I wasn’t a Computer Science (CS) major in college. A matter a fact I was a Finance Major. I’m still not really sure why I chose to be a Finance major over CS. Perhaps it was the picture that was painted for me, racks on racks on racks and having so much money I could chop up a Maybach. Looking back, it was really a naive decision. While I studied how to use the derivative market, I also became obsessed with web development and I joined the guild of self-taught developers.
As a child I was always interested in computers. I have pictures of me sitting in my dads office at EDS in front of computer at the age of 20 months. I wrote my first program in first grade on an Apple IIGS with LOGOwriter. I took Visual Basic, Web Authoring and CISCO systems in high school. College rolls around and I choose what? Finance? You fool.
I think there is a pretty big problem here. I ponder why more people aren’t choosing a career in software engineering and taking the CS route in college. To be honest, choosing a career in software engineering is one of the most stable career choices there is. Arguably more stable than nurses or doctors if you ask Ray Kurzweil. I think educators are doing a piss poor job at selling what you can do with a CS degree.
Higher Education
My first “real” job was at a well respected university, where I worked as a Front-end Developer and User Experience Designer. Although I was not an “academic”, I did attend some internal meetings in which we brainstormed ideas for what the university should accomplish in the next 5 years, what programs should be modified or created, and how to attract new students. It was weird to see academic department heads fight solely for the advancement of their department and not really thinking about the future or students.
When it was my turn to express my ideas, a lot of academics really didn’t understand what I was talking about. My ideas were largely based on changing the structure of academics from theory followed by application to application followed by theory. I think it’s important to sell what you can do with a degree up front by showing what the real life application of that degree can be. For instance, the intro to CS class should not teach you theory like the Turing machine and creating a Fibonnaci sequencer, it should be a very basic class that talks about what you can do with a CS degree and how some of today’s most sought after employers (Facebook, Google, and Apple) came to be. In other words make it look sexy and build passion for the subject matter.
Another suggestion that I had was to make programs extremely cross-disciplined. Business Administration people should have minor in Computer Science, Computer Science people should have a minor in Business Administration. These 2 disciplines are so tightly coupled that they should understand and respect each other right out of college. Same goes for Designers. I feel this will change the business world greatly. Instead of bickering over what the “marketing people” want and complaining about “stupid engineers”, we can just build good stuff.
Quick Thought On Electives And General Education Classes
Electives and general education classes are supposed to make you a more rounded person, but in reality those are the courses that make you say “Why fuck do I have to take this class.” Stop with the bullshit electives and geneds, start making students take classes that will give them a better shot at finding a job.
Computer Science FTW
I know that I am really biased about this subject, but I should be. A lot of smart people need jobs and the country as a whole needs to innovate more. I believe that computer science is the answer to some of this countries problems.
It’s the academics responsibility to take a step back and start selling their program. Invite high profile speakers, head up a student start-up initiative, host hack-a-thons, do SOMETHING that sounds cool, explain the theory on a just in time basis. If your a CS academic and your worried about department money, stop worrying about it and build something that will help fund your endeavors, you’re an engineer.