back to article UK needs comp sci grads, so why isn't it hiring them?

Computer science degrees need to have a clearer focus on making grads more employable. In fact, according to a report into the low employment rates among students, institutions offering comp-sci courses are so terrible at it that employers look to holders of other degrees to fill the comp-sci-shaped hole. Unemployment among CS …

  1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Computer "science" grads need to be less employable

    If computer science is going to be one (hint - if the subject has the word science, it isn't one) then it needs to cover fundamentals rather than making sure that 2016's graduates have 3years experience of Visual Studio 2019.

    The reason we hire other STEM grads is that, for the most part, CS grads are the least capable (ie thick) students who took CS because they had a computer at home and they thought it would get them a job.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Computer "science" grads need to be less employable

      Agreed, I have a CS degree, and I am sure to add the robotics & intelligent machines suffix for the course I took... The basic CS degree was filled with terrible students, yet I would hire them over many other nations Masters graduates....

    2. Lee D Silver badge

      Re: Computer "science" grads need to be less employable

      I'm a mathematician, according to my degree, with what the Americans would call a "minor" in CS. Yet I have a career exclusively in IT on the basis of that.

      The CS students on the course when I took my degree were - to put it mildly - bog useless with computers. It very much was "the course that my mum sent me on because I'm 'good with computers' she said". I mean, I was helping MSc's with their minimax algorithm for their "computer draughts AI player" - they were in their fourth year, I was in my first, and they needed my help. And I spotted bugs, advised on their code and could see their mistakes from miles away.

      - They don't code.

      - They don't manage systems.

      - They don't research anything beyond what PC World sell.

      - They'd never tried any alternative OS (our uni was very good at having Windows NT and Linux dual-boot on EVERY machine in the CompSci department - I was the only person I ever saw boot into Linux, and definitely the only one to do it by preference and as a matter of course).

      - They'd never installed an OS

      - They had no idea about the basics of networking or hardware (Not a big deal in CS terms, but it just indicates that you've never played with hardware ever - I had to install one guy's CDROM drive for him, ffs!)

      and - scariest of all - all the theory eluded them too. Being a mathematician, logic, graph theory and coding theory were just second nature and not taxing at all, but the CS guys "didn't see the point" (er... networking, encryption, data verification and transmission? You know, all that "sciencey" bit of CS?).

      The "Introduction to Programming" course (2 years long) was in Java. No word of exaggeration, I turned up to the first lecture and then handed in EVERY assignment remotely without attending a single other session. Sometimes I didn't even bother to test it (literally, one-liners of programs). People were just that dumb on it that I stood out from the rest. I'd never touched Java to that point, but, come on, if you've ever programmed then it was just a case of Java For Dummies or whatever reference equivalent for your skill level.

      CS was very much lacking and the bits of CS that mattered were mostly mathematical and all the CS guys dropped out or really struggled. The "computing" side (as I like to distinguish) was completely absent - as you'd expect - and they didn't even know how to do those bits. They'd barely picked up a computer beyond games (the only conversations I remember with others were about games and/or emulators) and they had little interest.

      Needless to say, when the alumni pages are published, almost none of them work in IT (except maybe the marketing or sales side of it).

      The problem has been around a long time (I started uni last century!) but it's still present in even state and private schools. Computing (using a computer) has blurred with CS (building, analysing, improving, researching, etc. computers, data, networks and associated phenomena) to the point that everyone thinks they can do it and teachers think that a "good with computers" kid should study CS and have a career in IT. It's just not true. Most of them I wouldn't leave alone with a folder of files to sort. And they then became the teachers to that next generation, so the problem has only worsened.

      In 15 years of school-IT, I know one teacher who programmed in FORTRAN and COBOL (trained as a mathematician), one who could confidently program, explain, build and test circuits, logic diagrams, memory buses, network algorithms, packets, etc. (trained as a industrial control guy originally), and my brother who could teach IT quite competently (mathematician). The CS guys are literally nowhere to be seen.

      Hell, my friend who works in datacentres for names I guarantee you all have heard of (including "The Big G") has no CS qualifications at all, nor do most of the people around them. CS people are either CS academia for live, or don't go into CS/IT at all, in general. For most, it's literally just a "computing" degree.

      1. Jay 2

        Re: Computer "science" grads need to be less employable

        Interesting that you mention MSc.

        I did a BSc CompSci many years ago, and the university also offered an MSc IT which was to most purposes a one year conversion course. To my cynical mind I always thought that many people on that course had realised their existing degree was getting them nowhere, and that "getting into computers" was a good way forward.

        One slight problem was that the MSc lot would also be in the same lectures as second/thrid year BSc, which was slightly entertaining when they asked some rather basic questions. To be honest I did feel a bit sorry for some of them, as they were a bit out of their depth.

        The flip side is that a year or so later when on a milk round bash for one of the big consultancies (who bigged up their computing credentials), one of the recent grads doing some of the recruiting was one of the more unknowlegdeable MScs we'd encountered. That was an eye opener. I did somewhat cynically wonder if the fact they had an MSc (no matter what the subject) had trumped a BSc somewhere along the line. But probably more truthfully the grads helping with the recruiting were usually more favourable toward people in their old departments/facalties. Plus they were alll a bit under the weather having maybe having a little too much to drink the evening before...

        1. breakfast Silver badge

          Re: Computer "science" grads need to be less employable

          I did an MSc conversion course because it seemed to me as though Philosophy was probably not going to pay the bills.

          I loved it and found computer science suited me well, although it was a really steep learning curve, but in the group in my year, I think maybe three or four of us came out of the course actually knowing how to program to a practical level, which would be a quarter of the group at best. Everyone else was getting by on sharing code, which was not entirely discouraged by the department as far as I can tell. I suspect I sometimes got worse marks for having written my own code than a lot of the class got after copying one of the other experienced programmers' work.

          I do wonder how many of that group are still cutting code twenty years later. Not that many of us, I suspect.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Computer "science" grads need to be less employable

      I wouldn't change anything about my CS degree. It covered everything comprehensibly, architecture, algorithms, graphics (theory and programming GPU), cybernetics, security/encryption and all the maths to support everything, without explicitly teaching programming at all. Yes a lot of people turned up with zero programming experience, but they were expected to bring themselves up to speed by reading between the lines.

      Unlike the laughable Microsoft propaganda that passes for A-level CS, we mostly got free choice of "the right tool for the job" in later courses.

      Would not want my experience diluted to make it more corporate friendly. However this article does explain why shit-stain companies in the UK keep getting hacked.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Computer "science" grads need to be less employable

      "If computer science is going to be one ... then it needs to cover fundamentals rather than making sure that 2016's graduates have 3years experience of Visual Studio 2019."

      Indeed - the good courses teach the fundamentals of the discipline, not how to use a specific thing. Unfortunately, employers seem to want fully-formed employees that don't require training, or they did when I graduated (e.g. trainee programmer requiring 2 years relevant experience, lol)...

    5. stu 4

      Re: Computer "science" grads need to be less employable

      quite. we got a new grad in last week.

      I was talking him through something on linux - ok type 'ls'.

      what's 'ls' ?

      christ....

  2. Hstubbe

    uk recruiters

    Ah, this explains why i get so many uk recruiters trying to lure me to London lately. Good thing that will probably stop soon with the brexit..

    1. ThomH

      Re: uk recruiters

      ... on account of the deep, long recession that would inevitably follow?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: uk recruiters

        I thought we were already in a deep, long recession? Perhaps austerity became the new normal...

    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: uk recruiters

      Hate to disappoint you, but the bookies (that is, people who actually stand to lose money if they get the prediction wrong) are offering odds that look more like a 2:1 victory for staying in. The only people predicting an even fight are the pollsters, who hardly have a stellar record in such things.

      1. ThomH

        Re: uk recruiters

        I think the 2008 recession ended in 2009, but then double dipped in 2011, which is when unemployment peaked. The country has had positive growth since 2013 and continuously declining unemployment figures since 2011. But possibly we're involved in a practical example of the difference between the formal technical definition of a recession and the average economic wellbeing, rendering the issue moot?

        I'm also aware that:

        * the pound has dropped substantially versus the dollar during the uncertainty about Brexit; and

        * several large companies have sworn they'll leave the UK if the UK leaves the EU.

        I therefore believe that if we left the UK then:

        * the uncertainty would increase — who are we going to be able to agree new trade deals with, what will they say and when? — and therefore the pound would likely drop further; and

        * at least some of those companies probably mean it.

        Therefore I stand by my assessment that a Brexit would lead to a[nother] painful recession.

        I'd have dared imagined that the split was:

        * Leavers: the pain would be a temporary market reaction that would last only until Britain had re-established its links with the world, at which point it could become stronger because all applicable regulations and decisions would consider the needs of the UK only; versus

        * Remainers: the pain would be part of a market correction that revalued the UK according to its worth if not part of a larger trade bloc; the UK would subsequently remain weakened because it would not be a member of any group with the soft power and negotiating weight to get good deals for it. Furthermore, 50% of trade is with the EU and the EU would likely seek to punish the UK for its departure as a symbolic gesture, therefore ties to the mainland would be negatively affected for at least a generation.

        ... not so much that anybody really thinks that leaving wouldn't cause at least immediate pain.

        1. DavCrav

          Re: uk recruiters

          "I think the 2008 recession ended in 2009, but then double dipped in 2011, which is when unemployment peaked."

          I believe, although I cannot be bothered to check, that when revised figures came out that second recession did not, in fact, happen. Even though you might have thought it did shortly after you lived in it. It's all very strange.

  3. cmannett85

    Do we have any clues as to why the Comp Sci courses aren't up to scratch? Too much/little theory, too much/little practical skills, no development tools knowledge, no development methodology knowledge, no testing ability, etc.... ?

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Because the employers expect to hire a new grad for about the same wage as the window cleaner, drop them in a production system have them producing code on day one.

      The same way that Rolls Royce hires mech eng graduates and has them building jet engines as soon as they get their overall.

      1. Naselus

        "Because the employers expect to hire a new grad for about the same wage as the window cleaner, drop them in a production system have them producing code on day one."

        Lots of this. There's wildly unreasonable expectations from industry, who don't want to spend a penny on training for their newest employees and demand that they're basically be as good as an applicant with 5 years at the coalface... though obviously, at half-to-a-quarter of the salary because of the 'learning opportunity'.

        Um... if you're knocking off half their salary for the experience gain, then you need to lower your standards a bit. In mature professions, like architecture, law or engineering, they expect to have to meet the universities halfway. Commercial practices spend years training their staff and organize huge CPD sessions for them. IT departments and dev shops, conversely, see little reason to offer any professional support despite the fact that IT changes far, far, far faster than law or buildings, and then blame universities for not teaching first years technology that won't be invented until 3 years later.

        On the flip side, we keep telling CS grads that their 'expected starting wage' straight out of uni is about 30k a year. Then they actually hit the job market and find the only job that'll touch them with a barge pole is Junior Javascript Front End Developer, sitting in a cupboard adjusting the pixel offset of the OK button for 18 grand a year and learning absolutely nothing for the first 3 years of the job. Which they naturally turn their nose up at. In London, where they actually can get 30k a year, they quickly discover that this just about affords 365 packets of supernoodles and the rent on a garden shed in Hackney.

        1. Mike Allum

          Very true. In the last 10 years or so we've seen the "tick box" mentality come to the fore with some companies requiring candidates to have *every* skill that the job needs. You see certain jobs circulating for months around the job agencies.

          When the right candidate turns up then some of these places don't want to pay for all of that valuable hard-won experience. At one employer I was told (as a contractor) on day one "We are paying you a lot of money so we have high expectations for your performance." - yet I was on less than I'd been earning 10 years previously and it certainly wasn't me driving the Maserati in the car park.

          It's ironic that there is much moaning about skills shortages but there is very little commitment to ongoing training. Excuses like lack of budget, market unpredictability, and the like may find willing ears in the boardroom but they ring rather hollow in the wider context.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        You could substitute "employers" in the first statement with "Rolls-Royce" and it would be true for the design software, unfortunately. However they do a more competent job that most of the consultants they hire in my experience...

  4. Jon Massey

    Science?

    Does the UK /really/ need more computer scientists or does it need more software engineers?

    1. 8Ace

      Re: Science?

      Sorry but there is no such thing as a software engineer, just like you won't find car doctors either. Engineering is a discipline, the state of most current software products shows exactly why no sw dev can be called an engineer

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Meh

        Re: Science?

        why no sw dev can be called an engineer

        The software developers who engineer the fly-by-wire controls for airliners might disagree. Safety related software requires a colossal amount of discipline.

        1. Peter Hawkins

          Re: Science?

          "The software developers who engineer the fly-by-wire controls for airliners might disagree. Safety related software requires a colossal amount of discipline."

          I think you'll find that those who are producing this sort of software are either engineers themselves or working closely with, or under engineers. Engineers can do software, but I agree completely that software developers are not engineers. The typical software development cycle of 1. get it working, 2. get it out there, 3. fix it - runs completely against all that defines engineering.

          1. mrtom84

            Re: Science?

            Currently reading "Building Micro services" and the author states that if building a bridge were like software development, when we were halfway to the other bank we would realise it was made of sand, not granite, and we would be told were actually building a railway bridge rather than a footbridge. Made me chuckle

          2. Vic

            Re: Science?

            The typical software development cycle of 1. get it working, 2. get it out there, 3. fix it - runs completely against all that defines engineering

            Whilst that might be far too common these days, don't tar us all with the same brush.

            When I cut my teeth, "embedded" meant that your board would be welded into a metal box and thrown in the sea for a year. If you had a bug - you might only find out about it at the end of the trial, which would mean the whole job had been pointless. We did quite a bit of design and quite a bit of testing back in those days...

            I frequently marvel at what self-proclaimed professionals will stoop to. I've seen code go out the door because some PHB thinks it is better to "deliver" on time rather than deliver something that stands any chance of working. Having been the recipient of such utter shite, I am firmly of the opinion that dumping crap on a customer tends to mean you don't get invited back.

            Vic.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Science?

          Close here. All of the software engineering involved things that injure or kill people or make things go boom. Some airfield involved. Screwing up would result in my personal imprisonment or worse, "which concentrates the mind wonderfully."

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Science?

        " Engineering is a discipline, the state of most current software products shows exactly why no sw dev can be called an engineer"

        Yes, we know that. Which means, if you think about it, that Mr Massey has made a very good point.

        1. 8Ace

          Re: Science?

          "Yes, we know that. Which means, if you think about it, that Mr Massey has made a very good point."

          I agree completely however if we want real software engineers they must be taught to be engineers, to approach problems as engineers do, to use reasoning as engineers do. The main issue is that compared to real trained and qualified engineers, a large number of sw devs at the moment are just children playing with toys.

      3. cantankerous swineherd

        Re: Science?

        absolutely correct, with the honourable exception of some avionics and railway programming. the rest of it is blacksmithing, not engineering. witness the daily diet of internet fuckups, now extending to the global payment system.

        I might add I include myself in the blacksmithing category...

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Science?

        "Sorry but there is no such thing as a software engineer, just like you won't find car doctors either. Engineering is a discipline, the state of most current software products shows exactly why no sw dev can be called an engineer"

        Agreed on engineering being a discipline requiring a rigorous approach, but the rest of your argument appears to be based upon conflating "a large number/proportion" with "all", and is false.

      5. Mike Allum

        Re: Science?

        Software engineering is to writing code as civil engineering is to bricklaying.

        Describing someone as a software engineer is saying that alongside their dev. or coding skills they will have in their skillset things like requirements capture, design, test, metrics generation, fault analysis, procedure creation, etc.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Science?

      The answer to your question is

      NEITHER

      Just look at what Lloyds Bank is doing with their IT Dept. (Announced today)

      Get yourself and Indian Name and a Degree and you might have a chance of a job in the Black Hole of Kolkata.

      The recent CS grads we've empoyed were to be brutally honest, shite. Not a clue about problem solving yet could talk for hours about agile and how brilliant it was for everything under the sun. They failed to recognise that we were actually using Agile and not waterfall. The comments earlier about installing an OS, configuring it (and importantly securing it) were totally beyond them.

      Showing them the Servers in the the backup DC was an education in its own right. "Why aren'y you using AWS or Azure?"

      Because dummy, the information on these boxes runs a billion ££££ industrial complex and if some numpty digs up the network link with a JCB the resulting explsion could make Flixborough seem like a family firework display. He kept on trying to get u interested in Azure until he left to go work on Web Pages. No ambition.

      1. Efros

        Re: Science?

        I remember seeing a recruitment ad for Flixborough from the early 70s and I quote: "Flixborough, the most rapidly expanding chemical plant in Europe.", how prophetic!

    3. DailyLlama
      Facepalm

      Re: Science?

      To be honest, it'd be nice if we had more users who knew how to turn a computer on and who didn't ask where the any key was...

  5. ArrZarr Silver badge

    From my experience as a Comp Sci Student and having given the subject quite some thought in the past:

    1. Technology's progress makes a lot of the skills the course was designed for obselete even as its being taught

    2. Good Comp Sci courses lean heavily towards software engineering as opposed to straight coding and many people straight up don't enjoy it. Only one person out of my group of friends (10 or so) actually has a job writing code.

    3. Coding isn't hard - anybody with a mindset that successfully acquire a STEM degree will be able to learn the skills sufficiently quickly on a job as long as they aren't designing the program, only writing code

    4. The modules I was subjected to that were supposed to increase employability were a joke, designed by management types and delivered by management types with no substance (actually, now that I look back on it, those modules fit perfectly with working life)

    1. Sir Alien

      This seems to be the problem these days. Courses seem to have bureaucracy built in now and becoming more a training program to tick a box. I did something at the OU regarding their computing course and although some of the course is good, others parts are purely a waste of time and don't add any "engineering/science" benefits at all.

      I am considering doing something else, elsewhere, mainly for the fact that I actually enjoy studying new things but would also be a good bit of updating on my knowledge. I wonder if brick & mortar Universities do part-time/distance courses.

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Meh

      3. Coding isn't hard

      Coding well is. Or at least requires knowledge that can only be built up over time. There's a lot more to good coding than simply understanding a programming language and knowing how to string logical steps together.

      1. ArrZarr Silver badge

        I should clarify - coding to the deplorable standards that most Small to medium businesses require isn't hard. Badly written code that runs slowly can be given a bigger box to run on at less cost than getting somebody to spend more time developing the software. Once the software is completely unfit for purpose, you can then get another intern to write something with different goalposts.

        Coding a resilient piece of software that works consistently and quickly is bloody difficult.

        1. jasper pepper

          See wot I mean

          quickly if bloody difficult.

          Quite, attention to detail.

          1. ArrZarr Silver badge
            FAIL

            Re: See wot I mean

            At what point did I say I was any good at coding well?

            Test > Fail

            Test > Fail

            Kludge > Fail

            Worse Kludge > Success

            Next problem?

            Test > Fail...

            1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

              Re: See wot I mean

              The first four of those steps are the basis of most scientific discovery. Step 5 is then "figure out why the worse kludge worked" and is only performed if you have the luxury of time to learn. If your workplace (or university) doesn't give you time for step 5, you need to find one that does.

      2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        @AndrueC

        Most people can bash out "chopsticks" on a piano. Few people can play Rachmaninov. Same with coding, I think.

        Disclaimer: I have ZERO qualifications in Comp.Sci

      3. cantankerous swineherd

        you need a specification. pretty straightforward after that. coding will be automated ere long.

        1. Vic

          coding will be automated ere long.

          People were saying that when I started out in computing.

          Yes, I am an old git. Why do you ask?

          Vic.

    3. theModge

      I quite concur with your point 4: I too had to do a selection of pointless modules aimed at improving employability, which failed so to do.

      But as @Jon Massey also said above, I'm not convinced we do need millions of computer scientists. Some, yes. Many software engineers and a whole panoply of "IT types" in various guises, very few of which actually need to be computer scientists.

      Of course technologies go out of date rapidly, however, I would suggest that a *good* course would teach skills that can be applied regardless of the technology employed.

      1. ArrZarr Silver badge

        "I would suggest that a *good* course would teach skills that can be applied regardless of the technology employed."

        My course tried - after working on getting everybody up to speed. Before that point, phrases like "I didn't realise there would be so much maths involved" could be overheard from those with IT A-levels and they had to be taught the basics of coding as opposed to how to be a software engineer. Even after that point, laziness tended to win out and the concept of getting the program working only being 50% of the work fell by the wayside.

        My counter to your point lies in the fact that the universally applicable skills have to be taught in relation to the practical skills and leads to a necessary loss of abstraction to form a coherent whole.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      From my experience as a Comp Sci Student and having given the subject quite some thought in the past....:

      Perhaps the solution is for college based degrees in Comp Sci to end, and have only degree level apprenticeships? The employers provide hands on experience in a real work environment, and steer the academic input, the colleges provide that academic rigour and content (stopping the employers simply using apprentices as cheap labour). And the students get a degree debt free, and graduate with real employment experience. As the students are essentially chosen by the employers, this might also eliminate many of the dossers who commentards appear to believe are a good chunk of Comp Sci students at the moment.

      Clearly the employers WILL be using the apprentices as cheap labour, and that's part of the Faustian pact, but if prospective apprentices don't like that idea, there's always the prospect of accruing £40k of debt and a full time Comp Sci degree from the University of Derby.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "The employers provide hands on experience in a real work environment, and steer the academic input"

        Do you really think that employers would be ready to step up to that plate when they can just hire in cheap labour from abroad?

      2. Vic

        The employers provide hands on experience in a real work environment, and steer the academic input

        You're assuming that all participating employers will steer the student in the right direction; I would suggest that a significant number of companies have significant problems with rectal-cubital discrimination...

        Vic.

    5. JimmyPage Silver badge
      Stop

      er....

      1. Technology's progress makes a lot of the skills the course was designed for obselete even as its being taught

      Not sure about that. In the main we're still running on a Von Neumann architecture.

      I think the problem is there are very few "Computer Scientists" of the past 20 years who would understand that statement based on their degree. Although they are probably a whizz with Dreamweaver (or whatever the cool kids are using this year).

  6. Martin
    Happy

    Some things never change...

    When I graduated back in 1976, I had a degree in Mathematical Physics, rather than Computer Science. During my first couple of years, I found that new graddies with CS degrees frequently had to spend the first few months of their career unlearning the bad habits they'd been taught at uni.

    There were some exceptions - Hatfield Poly in particular produced excellent CS graduates, if my memory serves me right.

    1. youmiserablegit

      Re: Some things never change...

      As a graduate of Hatfield Poly., as it was in those days, I totally agree with your last sentence.

  7. BoldMan

    Employers don't want comp sci graduates, they want code monkeys who they can pay peanuts...

    My degree is in Astrophysics for gods sake, but I've been in the IT business for 30 years doing everything from Analyst/Programmer (remember those?), technical author, trainer, tech support and now Senior Developer and frequently the skill I've needed most was understanding how to negotiate the bollocks of office and corporate politics - no Comp Sci course teaches you that!

    1. DropBear

      Ah yes, the aforementioned "soft skills"... perhaps we should drop all that useless, dusty coding stuff from the curriculum and replace it with team building exercises and "missing chair" games...

  8. ThomH

    The opposite happened for me

    The global financial crisis so strongly affected what I was otherwise doing that I switched back into technology — software engineering, specifically — by necessity and by virtue of a computer science degree then five years old. It was one of the mainly theoretical ones though, which helped, and I segued via a few months of self publication, giving myself time to brush up on the latest specifics.

    So the degree gave me the knowledge and aptitude to adopt the career, even several years after the fact.

  9. kmac499

    CS vs IT = Architects vs Civil Engineers

    In any general discipline you need a few people at the 'Apex' of the discipline knocking out ideas new paradigms etc. These people should be kept away from reality as much as possible but they are essential. Once their work is done and they are off drinking their Unicorn Milk Lattes. The rest of us can come along and build the bloody thing..

    The best example I can think of Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers

    1. Cynical Observer
      Trollface

      Re: CS vs IT = Architects vs Civil Engineers

      Upon hearing one colleague - nice chap - proudly exclaim that he was an "Architect" my response was

      Architects make problems that engineers have to solve

      It was true in the building industry, it remains true in the world of computing.

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: CS vs IT = Architects vs Civil Engineers

        But *good* architects make problems that engineers *can* solve.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: CS vs IT = Architects vs Civil Engineers

          Bad ones just plant ivy

  10. tuzza

    The fact is that 90% of the stuff I learnt in my Comp Sci degree has never been useful, hardware architecture, AI, 3d graphics algorithms.... christ all the maths I learnt, matrix manipulations and predicate logic - never used any of it. really, who needs to know how to perform matrix manipulations by hand..

    They should just do degrees in programming and accept that people can get their heads around if statements and while loops without having a deeper understanding of advanced mathematics, set logic etc. felt smart learning it at the time but it doesn't stay in your head when you never use it, the first two years of my degree was half A-level maths.. how many people actually go into critical systems..?

    we're so far abstracted from the basics of computer science now it really is a bit of a waste of time, enjoyed my degree but couldn't help but feel it hadn't moved on much from the 1970s. now that would have been the time to do it.

    1. Snark

      See, I feel the exact opposite. My degree was Computer Science and it was back when they didn't teach you whatever new-fangled thing was the "big thing", they taught whatever the University was researching at the time. It too taught hardware architecture, too much math for my poor brain, computer graphics, AI, OS design, parallel computing, god knows how many research topics. Coding was a part of it, and modules in software design and engineering, but actually, I'm glad for the looks into all the different bits that make CS more of a "science". The whys of design, the different paradigms of problem solving, the how things really worked and why people came to those conclusions and the problems that will be solved. I'll never write an OS, I'll never write a compiler, but we studied both those and I have a feel because of it of the problems they were solving.

      I've come across so many grads or others who've come into IT and don't know how to problem solve, who know how to code in a particular language and that's it. They can't think about the network or the hardware or what the OS is doing. They might be good coders, but you don't need a degree in CS to code. What I want out of a CS grad is someone who has seen the depth of enough areas to be able to relate to new ideas and pick them up.

      So in my experience, as someone who has been doing this 20 years, the breadth of weird and wonderful things from my CS degree gave me a foundation to build concepts on. The critical systems came in handy when I ended up working on airport systems for awhile. The ethics course made me think about the implications of taking jobs in defence, medical and other areas and decide (based on the impact what I did could have) if I wanted that responsibility.

      Please Universities, don't churn out X'000 undergrads who can do the latest thing just because they would be currently employable. Hell I'd take the physics grad who learnt to code because he needed to solve problems over them any day. Give me people who can think and learn and solve problems because of the core understanding of "a bit of everything" they've been taught.

      1. tuzza

        java was a bad idea

        well you say this, but coming out of a three year CS degree with only a very small amount of experience with coding c-like languages but tonnes of useless other stuff doesn't make much sense to me. maybe the problem was the move to java. they didn't even teach php for web stuff because they could stick to java with JEE.. yet what, 80% of the net uses php. no scripting languages except for a little bash. yet two years of maths, AI, systems architecture. at least we used linux i guess. I suppose the java is useful for android dev these days, but really I would have much prepared a proper grounding in C - which is where the systems architecture and programming would have been linked up.

        1. cantankerous swineherd

          Re: java was a bad idea

          this is insane. no cs degree should even think about php.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. Vic

          Re: java was a bad idea

          maybe the problem was the move to java. they didn't even teach php for web stuff because they could stick to java with JEE

          Java isn't the problem.

          The problem is an inflexible approach: the language really doesn't often matter. You tackle the problem, and the language can be chosen quite late in the process, since the early part of development is generally the same.

          but really I would have much prepared a proper grounding in C

          So why didn't you go out and get one?

          Vic.

          1. tuzza

            Re: java was a bad idea

            so i'm wrong to resent spending the majority of the "coding" aspect of my degree doing mickey mouse java exercises in a web browser rather than something more challenging and useful?

            anyone can go and get any grounding they want outside of university, we're talking specifically about CS degrees and what they teach.

            1. Vic

              Re: java was a bad idea

              so i'm wrong to resent spending the majority of the "coding" aspect of my degree doing mickey mouse java exercises in a web browser rather than something more challenging and useful?

              Yes.

              If they were mickey-mouse exercises, you'll have breezed through them in no time. So you're left at a university, with huge resources on tap, and loads of time on your hands. What did you do all day?

              anyone can go and get any grounding they want outside of university, we're talking specifically about CS degrees and what they teach.

              And one of the most important things that a degree teaches is that if you sit back and wait to be spoon-fed, you won't get much out of your time.

              Now go ahead and downvote me again, because you're not going to like this reply either.

              Vic.

              1. Shoot Them Later
                Pint

                Re: java was a bad idea

                If they were mickey-mouse exercises, you'll have breezed through them in no time. So you're left at a university, with huge resources on tap, and loads of time on your hands. What did you do all day?

                Ooh.. I can answer this one! ... Dicking about mostly. It was enormous fun at the time.

                I'm going to add to the list of STEM graduates who are sniffy about CS degrees - I did Physics as a first degree and I'm convinced that a proper scientific (or engineering at a push :) degree is an excellent foundation for a great many technical careers. If you have the ability to master a science and the fundamental mental aptitude needed then you will be fine (the linked article is a great read btw, and explains much that I've seen and had to deal with in the wonderful world of technical employment).

                More generally, I think it's perfectly fine (and should even be encouraged) to do a degree other than the specific field you end up earning a living in. Do something difficult, academically challenging, something that will open your horizons. Leave all that prosaic work-related stuff for actual work. The idea that a degree is nothing more than an extended vocational training programme is harmful. I'm not saying that you shouldn't care about the work your degree leads to, but I personally wouldn't want to work for an employer who insisted on some box-ticking must have a CS degree requirement that excluded others with good alternative STEM degrees (not saying that doing a CS degree is bad, but do it because you are into the science bit of CS rather than expecting it to be a step on the job conveyor belt)

              2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
                Paris Hilton

                Re: java was a bad idea

                "So you're left at a university, with huge resources on tap, and loads of time on your hands. What did you do all day?"

                I believe the modern term as portrayed by US moving picture theatrical presentations is...

                PAAAAAAARRRRR---TAAAAAAYYYYYYY

                Icons, because she might have been there and iis sadly underused these days.

          2. Snark

            Re: java was a bad idea

            Java really isn't a problem. It's a great language to learn the concepts of object orientation, classes, abstraction and all that jazz. Take that and walk straight into the OO stuff in perl or any number of different languages. Once you have the why and mindset, the rest is syntax and practice, practice, practice (just like any writing).

            I can understand the frustration of the original OP and I think that's part of this "we need more CS grads" when really they want more software developers. You don't need a degree for that, you need overall training in methods and practice, lots of practice.

            CS (and many other) degrees are mis-sold. I wanted a CS degree because I was passionately interested in computing and wanted to know about as many parts of it as possible, not to get me a job as a developer or sysadmin. That just came as a result of the skills I had learnt and has kept me hopping around in a dozen different industries since.

            I knew people who did software engineering degrees too, hell some of those were 4 years, and they were pretty much the same tone as my CS degree. They did follow the "engineering" approach and not the knock it together and throw it out the door. They didn't care what languages they learnt, it was concepts, approaches, mindset.

            They are never going to be your developer who comes in the door and slogs along with the rest in the team, they'll be the ones that set the tone for the team, standards, best practices, aid the design and make sure it fits together. Not everyone needs to be a software engineer or a competent CS grad who can pull things together, but add one or two to the rest who can burn through the code and you may end up with something a damn sight better at the end.

            That's not to belittle the developer who slogs through and produces the code, you really need both in a big project to get the best out of each other.

      2. Vic

        Hell I'd take the physics grad who learnt to code because he needed to solve problems over them any day

        I went to University with a girl who was reading Philosophy. How we laughed.

        On graduation, she walked into a programming job better than the one I got...

        Vic.

        1. Snark

          Doesn't surprise me :) Learning how to code is relatively easy, showing you can think, that's a challenge :). One of my colleagues/bosses had a degree in Geology and ended up doing oil industry coding and was one of the best people I've worked with.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > hardware architecture, AI, 3d graphics algorithms.... christ all the maths I learnt, matrix manipulations and predicate logic - never used any of it. really, who needs to know how to perform matrix manipulations by hand..

      Conversely, I've used all of those... and in my present job I need to know both the detail of matrix operations _and_ low-level hardware (oh, and a bit of compilers).

      That was a good CS degree you did, as they were trying to teach the ability to turn concepts around in your head and effectively map very high level ideas to actual hardware. No one works at all conceptual levels all the time, but it is incredibly valuable to be able to understand how the things that you are using - or providing a service to - should work.

      /me, off to grab a 30-year-old textbook and refresh my memory of the mathematical foundations of linear algebra.

    3. cantankerous swineherd

      correct. you don't need comp sci to be a code monkey.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      without having a deeper understanding of advanced mathematics,

      I only wish I could understand more, to my eternal regret, I stink at maths.

      It's part of your toolkit, practical examples.

      1) You wish to figure out which part of your system is slow, some basic stats is useful here.

      2) You wish to do some simple 2d animation, sooner or later you will need "mechanics" to specifiy parameters.

      3) You are tasked with implementing a cipher mode of operations given a paper and you need to figure out what all the weird squiggles mean, some background knowledge of groups, finite fields, generators, might help.

      This stuff is helpful in ways that are not obvious until you are tasked with something out of your mathematical grasp, believe me, it's not fun, but it is of value.

  11. Scuby

    I'm so glad I didn't bother going to Uni...

    ... instead I worked my way up starting as a PC Builder, learned pretty much everything on the job with additional study at home and am doing very nicely some 24 years later thank you very much.

    As a potential employer, I would much rather employ a school leaver with a few relevant GCSEs and a couple of A Levels, who is keen and inquisitive, train them up with a solid career path and then see them go forth and pay it forward when they're recruiting for their next PFY, rather than hire a recent graduate who thinks because he has a piece of paper saying he attended University and passed, is entitled to earn £xK per year more than me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "rather than hire a recent graduate who thinks because he has a piece of paper "

      Agree. But from job seekers POV, there are more risks associated with going this path...

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Having had the 'pleasure' of training a couople of dozen students on a two week work experience program we collaborated on with a local Uni, I met precisely one that I would have hired* (once we'd beaten the knowitall out of him with a few choice tech ref manuals), the rest, yeah, do you want fries with that.

    And yet, they were still better than many of the IT graduates I've bumped into from outsourcing companies who bring in offshore teams to do local support.

    *Andy P, the Inmos Transputer fan, say Hi

  13. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

    "so why isn't [UK] hiring them?"

    hiring, you say? pfft. Because too busy firing those already on payroll.

  14. raving angry loony

    Not the uni's fault

    The fault is with the HR "hiring" organizations that so many companies have outsourced their hiring to. Companies that have ZERO clue about what computer science really is, and really don't care.

    Hiring companies that ask for "entry level" skillset that includes 6 years of Java - only 3 years after Java was fucking invented (yes, I saw that advert).

    Hiring companies that don't understand that any competent computer scientist can "pick up" a new technology in weeks, but that anyone can have "n" years of "experience" with "insert current fad".

    Of course, let's not forget the corporations that have given up hiring competent people and training them in their local system. No, they want people who already know everything about their local systems without having to actually train anyone. That's not the purpose of a computer science degree. What they want is people with a 1 or 2 year "learn the current fads" TRAINING. Not an education per se.

    1. BoldMan

      Re: Not the uni's fault

      Back in the day when I was trying to find a job as a tech author, one job had a requirement of "2 years Wordperfect". I tried to explain that my 2 years of MS Word was more than equivalent and pointing out the requirement was effectively "2 years experience writing with a pencil rather than a pen" but they still wouldn't put me forward for the job :(

      Clueless? Oh yes we have that as a requirement for recruiting recruiters...

  15. Stephen McLaughlin

    CS - Inconsistent Coursework Across Universities

    That's the way it is in the States at least. Would be nice to have some standards. Some universities focus more on programming, others more on mathematics and physics, others on theory, etc., so you really don't know what skills recent graduates have fresh out of school.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: CS - Inconsistent Coursework Across Universities

      Just an observation but it seems in the States, those who take CS degree courses are usually headed to manglement. The schools teach outdated everything but the degree gets them the management track positions. I've seen very few CS graduates who could successfully code anything without having to have a mentor looking over their shoulder.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Because there's no such thing as an entry level job any more.

    Because outsourcing and immigration.

    Because lower standards to get everyone into HE.

    Because they can't even code f*cking FizzBuzz because they didn't read the whole question.

  17. Stevie

    Bah!

    Here's a radical thought: Try finding out what skills the UK businesses need in their IT people and try teaching that.

    Better still: Work out what's likely to be hot in five years and teach *that*.

    The universities could do worse than getting in people from actual industry to teach courses. Academics can have the strangest ideas on what IT looks like in the real world.

  18. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Employer responsibility

    Even 30 odd years ago part of the problem was that some employers stopped hiring inexperienced graduates or training and sponsoring school leavers and instead chose to poach the ones that had served their time.

    Which meant that the remaining employers also stopped, because there was no point spending years and money bringing someone to level of usefulness only to see them leave and go down the road to earn an extra few quid from companies that hadn't spent thousands on trainees.

    A professional degree - CS or anything else - is only the start of training, not the end point. A good one will provide the transferable skills that make a person ready to develop practical skills. A very good one will stick the student in to a workplace for six months in the first year or two then bring them back into college with an idea of what the skills will be used for. Lawyers do pupillage before they are qualified. Teachers do teaching practice and an NQT year ( probationary year in my day). Doctors spend years walking the wards. Even bloody politicians with their PPE degrees ( used to ) have to get elected and serve on a council for a few years before they get a chance at fighting even a no-hope seat.

  19. Paratrooping Parrot

    My experience at job hunting

    I noticed that many of the job agencies would advertise entry level jobs, and yet ask for many years of experience of using so many different packages and programming languages.

    I am at university now doing Postgraduate studies. I sometimes have a few classes with the Bachelor students. I have noticed that some of them didn't want to do any programming!!!!

    I sometimes wish that I had studied more computer science in my Bachelor course. I hope my Postgraduate course helps.

  20. JustNiz

    The actual reason that employers aren't hiring UK CS grads has nothing to do with their ability, and everything to do with the fact that you can hire 5 incompetent programmers with fake degrees in India for the same money.

  21. Dr.Flay
    Childcatcher

    Square pegs, round holes

    Very simple.

    In the past the pool of talent was mostly people with a genuine interest in computers and computing.

    They want to learn to make them self more skilled, not simply more valuable.

    Now it is polluted by people that just want to earn money with as little effort as possible while sitting down.

    They immediately turn their new skills into a crappy apps and sites that only exists to create revenue via adverts.

    In the past management came up through the ranks and understood the jobs they were allocating, so would also know when NOT to allocate a wasted space.

    Now it is polluted by people hired in because they were a manager elsewhere, in a job that roughly related, but has a questionable and self-set pay-packet.

    This is also the problem within the Universities, where they are being mismanaged by people with no background or interest in education or teaching, only the freakishly high self-awarded salaries which would attract any con-persons worth their salt.

    The best/worst of the con-people in management will always take a sicky just before leaving the sinking ship, and then pop up in the same position in another company or University.

    They never stay to fix anything, so never learn (not that they want to).

    The only measure of success modern managers know is size and expansion.

    This does not make for good quality education establishments or practices.

    It just ticks boxes and puts bums on seats.

    Why would the management care if they can just easily go on sick leave, and then leave for another management job of equal value before someone looks behind the curtains ?

    Casting a bigger net is gaining us poorer catches.

    If you want IT talent you must look at the college students that keep up their abilities while studying and holding down a job.

    The ones that know what "optimise" means for performance and stability issues.

    The ones that are worried about their existing customer base they have privately established.

    The ones that always build their own PCs.

    The ones that know their Kb from their KB.

    The designers that know the difference between screen DPI and print DPI.

    The ones that don't have aspirations of management, because they enjoy the challenges of real work.

    Mostly, if you want quality IT, you hire the ones that say in answer to a real tough question

    "I have not dealt with this yet, but it shouldn't take me long to learn about it."

    and not "Yeah, yeah, we covered that early on so I'm a bit hazy".

    (Note: I know many managers do really manage, but the above comments relate to the type that should be renamed to "delegators").

  22. Wayne Sheddan

    I glimmer of hope...

    Me: MSc Physics, Grad Dip Theology. IT infrastructure for 28 years.

    I was wandering through a University bookstore recently and saw something that gave me hope that at least one course was doing the basics. There, stacked neatly about 20 high was Silbershatz's et al "Operating System Concepts", or as I like to state more prosaically "How Computers Work - Real Programming Revealed" :-)

    Sadly, the small size of the pile showed that it was not part of the reading for CS 101.

    I do find myself wondering how many CS grads know about data structures, mutexes, semaphores, queues, interrupts, priorities etc. Most would seem be a driver of the car that doesn't care how the car works. Little wonder they complain when the Mini cant haul that 40 tonne log. They haven't learnt the best way to get the log to the mill is to tell the mill where the log is - for example.

    Teach the fundamentals and any implementation is obvious. Does modern teaching start building from the roof (Excel, Java etc) and you only look at the foundations at graduate level?

    I have to remind myself that I grew up in an age when you went to university to learn - not to get a meal ticket. When employers want Java then meal ticket seeking folk are in the market to buy Java - and are not real interested in how the shizzzle shizzes.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'Livin on The Edge'

    ~ Comp-sci grads going through the system now have a depth of knowledge that often doesn't extend beyond C#. Cheating is also common as certification tends to consist of automated tests instead of practical grunt. But on the flip side, there's a lot more to know. More platforms, more-vendors. The end result is more holes in security.

    ~ Things are bad! When every system crashes, and every database gets hacked, will that force us to come up something better? Because that's what it will take for change it seems. In addition, everything can't simply be about ruthless & endless cost cutting, with senior execs still making 100's or 1000's of times what everybody else does etc.

    ~ Because of this many tech workers of my gen have actually left the market. Money was good in the 90's and early 2000's. But now the Mortgage is paid off, world travel is done and expat gigs all sown up. Some married, some didn't. Those without kids can now easily work part-time, and some can even get out completely.

    ~ But this wasn't how it was supposed to be. Tech was supposed to be life-long lucrative work, with the odd nod of respect. Most veteran IT pros I know would still work as opposed to living modestly. But the rewards just aren't there. Few of us expected that when the song in the title was released...

  24. Wesley Williams

    Anyone looking to do a Comp Sci course should pick one with a year's work placement built in. 3yrs in a lab is worth jack compared to actually getting out there learning on the job.

  25. This post has been deleted by its author

  26. David Roberts

    Old farts club :-)

    When I started over 40 years ago the company was hiring graduates or "partial graduates" that is people who had at least spent some time at University.

    The idea was that these people would have a broader outlook than school leavers.

    Programming aptitude test had to be passed first, of course.

    There were (I think) no Computing graduates amongst the many disciplines.

    At the time, University taught all sorts of fancy techniques to minimise use of memory because it was a scarce resource. This is not a trait to be encouraged in someone writing maintainable COBOL programmes. Nor is it required when you are using a large mainframe.

    In my limited experience very few programming jobs require advanced engineering and mathematics. Good written English skills may be more important; being able to express yourself clearly and concisely in one language may tranfer to others.

    As a digression the old CS sins can be found these days in clever scripters who keep code neat and short by the use of complex Regular Expressions. At least the writers of Obfuscated PERL are up front about it.

  27. itzman

    Compsci - doan make me larf..

    As a former IT boss, I have hired mathematicians (superb), [software][ engineers' (superb) Natural science grads (Often plodders, but very competent and reliable coders). And once a compsci. Never again.

    Ther may be a need for a compsci graduate somewhere in te workld, but it isnt in a busy IT house configuring and installing, coding testing and debugging, and getting stuff done.

    The job is already out to the customer before the compsci has established the most complex and obfuscated (simple and elegant, to any other compsci, Sir) way to express it in a language no one else has even heard of, let alone acquired fluency in.

    You do NOT want to hear 'this bug would never have happened if it had be written in modula 2' when its actually in 8086 assembler.

  28. itzman

    Compsci - doan make me larf..

    As a former IT boss, I have hired mathematicians (superb), [software] engineers' (superb) Natural science grads (Often plodders, but very competent and reliable coders). And once a compsci. Never again.

    There may be a need for a compsci graduate somewhere in the world, but it isn't in a busy IT house configuring and installing, coding testing and debugging, and getting stuff done.

    The job is already out to the customer before the compsci has established most complex and obfuscated (simple and elegant, to any other compsci, Sir) way to express it in a language no one else has even heard of, let alone acquired fluency in.

    You do NOT want to hear 'this bug would never have happened if it had been written in modula 2' when its actually in 8086 assembler.

  29. Kinetic
    WTF?

    11.7% !! That's crazy low!

    If my experience with the people on my CS course many years ago, and fellow coders since is anything to go by, it should be more like 50% or higher.

    Seriously, 11.7% shows just how desperate companies are to take on developers. How many of these people were able to turn the PC on?

  30. Thomas Steven 1

    I love developing

    When I was at school 'computer whatever' wastaught by maths teachers. Unfortunately most of the time software development is about problem solving not maths (not directly). Unfortunately if you give teaching computing to maths teachers they tend to teach mostly maths'n'computers. When I was 11 I wanted to do software, so I didA levels in history, politics and english lit and a philosophy degree. Still developing software 30 years later because I didn't let some arse spoil it for me.

    If I need maths I can read, and I still read more than most of my colleagues on a daily basis..

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not all are bad

    just had a son graduate in CS, some 29 years after i did <crusty alert>..

    When we did the rounds, he ended up choosing a school that had a course description where the first year was very much similar to what I'd studied, my first year.. heavy on maths, architecture and core (not BASIC, or Pascal) programming language skills.

    At the end of the first year he knew java backwards, but also could talk about FSMss, logic theory, race states, and use of semaphores.

    He's now got a job working on some big data malarky, whilst I'm looking for that missing copy book card :-).

    He went to Swansea,which I'd rate, but there was at least 1 other non Russell group uni we looked at that was the same.

    So don't write them all off.

    Re the other thread, i.e. the employers desire to right shore (cue retching) I'm currently working on a key project where the dev team has just been onshored, so maybe the pendulum is turning

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