<br>
<br>
<p>If you think that there is sufficient demand for this, start your own
university.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Yes, database has been an engineering and IT gravy train for decades.</p>
<p>So why do most software developing employers require a CS degree?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because, the CS major is most likely to have taken the core CS courses needed to do the job and interact with other team members. True, some employers will ask for Math majors (like myself), Physics or even Business majors, but it is not a given that non-CS majors took the core CS-courses. Using myself, I could have taken the Math-Actuary route instead of the CS route.</p>
<p>…And when an employer REQUIRES a CS degree, chances are that they will accept another science/engineering major with the same coursework like CompE, SoftwareE, EE, Math or Physics.</p>
<p>Does an IT degree offer the core courses?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How are you saving money? You’re paying for the classes anyway. After all, the assumption is that you’re going to be paying for a college degree no matter what. So if you’re going to do that anyway, why not pick up IT skills as part of that degree program?</p>
<p>Again, I don’t see it being any different from people using classes in golf and yoga as college credits towards their degree. Matt Leinart the last units required for his sociology degree by taking a ballroom dance course. Since he was going to have to take those units anyway, might as well get them in something useful. </p>
<p>Now, if you want to construct a different argument regarding why people shouldn’t even bother to complete the college degree at all, but should simply drop out to learn IT skills on their own time, that’s a fair argument, but it’s an entirely different point from what has been established thus far.</p>
<p>Here are all the posts where CS2011 talks about his work at a casual video game company.</p>
<p>[College</a> Confidential - Search Results](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=25233703]College”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=25233703)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you? How many developers actually use complexity theory? Or the notion of P vs. NP? To be clear, I’m not talking about whether those concepts are used as screening schemes within the interview stage, as I suspect they probably are. I’m talking about actually using them on the actual job. </p>
<p>Having spoken to some of the best, award-winning software developers that I know, they report that they can’t even recall a single time when they had to utilize such concepts. Heck, one freely admits that he ca no longer remember exactly what NP-completeness even is, nor does he care, because he never uses it. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And what if you don’t care about research?</p>
<p>To be clear, nobody is claiming that theory should never be learned. Those who want to learn the theory are free to do so, and those who are interested in research can therefore choose to learn theory. The question is - why should every CS major necessarily be forced to learn theory? Let’s face it: most CS students do not want to be researchers. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, last time I checked, Cisco IOS is software. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Which doesn’t answer the question: how long would it really take for an old UNIX veteran to ramp up to usable Linux knowledge? Maybe half a year? Perhaps less? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Answer seems to be very little. I know an old Oracle admin guy who basically stated that once you really know one version of Oracle, it’s not that hard to adapt to newer versions. The underlying mechanics of the RDBMS are the same. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Some do, but most don’t. That’s the point. We’re talking about a solution that makes sense to the bulk of students, who aren’t superstars, who don’t want to be researchers, who just want to get a regular job for decent pay. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So do you therefore agree that more schools should be offering the library of IT books that your son’s school does? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As I’ve learned to painful disappointment throughout my career, just because (most) companies choose to do something doesn’t mean that the choice is optimal. Companies often times implement policies that, frankly, make little sense, engaging in a multitude of management fads, just because other companies are doing the same.</p>
<p>Think of it this way: right now, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Steve Jobs all would not be hired by their own companies because all of them lack degrees. </p>
<p>Degrees seem to be a CYA tactic of hiring managers, in the same way how, in the old days, nobody ever got fired for buying computers from IBM. If a hiring manager hires somebody without a degree and he turns out to be a dreadful employee, everybody is going to blame that manager for his foolishness of hiring somebody without a degree. But if a hiring manager hires somebody who does have a degree who turns out to be dreadful, he can claim that he completed his due diligence, and the poor outcome is therefore not his fault. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you saying that you don’t think that universities ought to change?</p>
<p>Sakky, are you saying software development is a trade?</p>
<p>Whether software development is a trade or not is irrelevant. What matters here is what do CS graduates actually do once they graduate. My point is that many of them, whether voluntarily or no, do not take software development jobs, but rather end up in other positions of which IT seems to be a prominent example. </p>
<p>Nor do I believe this to be particularly surprising. As I stated before, most people do not take jobs that are direct outgrowths of their college major. Most history majors do not become historians, most poli-sci majors do not become political scientists, and so it should not be surprising to find that many CS majors do not become software developers. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Let me tell you a story. One of my old employers required a bachelor’s degree just to be a secretary - and indeed, many of the secretaries even had graduate degrees - despite the fact that, frankly, you didn’t really need higher education to do the job. It’s not as if you were spending all your time deconstructing literature or writing essays. You spent all your time scheduling meetings, answering phones, greeting guests, arranging resources, etc. I’m not saying the job was easy - as surely there were numerous challenging aspects to the job - but they didn’t really require a college education per se. That job required a bachelor’s degree as a general signal that the person, if nothing else, at least had the dedication to endure a college major, and so probably is somewhat mature and can follow directions. If the college in question is selective, then employers can be assured that you were at least competent enough to be admitted in the first place. But that hardly means that they care about whether you know how to analyze Elizabethan poetry. </p>
<p>Similarly, software development jobs may require a CS degree simply as a general signal that a person has some reasonable familiarity with programming and the work ethic to survive a CS major, and that you probably enjoy working with software (for otherwise, you wouldn’t have majored in CS). But that doesn’t mean that they really require all of the theory that a CS major entails.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>We use them on the job.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Do they work in operating systems? Database systems? Transaction
processing systems?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Get an IT or CIS degree.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>That’s not the right question. If you don’t want the theory, don’t major
in CS.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Cool. So you can just download a router?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It depends on what you mean by usable. We talking about kernel
development work (we do a lot of that in my building) or just setting
up a build environment?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Oracle has many thousands of engineers adding huge numbers of features
in every release. Your friend keeps up with all of those changes?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I don’t really understand people like this. Why wouldn’t you want to be
a star? A CS degree is harder than most other degrees. There are a lot of
easier degrees out there which will give you a regular job for decent pay.
Accouting, nursing, IT.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It doesn’t really matter to me. If he needs a book, then I usually
just buy it. I buy supplemental books for his courses that I think are
interesting or that provide more depth than the course books.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>That’s part of corporate life. Companies are imperfect but they need
measurement systems to encourage certain behaviour and to provide for
reward systems and there are often unintended consequences.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>That’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>There are people that I work with that don’t have degrees. Or that
have degrees in english, entomology, and other esoteric areas. These
people may have engineering experience without the degree. Or they may
have the people skills that get them access to the hiring manager. Or
they come in through the support organization where hiring
requirements are easier. I didn’t have a degree when I was hired into
engineering. I finished up a CIS degree and then an MSCS degree. There
are lots of avenues to get in.</p>
<p>Now where is Blake Ross working at and how did he get in there without
a degree?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Degrees are a filtering mechanism of human resources.</p>
<p>If you have the people skills and network and can get through to the
hiring manager, then you may get to make your pitch for a job. Yeah,
you should practice it, know about the company and where you can help
their profits and be a good salesperson.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>You want change. It’s a free country. Go implement your change. What I
think is irrelevant.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And how many firms are like yours? I seem to recall on another thread that you stated that your firm is one of the most desirable tech employers in the world. But most firms are obviously not desirable employers, but rather are simply average. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Answers to your questions are: no, no, and no. And that’s the point: most software developers don’t work on such systems. They’re working on far simpler stuff: i.e. building Facebook apps, creating software or Web front-ends, and the like. You don’t really need to know NP-completeness to do that. The vast majority of software companies are simple companies that are doing simple things. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So your advice is that the vast majority of CS students are getting the wrong degree. After all, let’s face it, the vast majority - probably on the order of 2/3 if not more - have no interest in CS grad school that would prepare them for research careers. Let’s face it: most CS students just want to get a job. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, but you download IOS. Ironically, it seems as if the Cisco routing hardware actually changes faster than its IOS software (which barely seems to change at all). </p>
<p>Heck, forget about even using IOS. You could use GNUZebra, which uses mostly the same command set as IOS. Once you know how to configure IOS, you know how to configure Zebra. </p>
<p>Now, I might agree with you that designingIOS probably does indeed require a proper CS background. But for every one IOS design engineer, there are probably hundreds of Cisco networking IT workers. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, that’s not the right question. The right question is, does the current CS curricula serve its students as well as it should, or should changes be made? </p>
<p>After all, look at it this way. CS programs, such as any other program, change all the time. A CS program today is significantly different from one from 30 years ago. Nobody argues: “Well, we should maintain everything within a 1980-vintage CS program until the end of time, and those who don’t like it can simply not major in CS.” No, programs change constantly, and rightfully so. It is therefore entirely appropriate to ask whether a CS program should change with respect to theory. </p>
<p>Besides, you admitted yourself that many, generally lower-end, universities are essentially offering theory-light IT programs under the CS brand. Yet I don’t see anybody proposing that they relabel their IT program properly (unless you’re prepared to do so now). So if those schools can leverage the CS moniker for their IT programs, why is it so outrageous for other schools to lighten the theory in their CS programs? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No of course not. Nobody does, not even those who are within the trenches of IT every day. That’s because the vast majority of features are not relevant to your environment. You keep up with the tiny subset of features that are relevant to you.</p>
<p>For example, Cisco has added a number of new IP multicasting features into IOS 15. But I don’t really care and neither do the overwhelming majority of networking guys for the simple reason that practically nobody uses IP multicasting. I agree that the tiny minority of networking guys in the world who run networks that actually use multicasting would care, but on the other hand, they surely don’t use and don’t care about some features that I use. </p>
<p>Or, in many cases, you don’t even need to keep up at all. That actually gets to a separate issue regarding IT: the fact is, many, arguably most, new IT features are, frankly, unnecessary and unwanted. The truth is that most corporate networks of today would run just fine on IOS v.12 from 10 years ago, and the only reason that IT staff upgraded at all was through coercion: Cisco stopped supporting IOS v.12, and hence we were all forced to upgrade to the new version if we wanted to maintain support. Nevertheless, I can think of plenty of ‘renegade’ IT staffers who run IOS 12 networks sans support, but simply have a roomful of extra cheap used routers they can swap in whenever a production router falls down. They don’t need any of the new features in the new IOS versions. And their networks, frankly, are arguably more reliable than the “upgraded” IOS 15 networks, and are certainly far cheaper to maintain, as Cisco support contracts are pricey. {Heck, I’m seriously considering running a renegade IOS network now.} </p>
<p>Similarly, most Windows users were perfectly fine with 2000/XP and have upgraded to 7 only because new PC’s are sold with 7 and MS has pulled mainstream support for 2000/XP. But, let’s face it, not many customers really need the new features of 7. I’m writing this post on a XP computer, and I feel perfectly fine doing so. </p>
<p>So, no, there isn’t a single IT guy in the world - not even anybody with all 7 types of CCIE - who keeps up with every single new feature, or even most new features. You keep up with features as you need them. If I ever actually implement multicasting, then that’s when I’ll start caring about all of the multicasting features. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Say you do embark upon a CS program thinking that you will indeed be a star. But the best you can do is earn B’s and C’s, due to the difficulty of the coursework. The evidence is now quite clear that you won’t be a star. What are you going to do now? I suppose you could switch to accounting or nursing, but not only would you have to largely start over, but your poor CS grades are going to haunt you by damaging your cum GPA even if you perform well in your new major. You might as well just finish the CS program and then just get a regular job. </p>
<p>And that’s precisely what happens to many (probably most) CS students. Sure, they probably do want to be stars…when they started the program. But, as you said yourself, a CS degree is no walk in the park. By definition, only a tiny percentage of CS students will obtain ‘star’ GPA’s. The vast majority of CS students will earn middling grades or worse. What are they supposed to do now? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So you’re saying that your son should be provided with the books that he needs. So why can’t other students that perhaps don’t have such generous dads nevertheless be provided with the same opportunities through a well-stocked university library? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So you agree that the system is not optimal and has unintended consequences. My point exactly. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then why would you spend time here advocating against change? After all, you yourself said that rather than CS programs de-emphasizing theory, students should simply not major in CS. That clearly demonstrates that you’re defending the status quo, to which I ask - why?</p>
<p>Sakky,</p>
<p>I would beg to differ about software developers and the relation to database systems. Now while the database administrator of the final production system is strictly about the sustainment, there are other database tasks that are definitely part of the software development life-cycle. Those tasks are done by data architects and database developers.</p>
<p>Again, the software engineering (or software development) lifecycle is an offshoot of the systems engineering process.</p>
<p>Analysis–>Design–>Development–>Test/Verification–>Implementation–>Sustainment</p>
<p>One can definitely align database development to each of these phases.</p>
<p>Data Requirements ==> Analysis
Logical Data Model ==> Design
Psuedo Code of Stored Procedures ==> Design
Psuedo Code of ETL processes ==> Design (if a data warehouse)
Physical Data Model ==> Development
Actual Coding of Stored Procedures or ETL Processes ==> Development
Data Validation, Query Validation ==> Testing
Creation of full-functional production database ==> Implementation
Backups, Recovery, Space & Performance Monitoring ==> Sustainment</p>
<p>Depending on how an application is decided on being designed…whether business logic is done primarily by the database or the front-end (Java,C++,C#,etc) will determine how much coding with be done by the database developer. This is for the database only…not including how the database must interact with the operating system and/or the front-end software language.</p>
<p>All in all, database development can/would be software development. A similar model could also be done for operating systems development.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I think that it is more of a question of what the firm works on.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>You don’t need a CS degree for that then.</p>
<p>My undergraduate degree was in CIS which was perfect for programming
financial systems. It was a far better major because I knew what the
customers wanted. CS majors typically don’t take accounting, finance,
marketing, etc.</p>
<p>Our local community college offers associates degrees in computer
science that provide the background for the jobs that you mention.
I don’t believe that they require any theory courses. I think that
calling it a CS degree is a misnomer - a Tech degree would be more
appropriate but employers stick that CS degree requirement on job
postings so the community colleges are just trying to fill a need
with unconventional nomenclature.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Yes, I believe that most are getting the wrong degree. Most CS
students don’t figure out what CS is until their junior year. Some few
do look ahead and find out that they’re going to be working with all
of this strange theory stuff and some may even like it. The ACM
documents do explain some of this stuff but it’s not really written
for parents and students considering their college majors.</p>
<p>At my sons school, most students just want to get a job. You can see
it in the enrollments of theory electives vs practical electives. Many
student take the courses that provide them with the skills that they
see on job postings. There are many students that just try to pass the
theory courses. My son told me that one student in his Foundations
class asked what use is there in learning this stuff. My son answered
him. He knows because I explained where it is used. Unfortunately you
have to look ahead. We have the same problems with math in our high
schools. What good is algebra, trig, logarithms, calculus?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>And you run it on your PC? Don’t you need a Cisco Router?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>The ACM provides the appropriate distinctions between areas of study.
They also provide the frameworks for programs and it appears to me
that their frameworks are widely used. Colleges and Universities enjoy
some freedom in nomenclature and I don’t think that there’s anything
that I can do about it. There’s a wink and a nod on calling it a CS
degree. Of course those looking for a proper program will screen out
candidates in an interview or just avoid the school altogether.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Well, these two things that you wrote seem at odds.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>The people that I’ve seen with this problem typically go into CIS. Their
programming courses transfer in, the math courses transfer in, and their
remaining math courses are far easier. One guy I know took mathematical
stats a few times and couldn’t pass it which means that he wouldn’t be
able to get the CS degree. The statistics course for the CIS major was
far easier and he was able to pass that.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>These boards do discuss changing majors. A lot of CS programs are
brutal in the amount of work in the freshman and sophomore years. If
you can’t hack it in your first or second year, there is still time to
switch majors.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I’m saying that I provide the books that I think are useful for him
learning the subject area to a level that I’d like him to learn it
too.</p>
<p>One of the schools that my son took a dual-enrollment course at had a
new library building. What was amazing is that it had very few books.
They had online access to books and databases. Perhaps that is the
trend. Boston College has a pretty large selection of IT-type books in
their library but Boston College has a ton of money. I frankly prefer
Boston University’s library when it comes to books on theory. I
really don’t know what the purchasing policies are at libraries. I
also think that this is a tangent that isn’t relevant to the main
topic of discussion.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Have you taken a course in Organizational Behavior? Any system
composed of people will be imperfect. Part of managing your career
is being able to navigate systems currently in place and sometimes
bending those systems if you have the personal skills.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I’d suggest looking at what the ACM suggests. It seems eminently
reasonable to me.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Ever set up a RAC Cluster?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>To this day?..no…but RAC is an example of an involved RDBMS/Operating System task.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, I made no statement about database development, and I have no dispute with your characterization of software development as it relates to databases.</p>
<p>What I am saying is that many CS graduates simply end up being IT admins, such as DBA’s, for which they would care very little about true software development. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And now we’re getting to brass tacks. But following this logic leads to a far more general point: the vast majority of students in any major, strictly speaking, are getting the “wrong” degree, in the sense, that they actually need it for their jobs.. Let’s be perfectly frank: the vast majority of college students will not end up in careers that are closely related to their majors. The vast majority of history majors will not become historians. The vast majority of sociology majors will not become sociologists. The vast majority of poli-sci majors will not become political scientists. </p>
<p>One major hurdle is that most decent employers nowadays require that you have a college degree, and you therefore need to major in something. You can’t just major in nothing, you have to choose something, and that (hopefully) dovetails with something in which you hold some personal interest. Somebody major in history generally does so because he enjoys reading about history, but that’s not to say that he actually expects to use his knowledge of history on his actual job. </p>
<p>Furthermore, most jobs available to fresh college graduates have no closely corresponding major. For example, many college graduates become salesmen. But you can’t major in “sales”. Heck, most of the top universities don’t even offer an undergraduate business major. Psychology is arguably the most relevant major for a future salesman, and even then, such a major would contain a large percentage of irrelevant material: who really cares about the theory of existential psychotherapy or gestaltism if you’re just trying to sell something? </p>
<p>Many college students also don’t really know what they want to do in their career. After all, most college students have never held a true full-time job, summer internships notwithstanding. They don’t really know what sorts of jobs are available out there. Somebody might enter college thinking he wants to be an engineer - and hence majors in engineering - only to then later find out that actually working as an engineer may not be as interesting as he had thought, and that other careers may be better.</p>
<p>And even those college students who are sure about what they want for a future career cannot be assured that they will actually get it. Medicine is the most infamous example: every year, boatloads of new college freshmen become premeds, and as premed is not usually a distinct major, those students usually choose to major in biology or chemistry. But then many (probably most) of them will receive mediocre grades and/or MCAT scores. According to the AAMC, more than half of all premeds nationwide who apply to med-school are rejected from every single med-school they apply to. And that’s just the premeds who actually applied to med-school. Many of them choose not to even apply, because they know they won’t get in. If you have a 2.5 GPA and a poor MCAT score, you know you’re not getting into med-school, so why waste time applying? Yet because premed grades and MCAT scores are curved, some premeds will inevitably end up with poor grades and MCAT scores. After all, somebody has to be relegated to the lower end of the curve. By definition, a quarter of all students must be in the bottom quartile. All of those aspiring premeds who majored in bio and chemistry but who couldn’t get into med-school will not have to choose some other career which may have nothing to do with bio/chem. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the economy fluctuates constantly and a job that is hot today may not be hot tomorrow, yet the 4-year lag time of a typical college degree subjects you to the whipsaw changes of the economy. Some of us here are old enough to remember the dotcom boom, when the CS major was considered to be a path to easy affluence. As we remember in excruciating detail, the dotcom boom quickly turned into the dotcom bust. Those students who entered college in the late 90’s who chose the CS major hoping to cash in unfortunately graduated in the early 2000’s during the worst job market for CS majors in history. Many of those new CS graduates were forced to take jobs that had nothing to do with CS, because no CS jobs were available for them. I remember one CS grad who ended up working as a security guard. </p>
<p>For all of these reasons and many more, the vast majority of college students are pursuing the ‘wrong’ major in the sense that their major will ultimately have little to do with whatever job they end up taking. But it’s far too facile to then argue that students should then pursue the ‘right’ major. Most college students don’t even know what career they want. Even if they do know, they might not get it (e.g. the shattered dreams of the failed premeds). Even if they do get it, there may not be any corresponding major anyway. You can’t major in sales. You (usually) can’t major in project management. </p>
<p>And you also can’t major in IT or CIS at most top-ranked universities. You can’t choose those majors at schools such as MIT or Stanford. They’re simply not offered. So, what’s a MIT/Stanford student supposed to do: transfer to a low-tier school that does offer IT? Come on, we all know that he’s not going to do it. He’s going to choose a major from the available menu. </p>
<p>So, BCEagle91, I invite you to join me in promoting the notion that the vast majority of college graduates are in the “wrong” major. But I don’t see how somebody who majors in CS and then becomes an IT guy is any more ‘misguided’ than somebody who majors in history and then becomes a salesman. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Career problems are not obviated even if you do look ahead to future coursework. No matter how farsighted you may have been in terms of the theoretical content of the major, if you were a new CS graduate in spring 2001 looking for a software job, you would have encountered excruciating difficulties. </p>
<p>Furthermore, what if you do understand the value of the theoretical content, but just perform poorly in that coursework? Like I said, CS class grades are curved, and somebody has to be at the bottom of the class. What if that’s you? Then you’re probably not going to be hired by cutting-edge companies that do actually employ that theoretical content anyway because of your poor grades. So then what was the value of your learning it in the first place? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, I would generalize that even further: one could ask what good is learning how to analyze literature while in high school, when the fact is, practically nobody actually does that for their job? </p>
<p>But again, the point is that the problem is general. I see no reason to single out the IT workers who majored in CS. The fact is, everybody, regardless of their job, has been forced to learn plenty of things that, strictly speaking, they don’t really need to know for their job. I therefore don’t see why the notion of CS majors becoming IT workers is particularly remarkable in that respect. </p>
<p>
[quote]
And you run it on your PC? Don’t you need a Cisco Router?[ /quote]</p>
<p>You indeed run Zebra on a PC. In fact, that’s the remarkable part about Zebra: it allows you to basically build your own router. </p>
<p>[GNU</a> Zebra – routing software](<a href=“http://www.zebra.org/]GNU”>http://www.zebra.org/)</p>
<p>As far as running IOS, obviously you usually do so on a Cisco router (but not always: Cisco used to license IOS to other vendors and may again in the future). But that doesn’t take away from the fact that IOS is a software product. IOS runs on (almost) every single hardware line that Cisco sells, including those with vastly different underlying architectures. The value of IOS is that, like any other operating system, it is a software layer that hides the complexity of the hardware. I don’t really care if I’m running an 1900-series ‘small-business’ router, a 3900-series branch router, or a 7200-series data center router, or even a 12000 backbone router. All I really care about is that I’m running IOS on all of them as a unifying system. Cisco upgrades its router hardware all the time, but I don’t really care, because they continue to run IOS. {Like I said, Cisco probably upgrades its hardware faster than it upgrades IOS.} </p>
<p>Heck, I remember one time that the tech’s had replaced one router with an upgraded hardware version, and I didn’t even know until months later, despite having logged into the router hundreds of times during the interim. After all, IOS hid that fact away. I only found out one day when I walked through the dataroom and noticed that the bolts on one of the routers seemed to be newer and shinier than the bolts of the other routers. This is no different from the notion that if one night I took your office PC and completely upgraded its innards with a new motherboard, processor, drives, etc. but had Ghosted your Windows setup to be exactly the same as before, most people wouldn’t even know that anything had happened. Software hides all of that complexity away. </p>
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<p>Which then begs the question: why should we trust the ACM? What incentive do they have to make the proper changes? </p>
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<p>I don’t see how. No IT worker actually keeps up with all of feature changes in any IT product. Why would you? The vast majority of new features are irrelevant to your environment. You keep up with the small subset of features that matter to you. </p>
<p>And besides, many of the new features will become deprecated anyway. Cisco introduced a bunch of quality-of-service framework set of features in IOS v12, which was completely changed by v15. Those who kept up with IOS by learning the old framework had basically wasted their time. Similarly, since you mentioned it, Oracle RAC was launched in version 9i to replace Oracle Parallel Server. So if you never actually implemented OPS, then your time spent learning it was wasted because it’s now a dead feature. Hence, trying to keep up with every new feature is clearly a fool’s errand. </p>
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<p>And again, you are assuming that a CIS major actually exists at the school in question. What if you’re majoring in EECS at MIT, and you perform poorly, as many do? There’s no CIS major at MIT. What is your advice: to simply drop out of MIT? </p>
<p>(Even if that is your advice, it seems to be mostly unheeded, as MIT, for all of its vaunted rigor, nevertheless boasts of a ~92% graduation rate: far better than almost every other school in the country.} </p>
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<p>But again - switch to what exactly? What if your school doesn’t offer CIS/IT? </p>
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<p>I simply find it remarkable that you admit that your son has the advantage of a generous dad that provides him with topical IT books that you believe will enrich his education, but you don’t seem to be interested in having university libraries provide the same benefit to other students who don’t have such generous dads. I guess that’s just too bad for those other students, right? </p>
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<p>Exactly - so you agree that organizations are imperfect. Then you shouldn’t use the fact that organizations engage in a practice as evidence that the practice is optimal. Just because companies require degrees doesn’t mean that they necessarily should, which has been my point all along. </p>
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<p>And I say again: who’s to say that the ACM has all of the right answers? Since when was the ACM anointed as the purveyor of all CS educational wisdom?</p>
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<p>What DBAs do varies with the size and scope of their job. Some are
essentially IT jobs. Others get into programming, database design,
database layout and physical design. I think that the CIS major
provides a better background for DBAs, especially if it’s a business
database.</p>
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<p>What job does a biology major get? What job does a physics major get?
What job does a chemistry major get? TA?</p>
<p>It’s easier to see where majors in biomedical engineering, chemical
engineering, and electrical engineering go for jobs.</p>
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<p>Then we have a global waste of money and talent which argues for
better guidance. This is up to parents and students. The universities
will gladly indulge your interests without necessarily providing the
best of guidance in obtaining a job.</p>
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<p>Well, I guess that students caught up in the prestige thing will take
options that are counter-beneficial to their job prospects. Or you could
do what Blake Ross did. He went to Stanford, didn’t do well, dropped out,
started his own company that got bought out by Facebook.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that I made the case that you’re attributing to me in this
strawman.</p>
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<p>Then you could go to grad school, start your own company, use your
network, etc. We have a lot of threads in these forums on students in
difficult to market majors that have landed jobs. My company was
hiring in 2001 and we did hire people. Not as aggressively as in 1999
and 2000. We had so many new hires driving BMWs back then. Jobs come
and go in cycles. The downturn resulted in CS enrollments dropping by
half. When that happens in the stock market, you look around to see if
the drop has been overdone. Those starting in CS when enrollments were
in the pits probably came out with better prospects.</p>
<p>You do have to do a bit of fortune-telling as a student and parent.</p>
<p>The future is uncertain.</p>
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<p>Large cutting-edge software organizations typically have a variety of
jobs for a variety of skills. You might work in support, sustaining
engineer, testing, environment, packaging where the thresholds are
lower than they are for development positions. My entry into the
development organization was through the service organization. If I
could get into engineering as a CIS major without any theory
knowledge, then it surely must be possible for the CS major that has
had the CS courses with not necessarily the best grades. My first-year
GPA was probably around a 2.0+.</p>
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<p>I’d suggest studing the materials from The Well-Trained Mind.</p>
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<p>I agree that it happens; but I also think that it’s a waste. Your main
argument in this thread is that CS programs should add more IT
courses. I disagree with that. Have you read the ACM educational
documents? I think that they are quite compelling.</p>
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<p>My point is that it’s easier to learn software. If you want to learn about
databases, you can download MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server onto your PC and
learn it on your own.</p>
<p>If you want to learn IOS, it sounds like you need hardware which you won’t
typically find in your home or school in an environment where you can just
play with it.</p>
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<p>The ACM listens to universities and the business community. Of course you
could just use an ad hominem attack on them. But I think that the reasonable
thing to do would be to read their documents and judge them on the merits.</p>
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<p>I used to read through the release notes for products when I was a
consultant to gauge the impact on software changes on the customers
running environment and to be able to suggest features that might be
of use to customers. Not strictly an IT role - more of a consultants.
At that level, you do need to know the new features; at least a little
about them; and then you need to be able to learn them in-depth if your
client shows interest.</p>
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<p>It’s not wasted. Customers do run in mixed environments.</p>
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<p>Sure.</p>
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<p>I think that most either get jobs or go on to grad school. Seems that your
point is moot here.</p>
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<p>Find another school.</p>
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<p>Did I say that? Or is this just another strawman?</p>
<p>I don’t know what the purchasing policies at university libraries are but
I see wide variances on the types of books at different universities.</p>
<p>I don’t provide topical IT books. I provide theory books. The last such book
was Stonebraker’s Readings in Database Systems. I was disappointed that the
early System R stuff was removed from the book (this is history from the
1960s and 1970s) but the original papers are still available with an IEEE
membership.</p>
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<p>It can be both.</p>
<p>Think about it.</p>
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<p>And I say again - instead of using an ad hominem attack; look at the
merits of their case.</p>
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<p>Sure, but that doesn’t answer the question of why we should be picking on the CS major specifically. I hardly see CS as being any worse-off as far as precise targeting of a career than the liberal arts majors. </p>
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<p>I agree that we do have a global waste of money and talent. In fact, that has been one of my central points all along.</p>
<p>But I’m not sure that relying on parents and students will necessarily improve matters either, for the simple fact is, they probably don’t know either. Again, how many 18 year olds, or their parents, actually know what they want to do in their careers? Heck, I know some people in their 40’s who still don’t really know what they want to do in their careers. </p>
<p>And besides, even if you do “know”, who’s to say that it won’t change anyway? Think of it this way. If you had started college in 1990 and graduated in 1994, you wouldn’t have known about the coming Internet tsunami. 15 years ago, practically nobody outside of academia had even heard of the Internet. Now, Internet-related industries represent some of the most important sources of employment growth in the world. Similarly, in the year 2025 - a mere 15 years in the future - who’s to say what the hot new industry will be? </p>
<p>Furthermore, one’s tastes change. I can think of numerous people who years ago used to think that engineering and tech were the most interesting disciplines in the world…but now they don’t think they’re that interesting anymore. Many of them have gone back to school, to receive MBA’s or law degrees, or even non-engineering PhD’s. Some of the older posters here may remember ariesathena, who used to be a chemical engineer but is now a lawyer. </p>
<p>Man makes plans and God laughs. Waste is inevitable because people simply don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Technology changes, the economy changes, and personal tastes change. </p>
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<p>Is it really that counterbeneficial? After all, the truth of the matter is that many of the best employers demand elite degrees. </p>
<p>To continue the story, many MIT engineering students become not engineers, but rather management consultants or investment bankers: two industries that place a heavy premium on elite degrees. They don’t really care what you majored in, they just care that you have an elite degree. {For the same reason, a Harvard English major can become an investment banker.} Now, the fact is, engineering (and Harvard English) has very little to do with consulting or banking, so one could argue that that is a clear waste of academic training. But, whether we like it or not, those industries are not going to stop wanting elite degrees. </p>
<p>Now, if you want to decry the influence of consulting and banking upon the nation’s top youth, well, you’re simply preaching to the choir, for I have done precisely that on other threads. But that’s neither here nor there. The bottom line is that if you want a chance at those types of jobs, you need to get an elite degree. It is therefore entirely rational for those students to pursue such a degree.</p>
<p>And besides, as I said before, people’s tastes change. What if somebody truly does turn down MIT to attend a low-tier school because it offers a CIS/IT degree…only to later find out that he doesn’t really want to work in IT anymore? He’ll probably feel that he shouldn’t have turned down MIT. But it’s too late: if he wants to go to MIT now, he’ll need to transfer in, and transfer admissions are much more difficult than frosh admissions. </p>
<p>That speaks to another rational reason for choosing a high-prestige school as a risk-averse option. Since you don’t actually know what you’re going to want for your career, it’s better to choose a school that gives you the most options. If you choose MIT, you leave open the option of, well, becoming a consultant or banker. </p>
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<p>Well, I shouldn’t have used the term ‘dropped out’, as the far more salient choice would be to simply not attend in the first place. The story of Blake Ross is similar to the story of Bill Gates in that Gates risked very little in dropping out of Harvard to found Microsoft. If it failed, oh well, he would have simply returned to Harvard. I assume that if Ross’s company failed, he would have simply returned to Stanford. After all, he wasn’t actually expelled from Stanford. </p>
<p>The truly risky choice would be to not even apply to Stanford at all, or to turn it down once you’re in, in order to start a company. By doing so, you don’t know if you’ll ever get in again. </p>
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<p>I thought you just said that we’re engaging in a global waste of talent and money. </p>
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<p>If you can get in. What if you have mediocre grades? </p>
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<p>If you’re entrepreneurially oriented. Let’s face it: not everybody is. </p>
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<p>Heck, look at the reports from the economy now and notice all of the unemployed or underemployed new college graduates. Heck, just recently there was a thread here on the law school section of CC that discussed how some recent law school grads are manning a counter at Radio Shack or are cleaning houses. There are plenty of new college grads right now who are waiting tables or stocking shelves at the mall. </p>
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<p>Surely there are ways to worm your way around HR. Nevertheless, what you’re saying does not resolve the paradox that those who perform poorly in theory classes are unlikely to be hired for theory-oriented jobs, which then begs the question of why they were forced to learn the theory in the first place. </p>
<p>Besides, your story raises another paradox in and of itself. You just admitted that you entered a development job without any theory background. Presumably you did well there. So doesn’t that make you living proof that you don’t really need to know theory to be a decent developer, which is the exact opposite of your prior narrative? </p>
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<p>Or, like I said, just download GNUZebra. </p>
<p>And besides, I agree with a prior poster that it’s not really that expensive to buy some used Cisco routers and build your own home lab. Right now, you can buy perfectly good used routers on Ebay for ~$100, sometimes less. </p>
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<p>I’m simply saying that just because the ACM says something is so doesn’t make it so. </p>
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<p>So does that mean that we don’t have a global waste of talent and time? One could argue that forcing people to learn things they don’t actually use is part and parcel of a well-trained mind. </p>
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<p>And I used to do the same. You read the release notes, find out which new features are actually relevant to your environment, and then you deeply investigate them. I see that some new IP multicasting features have been released, but I don’t need to know that, so I don’t care. </p>
<p>Now, I agree that if in the rare chance we had to implement a new feature, I would learn about it. But how hard it that, really? New features aren’t that complicated. This ain’t rocket science here. </p>
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<p>It is indeed wasted if you never run OPS, which is what I had said. A mixed environment is (partially) using OPS. </p>
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<p>Nope, you just showed that my point is not moot. Find another school, you say? MIT’s high graduation rate proves that practically nobody is doing that. </p>
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<p>Then let me ask you the simple question: do you support having university libraries buy IT books or not? </p>
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<p>If might be both, it might not be. We don’t know. That’s the point. Think about it. </p>
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<p>And the merits of the case that, whether we like it or not, there are some CS graduates who end up being IT workers. The ACM seems to have no answers for them.</p>
<p>Wow, I think this thread must take the prize for long posts.</p>