[clue-tech] Are colleges dumbing down computer degrees?

[Kevin Cullis]

On Jul 8, 2006, at 6:32 AM, erik at ezolan.com wrote:

>
> What do you think college is for? Unless they went to a Tech  
> school, they
> should be well versed in theory, not the technical stuff. They've  
> shown
> they can learn by graduating from college, now it's the business's  
> turn to
> teach them what to do technically.

I think he had mentioned Univ of Arizona, which he considers to be a  
tech school, not a full blown CS degree because they don't come out  
with any theory knowledge.

Other posters comments are well taken, if their are student slackers  
then no matter what you teach them they won't learn.

>
> Oh, right, Businesses don't want to teach anything anymore.

Not in this case, he was upset that what HE got as a CS education was  
not nearly what he was seeing from some of his new workers getting.  
He was upset that he had to go over stuff that should have been  
learned before they got to their new job, not that he didn't want to  
train them.

>
> And then there's the problem with incentive. Smart people used to  
> get into
> the field because there was a future in it. Now if you want a job  
> with a
> future, the smart people go into something else. Leaving just the  
> people
> who like IT, and the leftovers.

Then this is the problem of businesses, they don't/won't pay what IT  
is worth? As a friend of mine stated a few years back (he taught  
classes in UNIX) was that years ago UNIX students in his classes were  
engineers and knew the theories of CS while todays' students only  
knew "point and click."

>
> And finally, how much was your friend's company paying? Enough to  
> get the
> college grads who know what they're doing? Or only enough to get  
> the less
> qualified ones that they will have to train up?

Good point. I didn't ask.

Kevin