Gen Y Tech Savvy, But Not Interested in a Career 593
jcatcw writes "Young people aren't choosing computer science majors because they take technology for granted — it's something to use not something to make a career. "By and large, this generation is very fluent with technology and with a networked world," according to James Ware, executive producer at The Work Design Collaborative LLC, a Berkeley, Calif., consortium exploring workplace values and the future of the workforce. That future may be in managing technology, which requires skills today's college students don't have: writing, critical thinking, hard work and just plain showing up. One of their primary concerns is a flexible schedule and healthy work/life balance."
Lazy Kids ! (Score:5, Funny)
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While that might be true, not all "15-year-old kids" can get up and get the CompTIA A+ certification that would allow them to work at bigger places and actually make profit for their knowledge...
Hell, not even some older, more experienced techs can establish their skills into something profitable. People always need a technican; I believe it's just a matter of how well the game is played.
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And, bluntly, installing something doesn't take anything a 15 year old doesn't know.
Also, don't forget that HR departments are hardly staffed with people who have their masters in IT. Just spew technobabble to the
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1. Price: If you increase price, you decrease the supply of people that can afford to get your certification. Interestingly, if you set the price too low, too many people will get it, which will cause the demand for that certification in the workplace to go down - this, in turn, will eventually af
Re:Lazy Kids ! (Score:5, Insightful)
In the case of both law and medicine, they have professional associations that basically work to control the 'supply' of professionals in the field. (Well, the Bar Associations aren't doing too hot lately, which is why the market has flooded, but they used to be better.) If it weren't for the AMA, doctors probably wouldn't be paid all that well, either. Think of all the other people in the medical field -- nurses, technicians/technologists, etc. -- very few of them are paid as well as actual doctors, because it's hard to become a doctor and there are certain functions that are legally restricted only to doctors.
If you could get a lot of IT workers together and establish an "Information Technologists Guild" and bribe enough politicians into making it illegal for anyone not in the guild to open the case of a computer, then turn around and make it nearly impossible to join the guild, you'd probably make a fortune, too.
Re:Lazy Kids ! (Score:5, Interesting)
In short, the ABA had worked to prevent law schools from proliferating to the point it's at today (nearly two hundred law schools!) in order to keep the field from being glutted with unintelligent and uneducated lawyers. Once the ABA was denied the ability to restrict the number of law schools, every crappy school in the country wanted a law school. Law schools typically have enormous cost/benefit ratios, due to the limited start-up cost and high return on investment (i.e. profitability of alumni). While this remained true initially, the crappier schools popping up today are failing at that too, dragging their schools even further down.
You want fewer crappy lawyers? Lobby to allow the ABA to get back to its job of keeping those people out of our field.
Re:Lazy Kids ! (Score:5, Interesting)
Just as business people simplify IT that requires specialists and is repetative, we should simplify legal activities that require specilists but happen repetatively.
Seriously-- 99% of divorces could be handled by a "divorce specialist" who would make 60 grand a year instead of 120 grand a year. Law has gotten so big, it needs to be broken down and streamlined.
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Re:Lazy Kids ! (Score:5, Interesting)
> You want fewer crappy lawyers? Lobby to allow the ABA to get back to its job of keeping those people out of our field.
I have a better idea: let's change things to make lawyers less needed in the first place.
I used to be in law school, and this is what I concluded before moving to a profession that produces value, not consumes it:
a) Ignorance is not a defense, but
b) It's easy to violate a law, often regardless of mens rea.
Why is b) true? Because thanks to our wonderful common-law system, there's an ungodly number of statutes. These statutes are inter-related, not necessarily the way you'd expect, and the relationships are often only implied. Of course, it's not just enough to know what's on the books, but also know how their interpretation has been modified by precedents (and not just local precedents either; judgments from overseas can have an effect too). How is anybody other than some specialist in the area supposed to untangle that? So we have people who acted in what they believed to be a lawful manner being punished. I find it particularly charming when even legal experts are largely clueless outside their area of specialization. In fact, I'm charmed by the number of specialists who don't even know their own specialization all that well. This isn't a problem of education, this is a problem of out-of-control complexity.
You'd expect that every citizen of society should clearly understand what is expected of them, right? If they break a law, which they of course knew about, there are repercussions. This is just. Instead you have cases being decided on fine nuances of meaning of single words thanks to whatever crazed set of precedent and statute some team of lawyers was able to drag together, rationalized by the excuse that it's a living law. Now toss in lawyers who charge sums of money that is beyond the reach of most people (and pro bono is a risible excuse to protect your guilty consciousness', because you fuckers almost never do it except for friends or cases that'll improve your visibility), and who only benefit by dragging cases out, and we have a problem. A few hundred to a few thousand dollars for a simple printout of some old template in your local copy of wordperfect or word, and it's not just a problem, it's pathetic unadulterated greed at everyone else's expense.
In short, to your profession and those of you who 'graduated' to politics: fuck you. You're a leech on society and promulgate a fundamentally unjust and morally-repugnant system. I don't know how you sleep at night -- while your new associates naively slave away of course. If Diogenes was to wander into a law firm you'd try to sell him a lamp for $5,000, and yet you're supposed to help propagate justice?
Advice for the rest of you: never use a lawyer unless the amount is -- or worth -- millions. Just move on; you'll save yourself much grief and debt.
Re:Lazy Kids ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lazy Kids ! (Score:5, Funny)
He charges you to fix his computer?
That job *sucks*.
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Has anything really changed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nah it'll just be outsourced (Score:5, Insightful)
Other's have already pointed out the 9-5 situation (people being there when they need to interact together), but, there is a more general point I'd like to address. This sense of entitlement, that the world needs to adjust to 'my' lifestyle and needs. Unless you are going to own and run your own business, that ain't gonna happen. Maybe this attitude comes from parent who start themselves jumping through hoops anytime the kids wants something or has to be somewhere (all activities structured and scheduled). Parents quit saying "NO". Unless you can employ yourself, and control your destiny....your expected to meet the requirements of the place of employment you choose. The world is not out there to conform to your lifestyle. That pretty much is a thing of the past after you leave college. Hey, if you can find a job that allows shift work like you mentioned...choose that one, but, they are few between, and most I know of.....don't earn that much and are largely janitorial.
With age and work experience...and years of accomplishments, comes increased position and pay. I'm not saying it is always justified, there will always be jackasses that make it to the top, but, then again...I never say someone is overpaid. Obviously someone is willing to pay those people that much, and frankly, I want to be one of them. I really, really like the things money allows me to do....and rather than try to customize the system around my wants, I try to figure out how to use it to make my gains.
Unless you can either learn to work the system, or work for yourself....you're gonna be left behind, and while it may be sad, the world really doesn't care about it.
Re:Nah it'll just be outsourced (Score:5, Insightful)
That's funny, I do run my own business. I like to call it Me, Inc. I provide a service (my time and skills) to the highest bidder the market. Currently, the highest bidder is my employer and part of the price they pay for my services is a mutually negotiated and agreed upon balance between my time spent with them and the time I spend elsewhere.
I don't understand why, when 2 parties negotiate conditions in a relationship (contract, purchase, service, etc), if both of the parties are businesses, it's just a part of doing decent, respectable business, enlightened self-interest, free-market economics, etc. But when one of the negotiating parties is a business and the other is a worker/employee, then the worker's enlightened self-interest is characterized as entitlement (or socialism, if they do it collectively).
Why is it so hard to conceive of individuals as little self-owned businesses with valuable services to provide to employers at mutually negotiated prices? And let the market decide which way the prices go. After all, capitalism is all about free markets, right? And labor is another market. Regulated, like most markets, but still a market, nonetheless. I have seen many business people who tout free market economics when it benefits them and then with straight faces denounce the workings of the labor market when it swings in favor of the worker.
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Capitalism, as the modern practice of the term defines it, is all about rich people taking as little risk as possible, and squeezing others as hard as they possibly can, in order to make exorbitant amounts of money. Capitalists hate treating employees
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You can. Negotiate for it. But don't
Re:Nah it'll just be outsourced (Score:5, Insightful)
This idea that people are "entitled" is nonsense. Everyone wants as much as they can have and more. Employers want hard-working employees for cheap. Employees want to work less for more pay (or other types of compensation). A compromise is reached. That's how it's *supposed* to work. Attitudes like "be grateful for what they give you" only cause one side to gain an advantage and speaks of a subservient mentality.
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Re your question "Can you show me any benefit my boss would derive from requiring me to wear a suit or that I must be in the office around certain hours?"
I can, actually, but not about the suit part. Even though I'm not your boss, I do manage a half-dozen engineers on my team... and I could care less about what they wear, btw.
What it comes down to for me is that (if you're an experienced, senior engineer) there's more than just tasking involved in your tenure. People from many parts of the organizatio
Critical thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. School used to be filled with logic and reasoning -- kids had to learn to think. Now schools are more interested in childrens' self-esteem and socialization. Frankly, part of the problem is that the newest crop of teachers don't know logic or have excellent critical reasoning skills. As each generation passes, we get further from the Aristotelian virtues and knowledge becomes more watered-down.
Nowhere is that more borne out than in computer programming. Logic is the backbone of programming and if you haven't got a decent grounding in it, your coding skills are going to be atrocious, no matter what language you use. I remember when I was going to school to about 8 years ago to get a programming certification so I could shift careers. There I was, in my mid-30s with 18-year-olds all around, who were more interested in Napster and trying to download porn onto the school computers than actually learning the skills they needed. They used to razz me quite a bit, but I got through the whole set of courses with a 4.0 because I had the logical background that made going from pseudo-code to finished program easier.
Until we get back to teaching fundamental reasoning skills in school, each succeeding generation is going to take their environment more and more for granted, and understand it less and less.
Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
When on earth did this happen? You think an elementary school in 1950 was a sort of mini-Lyceum? It's always been rote memorization and paperwork.
Now schools are more interested in childrens' self-esteem and socialization.
Ridiculous. Schools these days are obsessed with test results and cramming the ability to do these tests into the kids' heads. That whole self-esteem thing has been out of vogue for a while.
Frankly, part of the problem is that the newest crop of teachers don't know logic or have excellent critical reasoning skills.
I will agree that teachers today are probably not, on the average, as talented as they used to be. This is a result of the fact that for most of this country's history, 50% of the population was limited in their careers. If you were smart, female, and wanted an education, you were very likely to end up as a teacher. This isn't something that you can go back to, though.
As each generation passes, we get further from the Aristotelian virtues and knowledge becomes more watered-down.
I just don't buy it. I think there are serious deficiencies in our education system but I don't buy the idea that as you go back you find a better and better one.
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I just don't buy it. I think there are serious deficiencies in our education system but I don't buy the idea that as you go back you find a better and better one.
Perhaps one test of this is to look at art from previous periods of time. Especially what art becomes popular.
Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
She got kids who had previously failed the MCAS tests to pass and not just pass, but pass by a wide margin...but she taught to a each child's needs and learning style. She stood up for the laws for the national laws and state laws for the special needs for the children she taught. A host of other things that the schools systems just plain didn't like.
She was actually told to do what it ever it took pass kids, and by this I mean fudging test grades and class grades, pass them at all costs even if they don't deserve to pass...I'm not talking about the 64-65 one point bubble here...more like 23! Shock when kids acted like assholes, didn't do their work, and didn't make an effort she gave them failing grades, suggested they stay back...Oh My God! Think of Child! Last year, one parent WANTED the kid to stay back because of failing grades, the school system overrode the parent's opinion on the matter. Despite the parent's opinion and failing grades in 4 classes the kid was passed on to the next grade. Not even summer school required!
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I would bet that the vast majority of today's high school graduates,
Clearly lacking in decency, theology and geometry (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm not sure I agree with the grandparent but I can assure you that if rich white people lived in cities the schools would be fantastic.
Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno, if the culture of the populations in the 'urban' areas valued education (instead of ridiculing those that try) above the aspirations of being a star athlete or rap star, then I think you'd see a much larger change.
The US already throws a TON of money at schools, which does nothing to help the red tape that eats it up, nor the apathy of many of the recipients.
Education thrives in an environment where parents and children see the value of it. No amount of money can change this core need of a good educational system.
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The problem is when you made education mandatory lots of people stopped valuing it. It turned in to something you had to get through to
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My wife's doing her semester of student teaching before she graduates with a degree in elementary education, and some of her stories are horrifying.
These 5th graders (5th graders!) have to have cheat sheets for single-digit multiplication. Apparently it's getting common to have such sheets available in high school math classes, too. Yet, they're trying to teach them about fractions, and soon enough they'll be doing factoring and all kinds of other things that will require
Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, plainly! Why, unsupported assertions that critical thinking is dead among These Lousy Kids Today hardly bear questioning!
Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Though honestly, a very large percentage of people over the past 2000 years weren't really taught anything. Formal education has never been universal, and honestly I've been to senior citizens centers and believe it or not they don't spend their days discussing complex philosophical issues. The percentage of people who have the ability to think logically is pretty small, and of those only a percentage have the requisite training to really think critically. It's always been that way.
Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Chicken or Egg? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Critical thinking Is plainly not taught anymore.
It's something you have to learn but can not be taught. Logic, history, facts, and opinions may be taught, but thought comes from experience and reflection. The more someone tells you they are going to teach you "critical thinking skills" the more you know they are going to try to indoctrinate you. The majority of people who think they can teach you critical thinking, lack the skill themselves.
Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Funny)
Geometry teachers drive '95 Corollas; marketing executives drive this year's BMW.
Using geometric principles, calculate the magnitude of the hotness of the women that each can attract.
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Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is being modded funny right now, but I think it is the most insightful reason that has been provided up to now.
Re:Critical thinking (Score:5, Funny)
"In my day . . ." (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:"In my day . . ." (Score:4, Insightful)
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In any case, you and the parent are right in that lot of stuff just repeats itself, but some doen't. Look at the
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Fluent? Not really... (Score:5, Insightful)
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OTOH, she's acutely aware of the fact that floppy drives are now obsolete, a fact that still hasn't seemed to seep into my techie stepson's fool head.
Re:Fluent? Not really... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is the disconnect between technology and the mass market. The customer does not want to know how the computer works -- they only want it to work when they get it out of the box. Mind you, processor speed and hard drive are such that they really aren't the most critical factors in buying a PC anymore for your average user.
This is why Microsoft rules the software landscape, Linux is finding it difficult to make inroads into the PC market, and why Apple has everybody enamored with the iPod. Familiarity breeds contempt, and contempt breeds lack of understanding. All the customer knows is that their laptop works when they turn it out and Windows pops up, and they can use that to load songs on their iPod. The behind-the-scenes does not interest them, which is why the general populace doesn't have a clue about Net Neutrality or DRM.
I ascribe it to the fall of the hobbyist. In the heady days at the beginning of PC age, when guys were buying Altair kits and Ham radio ruled, I think there was a higher level of curiosity. But now I don't think ham radio clubs, computer clubs, or even astronomy clubs are popular anymore, given the instant access to information we have now. I see this trend continuing as long as technology does not require the user to put any thought into it.
Re:Fluent? Not really... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I work with Generation Y'ers and they aren't so "fluent with technology" that they don't need to get a CS education. Most of them still don't know the difference between RAM and a HD. They don't even know the units used to calculate the amount of RAM or the speed of a computer. Obviously, there are exceptions, but it's been my experience in a middle-class community of Gen Y kids that they don't know jack about a computer. Can they use an IPod? sure... but so can my 60 year old mom, big deal. That's like saying my Grandma used to be "fluent with technology" because she could use a typewriter back in the day. Having the ability to use it and having the ability to make it are two totally different things.
Yeah, it's kind of like how in scifi stories you get some hyper-advanced alien or a human from the future stuck in our low-tech world and the assumption is "Wow, you can show us all your future tech!" And the reality is more like "Um, no. I can use the technology of my society but don't ask me to try to recreate it from scratch. Hell, I couldn't even maintain it myself."
What I find is that people are very adept at using technology in a seemingly educated and knowing manner but are often at a loss for the h
Re:Fluent? Not really... (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, there is a huge difference between the superficial use of technology and an understanding of the principals that drive it. Most teenagers know how to use IM, but very few could tell you how it works.
No offense meant to the aforementioned Chris Dodge, but I would argue that his skills are more due to internet-era osmosis than some deep technical ability. The fact that a fish swims in water does not make it an expert in fluid dynamics.
Re:Fluent? Not really... (Score:5, Interesting)
This reminds me of an experience I had a couple years ago. My cousin (who is about 16 now) wanted to install some game on his computer. It was a Windows XP machine with a normal install wizard, and he was held up by some error or another. It wasn't a big deal so I don't even remember what the problem was, but it got me thinking.S
I remembered being a kid, trying to play the latest Space Quest game from Sierra, and having to figure out which sound card I should choose during the install. My actual soundcard wasn't on the list, so I had to guess which one was more compatible, and it was a bit of trial and error. I remembered having to write custom AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files for different games to load different TSRs, and use different options of EMM386 or HIMEM.SYS. I remembered how impressed I was with myself when I figured out how to use AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS to make a little menu system that allowed me to choose the configuration I wanted while it was booting. I remembered trying to write little BASIC and Pascal programs to do things because... well, computers didn't do that much. I wasn't using my computer to store my music collection or watch movies. The big thing for me to do with computers in those days (besides playing games) was just to screw around with the computer to see what I could get it to do.
And it kind of made me sad that my cousin would never go through that. Sure, he'll be more computer savvy than my grandparents because he's grown up with computers, but he'll probably never understand computers as well as he would have if he were a few years older. Working in IT for a few years, it seems like the most helpful people are those who are young enough that they had computers when they were kids (and therefore grew up thinking about them), but old enough to have experimented with computers back when they weren't so easy.
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Fresh Nostalgia (Score:5, Funny)
Now that would sound like "I work with paper."
Computer literacy level 10! (Score:2, Insightful)
It's all bullshit. God help us if "data processor" and "data entry clerk" are careers of the future. The ability to use a computer is about as important to "jobs of the future!" as knowing how to husk coconuts is to a Pacific Islander. If you haven't learn
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The idea was that if you could use a word processor, spreadsheet, and touch type, then you'd be prepared for the careers of tomorrow.
Not so bullshit really. Try getting a job without knowing how to do the above. I don't think anybody ever implied that data processing was *all* you needed to know for your future career, but going without it certainly wasn't going to help.
I think you are confusing the definition of literacy. Someone that can read is literate, he doesn't need to know how to pen a novel, nor does he even need to be able to analyze the grammatical structure of someone's writing - all they need to do is be able to read and
Gen whatever isn't technology savvy (Score:5, Insightful)
These stories simply reflect the fact that, for any value of N, people in generation N-1 generally do not understand technology that became available during the childhood of generation N. This does not make generation N more technically savvy than generation N-1; by the time generation N+1 comes around, generation N will not understand the stuff they have. This was just as true for the baby boomers using remote controls and VCRs that their parents couldn't understand as it is for me using computers that the boomers have trouble with. It didn't mean that the boomers were geniuses because they could use a VCR.
Probably sort of like how my mom can't figure out the internet really well, which I think is rather simple; on the other hand, I can't understand the compulsion 'them darned kids' have for constantly text messaging each other.
Just because you can use mass-market electronic goods does not make one 'technically savvy'.
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One of? (Score:2)
Apparently Generation Taco lacks basic counting skills.
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Generation Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, this idea is nothing new. Every generation goes through a very similar idealistic phase. Generation Y is now entering its early 20's, and it's likely that this is the phase they're beginning to go through right now. So it's hardly surprising that they're rejecting formal instruction in a field that they already feel very comfortable in (as self-taught learners). Just part of them "finding their way."
Just a thought.
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Re:Generation Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Generation Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should we?
I know plenty of Gen X'ers and Baby Boomers who feel the same way. Most of the fell into line but they thought the same exact thing and actually a few say "No more!" and just live simple lives.
Personally, I have a job that I don't like that pays a lot, but I don't have a big house and my car is a 90's POS and I feel no need to buy a 50" flatscreen TV just to watch talking heads and men throw a leather ball around as a conversation topic. I'm old enough to be a Gen X'er but this idea of rejecting societal norm has been around for ages.
Its more prominent now with a bit of healthy nihilism when you take a global perspective to things. In the end, you are going to die and won't be able to take any of your wealth and knowledge with you. Eventually, your kids are going to die and someday there won't be any one around to remember you so what you do today is more important that long term which humans have a bad habbit of thinking that the status quo will last forever.
I mean... My dad worked himself to death in a job he hated for 30 years just to make it to retirement. I was worried there for a while that he would die before he would even get to enjoy that time. I'm sure many people have seen their family members die and all their plans and goals have been thrown out that window.
Maybe, its the realization that working for money is not the end goal. You should really take the job that you like and the one that allows you to be with your family and accept that you don't need all that stuff you can't take with you that will go into a landfill someday as it is.
Either way... Its not learning new skills to make us a better person, but rather the old skills like moderation and patience.
Sign of the times... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a point in your life when you realize that the world has changed, that "nerdy" topics aren't so nerdy anymore, especially now that they are in the mainstream.
Generation Y (ugh!) is undeniably using the tools around them to get things done, just as my generation did a decade ago with more primitive technology. But suffice to say, the reason to get a job in the tech industry is not because you want to play with what you're already using but because you want to create something new. This is not for everyone and I think regardless of the "tech level" society seems to achieve there will always be a minority of tech-career oriented people.
It is from how they've been raised... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unlike how we grew up....many of today's kids don't play outside much. They don't get out and meet and interact with the kids in the neighborhood, which teaches some good people skills. It also starts engendering a sense of independence. Parents cart the around to planned, and rigidly structured events...soccer practice, lessons of some kind, etc.
We've also sapped out the competitive spirit that kids once had. We played games...there were winners and losers. You had to learn both sides of the coin. Now...we give everyone a trophy because the just participated. We lower the standards in classrooms, 'cause we don't want to hurt little Billy/Susie's self esteem. We teach the wrong things here...the real world is NOT like that, it is not one big happy area where everyone is equal, and treated equal. That has to be quite a shock. We've let kids slide too far with respect to discipline. While I'm not talking specifically about corporal punishment (I don't think throwing that out the door was good either), but, personal discipline...responsibility for actions. If kids screw up, Mom and Dad cover for them....I've heard teachers saying when they had a child acting up, and could actually get a parent in for a conference, the teacher gets berrated over accusing little Johnny of wrongdoing, rather than trying to work together to correct his behavior. Of course later little Johnny expects he'll be covered/forgiven if he's late for work, or just doesn't show up a day for some reason.
Do kids even work these days in high school? As soon as I was 16...I got my first job washing dishes in a medium end restaurant...I worked my way up to head bus boy (even back then in my state you had to be 21 to serve alcohol)...I worked Fri-Sat. evenings....and usually 2 week nights. I saved my money, and when I was a senior, my folks added a little money to mine, and I bought my first car (datsun 280Z). I don't know of any of my friends whose kids actually work jobs....everything is given.
I'd say a lot of this is the past gen. or so's fault....and these kids are in for a shock when they hit the real world.
Re:It is from how they've been raised... (Score:5, Funny)
How is this unlike how we grew up?
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Though I agree, I wouldn't use the word "fault"... More like "success". And like it or not, the "real world" needs to accomodate the next generation, not the other way around).
Don't confuse "I don't live to work, I work to live" with a misplaced sense of entitlement, they very much differ. Employers need to come to terms with that fact, and adjust accordingly (or fade into oblivion as
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They bought the iPod and all the accessories and music to fill it with! (well, some of that music perhaps...)
Or maybe... (Score:3)
Or maybe, today's college students are wising up to the fact that most businesses work their tech staff to the bone dumbing down reports so their managers could understand them, following step-by-step instructions for an hour when they could fix it in 5 minutes if given the chance and if managers didn't call their IT staff on their vacations/weekends to help fix the e-mail server cause someone decided to change the settings without IT approval.
I've heard of far, far too many IT stories from my friends and on /. to even consider going into IT as a career. IT is not the dream job many people believe it to be. Anyone who runs a simply network for a friend(s)/family knows how annoying it can be to get a random phone call from someone asking for help to access their e-mail.
Priorities (Score:2)
One of their primary concerns is a flexible schedule and healthy work/life balance.
That is one of my primary concerns, and I am a Gen-X'r. I think more and more companies that are heavy into software development are starting to recognize that people want a flexible, comfortable workplace and an employer that realizes that adding perks, like flex-hours, casual dress code, telecommuting, more vacation, etc. can balance a crappy/mediocre salary and make up for other short-comings. In many instances adding perks can be a cheap way to attract(and keep existing) talent to your company with
Crappy writer (Score:5, Insightful)
liking to drive doesn't make you a mechanic (Score:5, Interesting)
This has nothing to do with tech (Score:2)
As a sysop, it was immensely frustrating to work with users who have no idea how computers work. They wanted somebody else to figure out what they had to do and if something unexpected happened they wouldn't think through it. As a mathematician, it's immensely frustrating to teach non-majors who strongly object to having to think (or understand) anything -- they want to be given algorithms they can apply (and don't realize that these algorithms only work for exam problems specifically engineered for their
Good. (Score:2)
Good. I hate to sound elitist, and god knows that I'm hardly the hottest stuff on the block (I work with a ton of people smarter than I am), but am I the only one who remembers when the CS field was flooded by people whose chief qualifications were Microsoft Word and
Generation Y? (Score:3, Funny)
The next generation was called "generation X" or alternately "Goddamned cocaine-soaked Yuppies".
The next generation was Generation Y. They're also known as "Goddamn punks", "Sales Clerks", "fry cooks", "outsourced and unemployed" and "crackheads".
So your nomenclature is a bit off. These kids would be known as "Generation Z" IINM. Also known as "GODDAMNED KIDS GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN!"
-mcgrew
i must know how every circuit & instruction wo (Score:2)
Sounds like the people... (Score:2)
Sounds like The Curse (When you have kids, they'll be just like you were) is continuing to work just fine.
The change is in application, not education. (Score:4, Insightful)
Coming out and looking for work, I was basically doing applied statistics, writing code for models and such, but would not even have been interviewed without the business degree. The bottom line is that someone with a stats degree could've done the work as specified, but they wanted to hire people who could write the models based on the business problem at hand (interpret it into a regression model basically, find out how to source the data to run it, write it, interpret the findings for management, etc). And I've done this for two different companies, so there's a chance it's not a unique hiring thing.
So I wonder, are people of my generation rejecting the idea of CS and other sciences, but using the concepts they learned from a few courses they took in that department in a business setting? If that's the case, like myself, I'd argue that the change is an emphasis on the application of these skills to business, not an abandonment in their education.
I'm really happy doing what I do, and while I probably lack the theoretical knowledge that a PhD in Statistics would have, my analysis in the business context is what's really being sought -- and I'm strong in that. I'm finishing up a law degree at night now, so I really can't wait to see how the technical skills apply in that profession. Lawyers are largely so tech/scientifically averse that they don't even consider the application of those skills in hiring, I've found. But the lawyers I've worked with here who have the tech or science background are tons better at their job. So what's it gonna be?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm kind of a late-twentysomething, and I started a CS degree and didn't really like it, either. I realized pretty quickly that even though I was very interested in computers, the CS degree wasn't really for me. In what was perhaps a strange move, I ended up majoring in Philosophy and minoring in Literature. Go figure.
What might have been more surprising, though, was what happened when I got out of college. I took a job working as a helpdesk tech. Having worked with CS graduates and people with a bunc
IT = stupid career choice due to offshoring (Score:4, Insightful)
What about people just entering the field? What about 5 years from now, or 10 years from now?
Who want's to spend $80K on a college education, and work their ass off. Then, toil for entry level wages for another 5 years, only to train their $5/hour replacements in the Ukraine, or whatever? Great "career" right?
Most IT work is tedious, and unimporant. The pay, at best, is nothing special. And employers seem to have an never-ending list of requirements, even for an "entry level" job.
I think it's safe to say that there are better career choices.
Careers in IT Suck, that's why (Score:3, Interesting)
Me? I dropped IT given my first opportunity and have yet to look back.
CS is the new blue collar (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at IT objectively - it's infrastructure. You do the jobs that make the background stuff work. Mechanics, machinists, equipment opertors, assemblers, all do this stuff. They diagnose problems and fix them. They assemble components built and designed primarily by others into a useful working product, often based on the experience of others.
Of course gen Y doesn't want any part of that. It takes effort and requires getting your hands dirty. Most kids out of school (in any generation, I might add) are looking for which CEO position will give them the best golden parachute. Nevermind that that's not how the real world works - their perceptions are based on seeing smart people (like them) on TV shows get to the top without effort. Some will eventually realize they have to make money, and they'll be IT ditchdiggers. Others will find their niche in retail sales, or construction, or some white collar paper-pushing position.
Nobody aspires to grow up and be a plumber, but the world still needs them. And, in case you haven't looked lately, plumbers can make decent money.
Using tech not the same as understanding tech (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not a slam, just a clarification. I don't see ANY generation having more tech skills than any other, and that includes the current teenagers who were born surrounded by technology.
P.S. I am an X'er
There are three levels... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Can drive a car, knows all about car companies and which models have leather seats and what "anti-skid brakes" do
2) can fix a car. Can figure out what part is broken and do a "remove and replace" repair
3) Can design a car. Knows how to design body sheet metal so that it absorbs energy in an impact. Can model flame propagation inside a combustion chamber,
With cars e have drivers, mechanics and engineers. With computers it is users, service techs and engineers. So what the article says is that even though many kids are computer users few want to become engineers. Well "good" the ratio of users to engineers should be about 100,000 to one or maybe 500K to 1. It only take 10 guys to set up a cool web site that a million people can use.
Today? Work/Life Balance. (Score:5, Interesting)
What really goads me lately is this massive latching on by the current mainstream press that Work/Life balance is some evil concept. It's as though striving to have a life outside your work simply isn't tolerable. Don't these tools who feed this party line when writing the articles want a life as well?
We are entering a time of extreme excess for the bulk of humanity in 1st world nations, it's okay if we all want to slow down some and enjoy this new world we have. Frankly if we all really worked as hard as people did thirty or fourty years ago we'd either run out of work or resources quickly. This is why we need to continue to push an information economy because its central resource is people something we still have plenty of (for now).
I'm amazed when talking to people on the East Coast and they mock West Coast things like Work/Life balance with derision and a wave of the hand. Unless you *really* enjoy your job above all else, what's wrong with wanting it to have less importance in your life? For most of us, work, is a means to an end. This is your only life, enjoy it! Take a vacation! Get drunk/high! Have sex! Do whatever makes you happy as long as it doesn't directly impede the joy of others.
There are only about 26,000 real CS jobs in the US (Score:3, Interesting)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are only about 26,000 "computer science" jobs in the United States. Not "information technology", not system administration, not tech support, but the jobs where people actually research and develop new technology.
If you're really good, there are openings in the operating systems groups for the iPhone and the Palm. There's good technical work to be done there, the pay is OK but not spectacular, you will have no life, you get no respect, and few will ever understand what you did. (If you take the iPhone job, you get to meet Steve Jobs and have him scream at you.)
The trouble is, if you're smart enough to do those jobs, you can probably do better doing something else. Two smart young people I know, with Stanford CS degrees, are running hedge funds.
And that's the top of the field. Further down, it's much worse, endlessly fixing systems that could have been designed not to fail, but for which the costs to do that would have been higher than fixing them.
I'm not complaining personally; I've done very well in computer science. But I can't recommend it as a career choice today.
Re:There are only about 26,000 real CS jobs in the (Score:3, Informative)
Running hedge funds takes an entirely different skillset. There's prob
Self Interest (Score:3, Insightful)
They didn't like that answer and while they continue to promote technical careers at the high school level, they also lobby heavily for expanded H1-B visa quotas and press the State Department and DoD to relax restrictions on sending work overseas.
Kids are too smart these days. Whatever they do, they are increasingly interested in maintaining control of the market for their skills, rather than selling themselves off to a large corporation. Scott Adams had a Dilbert strip where he coined the term 'technological savant'. This is an individual who can solve the most sophisticated technical problems in his/her field, but is too stupid to compare paychecks between professions.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Next we're going to hear ... (Score:4, Funny)
Given housing, healthcare and education costs... (Score:3, Interesting)
Times they are a changin', I'll get off your lawn now.