Woz Wants To Retrain You For a Career in Tech (cnet.com)

Steve Wozniak wants you to work in tech, and he's going to help you do it. From a report: The Apple co-founder is launching Woz U, a digital institute aimed at helping folks not only figure out what type of tech job they might be best at, but train for it. "People often are afraid to choose a technology-based career because they think they can't do it. I know they can, and I want to show them how," Wozniak said in a statement Friday. Woz U starts off as online programs, but there are plans to build campuses in 30 cities around the world. Those cities will be announced within the next 60 days, Shelly Murphy, corporate relations for Woz U told CNET. In a press statement, Wozniak said Woz U will start as an online learning platform focused on both students and companies that will eventually hire those students. Woz U is based out of Arizona, and hopes to launch physical locations for learning in more than 30 cities across the globe. At launch, the curriculum will center around computer support specialists and software developers, with courses on data science, mobile applications and cybersecurity coming in the future.

Comments

A Noble Idea

[DaMattster]

I like Woz, I really do. He's a good and decent human being with noble intentions but the problem is not a lack of qualified people. There are lost of qualified IT professionals that are getting passed over. The problem is one of economy because enterprises are going to India, The Phillipines, China, and Singapore for their IT needs. Some of it is offshoring, some of it is outsourcing, and a great deal of it is the importation of labor. It does not make sense to train for a career that is dwindling in the US. Companies complain that they cannot find qualified people here. This is not quite the truth. It is more like they cannot find people who are willing to work for pennies on the dollar. A better use of funds for job training would be to teach people to become advanced electricians, carpenters, skilled laborers. The job growth is in the trades. The pay is even better than entry level white-collar jobs.

Re:A Noble Idea

[Archangel Michael]

I've been in IT for 30 years or so. I want to be retrained to not be in IT anymore, and its partly because of what you said. People don't care about qualifications anymore, they care about bodies, and lower cost bodies means hiring more of them, even if they are useless. It is rare that I find someone that is actually good at what they do.

And if WOZ is training people for today's jobs, many of those jobs wont exist in 6 years.

Re:A Noble Idea

[0100010001010011]

There are lost of qualified IT professionals that are getting passed over.

Because I don't need and IT professional. CS and IT hasn't had shift towards the trades that all other degrees have had for a while.

When you're building a house you only need so many civil engineers and architects. At some point you need a fleet of plumbers, electricians and general contractors. That's where the engineering and IT work is at my company. Right now people are trying to cut the corner by outsourcing and it's having predictable results.

I don't need a BS CS major. I don't even need a AS. I want a 16 year old that is eager to be in "IT" and I can converse with in English. That's it. I would hire a dozen if my manager would allow it but we're stuck outsourcing to India for the time being.

IT and CS need to come to a realization that part of your job does not need a college education. It needs the skill sets that can be learned in 10-16 week vocational tech training. Every single other industry has a stake in that space but for some reason CS majors insist that the entirety of their job must be done by people with a CS degree.

Hell I would hire someone that could grok Python and just write documentation. I don't even need them to understand it. Turn my trash into perfectly valid Google Style documentation. That would take a huge weight off of my shoulders and improve code around the company. Maybe they might pick up some Python on the way. That's the sort of work that tradesmen give to the grunt apprentices. Doctors have moved to train physician assistants, RNs, and a host of other positions to do most of their job so they can concentrate on what they were trained to do.

As long as the gray beards insist that the only people that can replace them have BS degrees then the company will find the cheapest "BS" degree they can and hire them. Mechanical engineers have had mechanical engineering technologists for a while and they're amazing. It would take me twice as long to do something they do and it would be half as good. It doesn't mean I don't have a job it means I get to concentrate on the engineering.

If you want to see CS and IT shift back to the US then you need to sell your manager on hiring 16 year olds to do your tedious work so that you can concentrate on the hard bits of it. And when those hard bits become the tedious bits, train them and move on. Rinse and repeat. If you're a manager looking for 'cheap labor' start talking to the local voctech high schools. Factor in rework and communication 'costs' and pay them well for their age. You'll come out loads ahead. They'll have relevant job experience for the future and you'll have cheap labor. If you have someone set to retire in 5 years just have the 16 year olds shadow them and do any work that they can.

Yet someone else taking advantage of Woz

[mschuyler]

Yet someone else taking advantage of Woz, I'm guessing, getting him to invest in an IT Tech University scam knowing full-well he would be enthusiastic about such an endeavor. He certainly won't be managing or really 'heading up' such a project in any meaningful way, having said more than once that he is not a 'managerial type.' I have always had the fear that one day I would awaken to the news that Woz was completely broke, having trusted glib promoters with his entire fortune.