Over-Educated, Yet Under-Qualified?

Over-Educated, Yet Under-Qualified?

As we get going on the latest mini-bounce-back on what looks like an extremely long road to economic recovery, there is some good news: It looks like the tech sector may have a quicker—and higher— bounce than other industries. We’re finally getting some news that shows solid, sustained job growth in all areas of IT, including software development.

Is this great news for you if you’re hiring coders but can’t pay them a lot yet, which might mean plucking fresh fruit off the college tree? Because I’ve been reading some worrisome stuff about the quality of education computer science grads are getting, and the heartburn it’s causing both the grads and potential employers.

A concerned father wrote in about his daughter’s lack of preparedness for the world of real work. He writes:

“My daughter was (unexpectedly) "good with computers" (to use her mother's words), but struggled to find a major in college at which she could excel. She preferred to hand code HTML rather than use an HTML editor (at the time, something like Dreamweaver), but wasn't one of those bright young people already writing programs in C by the time she was in junior high school. Still, she was "good with computers."

Imagine my surprise (and, as it turned out, her relief) that she could get a four-year undergraduate degree in "data processing" without having to write a single program in any language! All such assignments were routinely structured as group (team) exercises; it turned out that the groups who found a natural affinity for each other always had at least one member who could do all or most of the work for each assignment. There were no tests as I think both you and I understand the concept. Everything was a "project," and each team was responsible for its own effort.

To give you a sense of the assignments: The "lab" project for the Server Administration course she took consisted of little more than the groups separately installing Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 on an ordinary PC, either at school or at someone's home. That was it -- just install it. The instructor did not even check that the installation was done correctly; he simply took their word for it, apparently.”         

“This seems to be a trend,” the fact says that, “In an effort to widen and deepen my own skill set, I have had occasion to examine computer science course material available online from a number of top-tier colleges and some from the lower rungs. In most instances, what I remember from my nearly 4-year-old computer science education still places me far ahead of what they are now teaching.” And concludes: “We’ve had trouble finding qualified U.S. job applicants who want to do the work we need done. I wonder if there’s a connection.” 

“Woking,” a manager at a “Fortune 500 company,” is similarly unimpressed. “I have never interviewed a candidate right out of college who I would hire. No recent graduate that I have interviewed has had sufficient understanding of real-world problems to be useful to me, at least for the salary that the interviewees were expecting.” 

Woking gives a specific example: “Several years ago I interviewed candidates for an open position as a data modeler. None of the recent college graduates who had even covered Entity Relationship Diagramming in their programs had created a data model with more than five entities.” Woking says that they have better success hiring candidates with three to five years work experience, even if the applicant lacks a college degree. That’s a pretty damning statement. 

“Beney,” with 20-plus years experience and no IT degree, puts it succinctly: “Maybe if IT students had to actually write code rather than manipulate IDEs, they’d at least be able to handle the real world when they get out into the job market.” 

From “rsr,” who claims to be a former computer science professor: “Computer Science (and related computer program) enrollments have greatly declined, and schools are trying to reverse the trend. This includes making the programs easier so there will be fewer dropouts and it will be more attractive to students who don’t want to work hard but still get a degree.”