Sorry, College Grads, I Probably Won't Hire You

> Consider this example: Suppose you're sitting in a meeting with clients, and someone asks you how long a certain digital project is slated to take. Unless you understand the fundamentals of what engineers and programmers do, unless you're familiar enough with the principles and machinations of coding to know how the back end of the business works, any answer you give is a guess and therefore probably wrong.

Even when you do understand the fundamentals of what engineers and programmers do, any answer is still usually a guess and probably wrong.

Yet another article exhorting everyone to 'learn to code'. Which misses the mark. It's true that there are a large amount of tech jobs. It's also rare that people, who would otherwise be uninterested in technology, become useful programmers. If there was a suddenly an overwhelming demand for workers who could do calculus all day, that doesn't mean a larger contingent of people would be suited that that type of work. Additionally employers are discovering that the old trope about 'all kids know computers these days' was an unfounded assumption. Sure 'they all grew up with the internet', but people grew up around cars and there are plenty of terrible drivers.

The real issue (which the author touches on) is that new graduates often don't have any inherently valuable skills at anything. If you can solve expensive problems demonstrably, you'll do fine even if you don't know python.

Sorry, Kirk, but you probably won't be hiring me.

The RAND institute determined that Americans are avoiding PhD degrees in science and engineering because other professions pay better, offer more job security, and have vastly lower attrition rates[1].

I'll be happy to prescribe you antibiotics, straighten your kid's teeth, or send you a threatening letter that you violated my patent on interpreting data obtained through a web service, though, and I'll extort a lot more money out of you that way than you ever would have paid me to write code.

- Elite American College Grad

[1] http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html

A little bit of knowledge is maybe worse than not knowing at all. I'd rather have someone just say "I don't know" than try to make a decision based on a few weeks playing with Python tutorials. Dabbling a bit in a couple of languages like this article suggests is about as far from programming, or understanding software development, as playing with toy cars is from Formula 1 racing or designing engines.

All of these "you must learn to code" articles are encouraging a dilettantism that is going to plague serious programmers. Why aren't we telling college students to learn just a little genetic engineering so they can find jobs in the biomedical industry?

Badly written ("the machinations of coding"?) and not well thought out.

"... a system that has eight times as many high-school football teams as high schools that teach advanced placement computer-science classes."

Yes, but high school football is taken seriously. A coach who taught football the way some teachers teach AP computer science would be heading for an 0-10 season and a firing. This sounds flippant, but the underlying point is dead serious: you cannot judge a school by its published curriculum, without either observing the work done or talking to the persons who have gone through the school.

The guy who wrote this article is absolutely clueless. Does he really think you can understand the fundamentals of computer science by taking a few courses or reading a few book? This is absolute nonsense!

It takes years of hard work and studying just to understand the fundamentals of computer science, and then lots of experience to become a competent software engineer.

The main reason there is so much terrible software is because there are too many incompetent software developers that don't know the first thing about crafting well designed software.

rebuttal: Sorry, Digital Ad Exec, I Probably Don’t Want To Work For You

http://typicalprogrammer.com/?p=175