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Do Tech Firms Really Want Liberal Arts Majors?
Nerval's Lobster writes: Not too long ago, a Forbes writer declared that a liberal arts degree had "become tech's hottest ticket." At so-called 'disruptive juggernauts' such as Facebook and Uber, George Anders wrote, 'the war for talent' had moved into non-technical realms such as marketing and sales. While there's undoubtedly some truth to Anders's thesis, technology recruiters and executives aren't seeing any less demand for strong technical skills in a wide variety of roles (Dice link). When there's a need for tech professionals with 'soft skills,' at least one recruiter just recruits computer-science majors from liberal arts schools, figuring those recruits will be more 'well-rounded.' To be clear, Forbes doesn't suggest that IT employers have begun mixing liberal-arts graduates into their technical teams; the article talks more about those graduates ending up in supporting roles such as sales and marketing, or else becoming intermediaries who translate the customer's product requirements into engineering solutions. But nobody should think that a strong technical background isn't as valued as ever throughout tech companies.
I've always had an interest in computers and electronics as a kid, but I mostly avoided computers during my first tour through college. I managed to get an internship through a roommate to test software. After my contract was up six months later, I became a video game tester and lead tester for the next six years. I went back to college to learn computer programming and made the college president's list for maintaining a 4.0 GPA in my major. I've been doing IT support contract work for the last ten years. Now I'm doing computer security. Sometimes the best people to hire are the ones who take their time finding out what they want to do.
But if they run out of h1-bs they'll settle. A college degree is a quick n dirty way to weed out the unstable. At the very least you know the were reliable enough to make it through a four year degree Companies don't give a shit about your back story.
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Nor will they come in one morning with a shotgun and shoot the place up.
The worst mass shooting in US History was by an English major.
I'm a tech person who generally tries to avoid sales people as much as possible, but I'd never in a million years suggest that sales is a "supporting role". If it were not for the sales staff where I work, I'd have no income, and consequently be living in a van down by the river. The engineering staff knows how to do a lot of great stuff, but getting the foot in the door at a customer and then getting them to buy our product isn't one of them. There are other departments a company might be able to get by without, but sales isn't one of them.
Without a product, you can't sell anything.
Without a sales, you don't have income.
Without income, you can't pay the people who make the product.
(Repeat)
As a tech employer, I would not hire a liberal arts major for a technical position
As a programmer for ten years, I would definitely hire a liberal arts major for a programming position. After working alongside several and interviewing others, I have to echo the professor who wonders if his students have any kind of taste.
They may know the syntax. In fact anyone can learn that in a couple of weeks. What I keep running into, though, are programmers who can't program their way out of a paper bag, who would stare at me blankly if I quoted Brian Kernighan when he said "Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming."
Actually lately it seems a liberal arts major is about as likely as a science major to know anything about design. But I will tell you that I would hire a gifted musician, painter, or journalist that shows the seed of understanding good design, over a humdrum programmer who's like, "If it runs it's good."
Your generalization of liberal arts graduates is almost as bad as your idea of an ideal workplace.
In a productive workplace the workers aren't drones that perform simple tasks as they are ordered from the top down. You end up with a CEO that knows nothing about technology deciding what technology to use on a product that has no value and doesn't work.
In a real productive environment there is open communication between all employees. People higher up explain problems they want to solve to the technical people and the technical people come up with ways to solve for the problem the other people didn't even know existed. Then they collaborate and decide what the best solution is. This way you solve the actual problem and do it in the most efficient way possible.
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Yeah, why is that engineering majors need art history to be well rounded but art history majors don't need vector calculus for the same reason?
>> Where do you think all the Java programmers come from?
I thought there was a spawn point in India, actually.