Re:Financial Times: IT graduates struggle to find work
by gaius on Friday July 04, 2008 @04:18PM
(#236516)
Kids these days don't want to be programmers, they all want to be "Certified Enterprise Solutions Architects" and whatnot.
Think about it, when was the last time you saw "programmer" as a job title? At the very minimum now it's "developer" or "software engineer". No-one actually wants to get their hands dirty with code. And I'll tell you why: in today's modern culture, nothing is right or wrong. Lines, boxes and clouds on a whiteboard and just someone's opinion, no more valid than anyone elses. But code, that requires you to say "this is right" and "this is wrong". Kids these days can't face the pressure of making definitive statements.
Re:Financial Times: IT graduates struggle to find work
by aristus on Saturday July 05, 2008 @04:16AM
(#236810)
"For to learn, is to submit to have something done to one; and persuasion comes soonest to those who have least strength to resist it. Hence young men are sooner persuaded than those that are more in years..."
That's Plutarch, complaining about the same thing almost 2,000 years ago.
And get off my lawn!
Some of us went into computer science out of genuine interest in one of the most revolutionary sciences in our lifetime. If it hurts our job prospects, well, that's part of the sacrifice.
I think what we need to do is ask CompSci students what they're wanting to achieve after school. Universities need to offer (and encourage) a broader selection of software development degrees (software engineering, business software, etc) rather than try to dilute CS to be all businessy. I know some schools offer more, but I'm not sure they set student expectations appropriately. Businesses (maybe even more importantly) need to learn how to ask for the degrees/expertise they actually want rather than asking for CS all the time for every software engineering job.
If you're reading this and making hiring decisions-- you can help by changing the wording in your job postings. Stop asking specifically for CS degrees when you really just need someone with a degree who can hack with the best of them.