Our Education System Is Failing IT

Nemo the Magnificent (2786867) writes "In this guy's opinion most IT workers can't think critically. They are incapable of diagnosing a problem, developing a possible solution, and implementing it. They also have little fundamental understanding of the businesses their employers are in, which is starting to get limiting as silos are collapsing within some corporations and IT workers are being called upon to participate in broader aspects of the business. Is that what you see where you are?"

Comments

Heck yes...

[Zelig]

Most of the folks in IT are Operators of Interfaces.

Re:Heck yes...

[beheaderaswp]

I think I agree with you. My first IT related job was transcribing sheet music into basic music code back in 1984.

Since that time I've seen the intellectual capacity of IT workers drop consistently- while their arrogance has increased. It's a function of the field expanding so fast... in order to man departments you have to compromise on quality by hiring for specialties. Also there's the problem of industry certifications. They are not at face value bad... but those with real skills know that the certification is more or less a learning permit- while management considers it a qualification.

In my day (I'm a year or two from 50) people made their way in IT based on ability. That was the catalyst for the entire industry. It is what built silicon valley and the economic ripples it created.

The way I see it, we've gone from recruiting people who loved computers and played with them on their own, to hiring people who shop for a career in their educational choices. That's a path to mediocrity. Always has been- always will be.

Re:Heck yes...

[gweihir]

Indeed. There are rare islands of skill and competence, and you always find that in them, people care and actually like working with technology. But most people that go into IT today do not have what it takes and should have stayed away.

Re:Heck yes...

[geminidomino]

In my day (I'm a year or two from 50) people made their way in IT based on ability. That was the catalyst for the entire industry. It is what built silicon valley and the economic ripples it created.

Things weren't a whole lot better then. Sturgeon's law still applies, it's just that IT as an industry has vastly expanded so that 90% is a much larger raw number now.

Remember about the old joke about the Evil Empire, before Microsoft took the epithet?

How do you spot an IBM field tech with a flat tire?
He's the one on the side of the road, changing all four tires to see which one's flat.

How do you spot an IBM field tech that ran out of gas?
He's the one on the side of the road, changing all four tires to see which one's flat.

Re:It is just so horrible

[AK Marc]

It's not about the Americans being not "qualified" but that a E/CE/CS degree is irrelevant to IT. IT is, in the most general sense, best served by a logic and philosophy/psychology degree. Every problem is solved by a binary decision tree.

"The computer isn't working." Well, that's hardware or software. If hardware, it's an internal or external fault. If internal, it's a part failure or install failure. If part, replace part. If install, re-seat hardware. Most any problem is a set of questions, each one narrowing down the choices, until the answer is found. The ability to break down problems like that is logic. Knowing what to ask and how to respond is generaly from experience. Dealing with the people that are experiencing the problem, or designing something for them to use is a "soft" skill that a psychology or other "soft" degree might help best with.

There isn't a good education for IT. It's never been addressed. The few places that teach "IT" generally teach to some specific certification tests, and nothing about how to apply it.

Outsourcing kills experience

[slayer991]

It isn't education, it's the lack of experience. We've outsourced so many of the entry level jobs, where are the young people supposed to learn? That's the real cost of outsourcing...without an entry-level position and ability to learn how to troubleshoot, there's no place for kids to learn how to do their jobs. Most of the really good systems engineers I know started on the help desk, worked desk-side support and then did infrastructure support (servers/network/storage/security). They understand that their jobs still come down to delivery of solutions to the end-user. They understand that the end-user doesn't care what backend BS broke, it's just that they can't do their job. We're missing that at the mid-level...and most of the really great infrastructure people are in their 40's now.

Re:It is just so horrible

[Billly Gates]

That can't be true.

According to HR pc techs need calculus skills as we do differential equations all day and work in polynomial time when working with tickets.

Re:oh

[kaladorn]

I, on the other hand, have had a mixed experience with Indian workers.

I worked on one team with 3 of them. One was female, the other two male. One of the males had a good business head and presentation and passable technical skills. The other fellow was out of his depth and was compensating by trying to talk over everyone. The gal was the smartest of the lot and new her stuff (the QC side of things) better than either of the male devs, but their cultural propensity to just marginalize or ignore the female (or try to speak for her) meant the best way to let her excel was to arrange interactions with her that did not involve the two indian males.

On another project I worked on, offshoring a code base for a major US Telco, I will tell you that there were some smart devs (they got what I was presenting) and there were others who struggled and I don't think ever did fathom the complex code.

Frankly, the Russians I worked with were better as far as offshore resources go - thorough, smart, logical, didn't try to claim what they didn't actually know and figured out a lot of things as required (and did a good job of being thorough).

I think the only two objections I have overall (as a generalization) to Indian workers are a) tendency to be patriarchal and not listen to and respect females and b) a tendency to say yes to everything when it comes to 'can you do X by time Y?' even if the thing they are agreeing to do is well beyond them. They can't seem to say no or it'll take longer. Everything is yes. We learned that we could not depend on any time estimates and routinely doubled their estimates and sometimes even then had to get in and solve the problems ourselves.

Any group of devs is going to reflect the amount and nature of their education and their cultural perspectives. Being Canadian, I've had some good fortune to work in very diverse settings with many cultural groups and nationalities. As long as you know who you are dealing with and allow for that, you can work well together.

In the case of IT work, the skillset required for broader business aspects of that field require a broad knowledge of many technologies, a broad knowledge of business practices, and the business to treat the IT staff less like a cost center and more like a critical piece of infrastructure - provide training, support sufficient time for projects and manpower resources, and to generally not try to get the IT staff to be responsible for everything, all of the time, in all respects, with few or no resources. That's the most common failing in IT departments - how companies see them as an expense and try to minimize that to the detriment of employee quality and their overall business in the long run.