1b visas. by echtertyp · · Score: 2

    There is no "crisis" in CS education. There is a crisis in the United States for CS graduates keeping their jobs, or remaining in the middle class. This is more astroturf campaign stuff... shame on Dice Holdings.