Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Most IT Workers Don't Have STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math) Degrees

Posted by Soulskill on from the contrast-this-support-ticket-with-john-donne's-early-elegies dept.

McGruber writes "The Wall Street Journal's Michael Totty shares some stereotype-shattering statistics about IT workers: Most of them don't have college degrees in computer science, technology, engineering or math. About a third come to IT with degrees in business, social sciences or other nontechnical fields, while more than 40% of computer support specialists and a third of computer systems administrators don't have a college degree at all! The analysis is based upon two job categories as defined by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics: network and computer systems administrator, and computer support specialist."

16 of 655 comments (clear)

  1. Personally by Reliable+Windmill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I prefer education over schooling.

    --
    Signature intentionally left blank.
    1. Re:Personally by strength_of_10_men · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's focus was on technical writing.

      You don't say? :)

    2. Re:Personally by ttucker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm surprised by this. I was required to take an english course in college when getting my tech diploma. It's focus was on technical writing.

      Also, have you mentioned to the engineer in question that it's "specification" and not "speckification"?

      The problem is that you can take and pass a college level English class without actually giving half a shit about writing at an educated level. Having a university degree only proves that you are willing to do whatever busywork it takes to graduate, not that you actually know anything at all, that you paid attention in class, or even that you were smart in the first place.

    3. Re:Personally by FreakyGeeky · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Getting a degree can also demonstrate that one might be able to do whatever busywork a job requires to be successful. The few non-degree people I've hired had problems seeing their projects through to completion.

    4. Re:Personally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Its one of those ridiculous English quirks, that I have to say in my head occasionally to ensure I've got it correct. See Wikipedia.

      You should do that more often :)

  2. As someone who runs an IT company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Our best techs don't have degrees. Most of the people who can become skilled techs without having it force-fed down their throat at college can teach themselves, and easily grasp new technology as it becomes available. Most of the people we've hired from college were the "I-can't-do-it-unless-you-show-it-to-me-first" type, which suck to have work for you.

    1. Re:As someone who runs an IT company by broken_chaos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's a big difference between telling someone the end goal and having them get to that goal largely on their own, and having to hold their hand through every single step along the way. The latter seem to be the type that the grandparent is complaining about.

    2. Re:As someone who runs an IT company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You've never worked with or taught those people. I have done both. There is a somewhat common subset of people that DO NOT ask "why", they ask "how" but in the worst way possible -- without EXACT directions (exact down to the step by step listing of commands to type or buttons to click to the get the result), they will basically throw their hands up and say "I don't know what to do next" and sit on their thumbs until given more directions. Socratic method doesn't work, because they will never understand the question you are asking. Showing them how its done accomplishes nothing, because they do not watch and learn but simply let you do the work, then they go on break or go home content that the work is over. They do not know how to research or even Google things; if you tell them exactly what website to go to, and to look up certain directions, they will later tell you "I didn't know what was important so I waited" and did nothing. They don't like to read. They have no real interest in learning the topic apart from doing the absolute bare minimum as defined by their manager to take a paycheck home at the end of the day. I've been trying better ways to teach and train these people and nothing seems to work. They're somehow fundamentally "broken" (my thought is that they lack some kind of basic logical and reasoning skills, based on their responses, but it is hard to teach that too unless they have interest...)

  3. I'm a non-degree slacker by grub · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I graduated Grade 12 in the early 80's. Was going to go for a CS degree but put it off for a year while I worked. Then another year went by, and so on.

    Back then, the vast bulk of "nerds" loved this stuff as a hobby and could slide into a work role easy enough. Then people started going to school to 'learn teh computerz' as it seemed like an easy way to make cash. Those are the folks who were dumped during the dot-bomb.

    Fact is many of the best IT folks I know who also have excellent technical skill were self-taught.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:I'm a non-degree slacker by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've got a degree. It didn't teach me a damned thing about IT, but I've got the degree. The degree helps get your resume through the HR drones, though, but not much else.

      --
      My blog
  4. Because IT is a superset of stem by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This doesn't surprise me at all. Especially when they mention "computer support specialists and a third of computer systems administrators". These aren't fields that even require a STEM degree in the first place. I'm sure if you just looked at programmers, you'd probably see a much higher percentage with a STEM degree. If I had a stem degree, and was working as a computer support specialist, I'd probably wonder what the purpose of my degree really was. Also, if you have a degree in chemistry, you technically have a STEM degree, but you're probably no more prepared for a career in IT than somebody with a business or fine arts degree

    Personally, I've always hated the fact that they even refer to certain jobs as being in the IT sector. It's so large and all encompassing, that it basically fits anybody from a minimum wage support person to a hardware engineer designing cutting edge processors, or people writing financial systems on wall street.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  5. Re:STEM education is great but it's not everything by doggo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, if there was an "Edit" button we couldn't pick on you for a typo.

  6. Re:After five years... by ImprovOmega · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I got a BSCS degree back in 2003 and I can tell you that it is very much still relevant. You're right, the specific languages, API's, and even architectures have changed dramatically in 10 years, but the fundamentals are all still there. Learning the 2003 vintage of C++ was not so useful (except as an exercise in how to approach programming problems generally), but learning algorithm complexity analysis is timeless. And I'm sure there are more advanced process schedulers in operating systems these days, but they are still being scheduled out there in the background. And so on, and so on.

    My great "aha!" moment in my CS degree was when I realized that the specific tool they were teaching in any given class was basically irrelevant - it was just a means to teaching an important concept. Trade schools teach you tools, universities teach you how those tools work. The real value in my BSCS degree was in teaching me how to think about and solve CS problems. That has been invaluable.

  7. Re:After five years... by axl917 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...whatever you learned in school is already out of date...

    Quite true, but as one of my professors said, "In this course, you will not learn how to code in Turbo Pascal*; you will learn how to learn to code, and then apply that to Turbo Pascal."

    A good teacher can make all the difference to impressionable 18-yr-olds.

    (*Yes, I am old)

  8. Re:This says more about the categories... by doggo · · Score: 5, Informative

    The truth is, most "computer support specialists" & "network administrators", & "system administrators", and I am one, are technicians, not engineers. Even some of the IT guys with "engineer" in their titles are really technicians.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technician

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer

    And that's okay. Well, except for inflating the importance of the the job by adding "engineer" to the technician's title.

    Technicians are important. Technicians keep technology running. Being a technician is a noble pursuit.

    Engineers take what the researchers have discovered and create the technology, technicians deploy the technology and maintain it.

  9. Re:STEM education is great but it's not everything by nwf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sigh... Tell me again why /. doesn't have an "Edit" button?

    Because computers are hard and most developers don't have a degree.

    --
    I don't know, but it works for me.