Do Businesses Really Need to Hire CS Majors? (cio.com)

A new article in CIO magazine argues that when it comes to computer science, "few of us really need much of any of it." Slashdot reader itwbennett offers this summary: At the heart of the matter is the fact that most businesses don't really need programmers to be deep thinkers. For them, it's "just as worthwhile to hire someone from a physics lab who just used Python to massage some data streams from an instrument. They can learn the shallow details just as readily as the CS genius," according to the article.
CIO's anonymous author promises an incomplete list of "why we may be better off ignoring CS majors." Some of the highlights:

• Theory distracts and confuses. "Many computer scientists are mathematicians at heart and the theorem-obsessed mindset permeates the discipline."

• Academic languages are rarely used. "...the academy breeds snobbery and a love for arcane solutions."

• Many CS professors are mathematicians, not programmers. "One of the dirty secrets about most computer science departments is that most of the professors can't program computers. Their real job is giving lectures and wrangling grants...."

• Many required subjects are rarely used. "...it's too bad few of us use many data structures any more."

• Institutions breed arrogance. "...the very nature of academic degrees are designed to give graduates the ability to argue one's superiority with authority. "

• Many modern skills are ignored. "If you want to understand Node.js, React, game design or cloud computation, you'll find very little of it in the average curriculum... It's very common for computer science departments to produce deep thinkers who understand some of the fundamental challenges without any shallow knowledge of the details that dominate the average employee's day."

"It's not that CS degrees are bad," the article concludes. "It's just that they're not going to speak to the problems that most of us need to solve."

Comments

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like it was written by a non-CS major who has tied all their business processes to wonky VBA macro laden Excel workbooks.

Re:Heh

[Spazmania]

This. You hire CS majors because they know about the problems you don't know you have and can prevent them from becoming business catastrophes.

Construction doesn't need every carpenter to be an architect but you'd better have an architect.

Success without college

[Tough Love]

Another success without college article, usually writen by someone who did not go to college. Sure, there are auto didacts able to learn good software engineering principles on their own, but few possess the necessary self discipline. To learn to think you need to hang out with thinkers. To learn a subject well it helps enormously to have good teachers. To learn discipline it helps to have structure. Nothing beats college for that, it's an opportunity you should seize if you possibly can.

Never mind the parities, networking and abundant supply of premium specimens of the opposite sex.

Epic stupid

[HeX314]

It's almost comical just how false most of these stereotypes and arguments are.

1) Knowing lots of theory allows you to approach a problem from multiple possible analytical angles. Lacking that kind of critical thinking will make you an excellent drone employee who can execute orders given by smarter people.

2) I take issue with "rarely used." I know CS people love their esoteric languages, but they are hardly the norm for example code.

3) I don't think I've met a single CS professor who couldn't write code.

4) Data structures? You use them all the fucking time. ALL THE TIME. You just don't know it because someone made it idiot-proof, so now even your dumb ass can use them.

5) There may be some truth to credentials making people more confident, but the same could be said of anyone with any recognized accreditation. Furthermore, I feel like this applies more to businesspeople than scientists.

6) There's a reason you don't find highly-specific industry trending software tools being taught in "the average cirriculum." It's the same reason you learn to dribble a basketball before you learn to dunk: fundamentals.

The highlights read like garbage written for adult children.

Re: Bitter much?

[serviscope_minor]

Outside the academic ivory tower

I've come to the conclusion that anyone using the phrase "ivory tower" is probably an idiot with a chip on their shoulder.

we write programs to run on REAL hardware today

Well done you understand your job. However it's the height of arrogance to assume that because you don't understand academic jobs that they're somehow worthless.

Hell, it was just a six years ago that Bjarne Stroustrup was so far out-of-touch with modern hardware and its L1 cache that he was surprised to learn that doubly linked lists give shitty cache usage.

It takes a special kind of arrogant to take someone who is telling people why a technique is bad and go herp derp he's a stupid he doesn't know its bad.

Re:Bc completely unaware software engineering exis

[Darinbob]

I've worked with these scientists that need a little programming. It makes no one happy, the programming is lousy and the scientist is dismayed at not doing more science. I've got one guy who says "I wrote all the code, I just need you guys to clean it up and integrate it into your stuff", or "why are you designing that piece, I already wrote it!"

Let me tell you, some of the worst programmers out there are physicists. It sometimes seems like they even forget their math as they complain that their exponential time algorithm takes too long to run.