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Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

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Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#111

Post by SkyPuncher »

stale2002 wrote: post #67
paxys wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What schools? I don't know of any such degree at MIT, CMU, Berkeley, UIUC or any other top school. At best it will be a single course or some added certification to your degree, and even then they will teach you software engineering processes, not Node.js and React.

I went to CMU (econ major/CS minor) , and we absolutely had such a degree. It was called Information Systems, and generally taught people the skills needed to become a web developer. Skills such as front end developement, Ruby on rails, ect, as well as even some mobile dev electives I think. Unfortunately, even though it was one of the best such programs in the world, and turned out graduates who made 80k+, it was st…

Information Systems is NOT an engineering degree.

The problem for most schools is an engineering degree is a specific, formally defined degree. It seems that ABET has recently updated their Software Engineering criteria, but for decades a software engineering degree required extensive curriculum in physical science.

Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#112

Post by taneq »

donw wrote: post #75
mreome wrote: post #27

Isn't this just observing the fact that college isn't the same as work experience, and only provides the base skill-set needed to enter enter the industry? "When you join a startup, there’s a lot of emphasis on the design of the application, reusability and clean code, and the ability to conduct and undergo code reviews, as well as the ability to think of and build systems that can scale based on users and geography"…

Candidly, I would say that college does not even provide the base skill-set. In the Real World(tm) of building software, you will work on systems built over years by other people, many of which have long since left the project or company. The level of integration tests, unit tests, documentation, and automation will depend entirely on the culture of the organization. Databases, low-level I/O, sorting operations, and…

> Candidly, I would say that college does not even provide the base skill-set.

This is true. The things of value (from an industry POV) that you actually learn at university are:

1) You learn to learn. You learn to pick up an entirely new area of knowledge (albeit sometimes based on prior learning) in six months to the point where you're proficient enough to pass an exam in it.

2) You learn to work to sometimes-unreasonable deadlines with minimal supervision (at least, if you graduate you've probably learned this).

3) You learn to stick with something for 3+ years even when it stops being fun.

4) You meet a bunch of people who form the start of your professional network.

Anything else you pick up is a bonus, and your first 3-6 months on the job are where you actually learn what you need for that job.

Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#113

Post by taneq »

mailslot wrote: post #109
donw wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Candidly, I would say that college does not even provide the base skill-set. In the Real World(tm) of building software, you will work on systems built over years by other people, many of which have long since left the project or company. The level of integration tests, unit tests, documentation, and automation will depend entirely on the culture of the organization. Databases, low-level I/O, sorting operations, and…

Conversely, too much practical experience can lead to a lack of fundamental understanding, innovation, and helplessness. I can’t stand it when an engineer wastes hours looking for a library, instead of even considering actually writing code themselves. Many just can’t because they’re so accustomed to glueing together other people’s code. Of course, I’ve worked with academic types that can never stop theorizing and ac…

> too much practical experience can lead to a lack of fundamental understanding

That's too little theoretical background, not too much practical experience. If you take someone with a good grasp of the basics, you will never remove that grasp by giving them more practical experience.

Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#114

Post by SkyPuncher »

zaphod12 wrote: post #21

I didn't even know schools had 'Software Engineering programs. I've met plenty of Computer Science grads, though. It's truly different. Engineering is more like trade school, Computer Science is foundational. I'll probably hire you with a CS degree, but I know I'm going to need to teach you how to be a software engineer.

That's because for decades any type of "engineering" degree required the curriculum to include extensive physical science - thermodynamics, statics, advanced physics, etc. Pretty much a waste of time for an entirely virtual field.

Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#115

Post by gbacon »

stale2002 wrote: post #67
paxys wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What schools? I don't know of any such degree at MIT, CMU, Berkeley, UIUC or any other top school. At best it will be a single course or some added certification to your degree, and even then they will teach you software engineering processes, not Node.js and React.

I went to CMU (econ major/CS minor) , and we absolutely had such a degree. It was called Information Systems, and generally taught people the skills needed to become a web developer. Skills such as front end developement, Ruby on rails, ect, as well as even some mobile dev electives I think. Unfortunately, even though it was one of the best such programs in the world, and turned out graduates who made 80k+, it was st…

Information Systems programs are commonly business degrees. At CMU, it is offered by the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences[0]. In aerospace and defense, some employers and even the government do not value IS, MIS, or CIS degrees as highly because they are not considered engineering degrees like engineering proper, math, computer science, or physics. In those industries, the way to make up the difference is to complete an advanced degree from an accredited institution.

Whether academia is responding to signals from industry, vice versa, or neither is an interesting theoretical question. In practical terms, one might argue that better route for those industries at least is to choose a degree with higher perceived value.

[0]: http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/schools-colleges/dietrichco...

Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#116

Post by mike00632 »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #47
geebee wrote: post #10

Really? Cause it seems, based on my interviews, startups couldn't care less about my background in leading customers through beta demos, collaborating with scientists, participating in sales presentations and outreach, writing documentation, or any of the issues described here. They do seem awful interested in whether I can find all matching subtrees in a binary tree, though. Which, now that I think about, is the one…

The thing about all of those skills is they are all soft skills, that can be taught quickly on the job to the right candidates. Whereas a deep ability to solve a technical problem cannot be taught in a reasonable amount of time to most people. Asking someone to find the matching subtrees in a binary tree might not be the best interview question, and to some extent it is kind of trivia for "did you grok your CS educat…

There is the old adage, "you can teach technical skills but you can't teach personality."

Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#117

Post by ghaff »

ericd wrote: post #82
ghaff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took the 6.001 edX courses a while back. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in Python--actually broken in 2 parts for edX. Yeah, it came across to me that the expectation was that you'd learn to program mostly outside of the course. Or, really, that you already had a reasonable grasp on the basic concepts. Otherwise I think that course would feel to most people like being tossed into the deep end of t…

Yeah, that was a pretty common feeling in 6.001, especially among those who hadn't done much programming in high school. At the time, it was taught in Scheme (a Lisp), which no one I knew taking it had any experience in, so everyone was on sort of equal footing there, at least. And more generally, it seemed to be a pretty common approach there to throw students into the deep end and let them figure it out - people li…

Yeah. Course 2. '79. :-)

There's probably an expectation these days that students have some degree of exposure to computers. When I took an intro to computing course (FORTRAN) it was pretty much no expectations. But times have changed.

And I found 6.001x useful. But then I had a lot of experience with computers even if not programming full-time professionally.

Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#118

Post by mattmcknight »

dentemple wrote: post #8

This is a valid reason to consider a trade school model ("coding bootcamps") to fill this niche. Let Computer Science programs focus on the Computer "Science", while trade schools focus on fulfilling direct company needs. Of course, we need a _ton_ more oversight involved to ensure that bootcamps are actually graduating people with a job-ready skillset.

The article is talking about "Software Engineering" not Computer Science.

Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#119

Post by cannonedhamster »

digsy wrote: post #84
mr_tristan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why some think that a university degree should mean you're ready to be an effective professional engineer from day 1, let alone year 3. I swear this is another facet of agism: some think that the 22 year old with a 4 year degree is nearly as valuable as the 40 year old professional, just needs some language experience and wham! Ready to go!

>I'm not sure why some think that a university degree should mean you're ready to be an effective professional engineer from day 1, let alone year 3. Maybe its an excuse and the companies who say that just dont want to pay for training.

Ding ding ding. This is just silicon valley living in their v rockstar bubble again. They don't act to have to pay for top talent, they don't want to grow it, but then complain that qualified candidates don't just spring from the womb as willing to be underpaid experienced coders.

Re: Software Engineering Grads Lack the Skills Startups Need

#120

Post by mattmcknight »

paxys wrote: post #41
all_blue_chucks wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most major schools offer degrees called Software Engineering. Most Computer Science students are looking for careers in Software Engineering. So ultimately it is called computer science for the wrong reason.

What schools? I don't know of any such degree at MIT, CMU, Berkeley, UIUC or any other top school. At best it will be a single course or some added certification to your degree, and even then they will teach you software engineering processes, not Node.js and React.

Maybe not top schools, but schools that graduate a lot of students have software engineering degrees. That's why IEEE is talking about it.

Cal Poly https://csc.calpoly.edu/programs/bs-software-engineering/ San Jose State https://bsse.sjsu.edu/ Penn State https://behrend.psu.edu/school-of-engineering/academic-progr... Univ Washington https://www.uwb.edu/bscsse Univ Houston UT- Dallas UC Irvine etc.

Agree though that the Soft Eng degree is differs from CS largely by dealing with process, not technology. The first versions of the SWEBOK were pretty terribly biased towards a waterfall process.

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