Not Your Daddy's IT Force Anymore 342
Quill345 writes "The days of high-paying technology-based jobs right out of highschool are over. As writers for ACM report, the skill-sets required for jobs have grown over time. Academia has responded to the evolution with novel programs recruiting women and integrating IT into MBA programs. And as technology finds its way into every aspect of business life, the NSF is creating a grant program to fund service science, a blend of IT into other industries. Researchers at City University of NY are working on an NSF-funded project to infuse technology into Liberal Arts courses taken by students who are in primary tech-producer or tech-consumer majors. What are these crucial modern skills? Knowledge of laws like the DMCA? Interpersonal and group work skills? Experience with different technology platforms? The ability to discriminate between useful and useless information sources?"
Experience..... (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously though, the communication/interpersonal skills are far more valuable. I have seen many people who have no talent or skill in anything technical make it very far while the person with the technical knowledge remains where they are.
PS. My skills learned from the bar make me a great conversationist, but not being a sycophant I am not afraid to say "NO!" to a manager who has no tech skills, but wishes to impress the client regardless the cost. This has made my career static and somewhat digressive.
Re:Personel Skills (Score:5, Informative)
Unable to Read the "Fine" Article... (Score:5, Informative)
Program is for Technology Majors, not GenEd (Score:3, Informative)
The program is designed to supplement the courses that a technology-area major takes ordinarily. The idea is that your English, Speech, Health and other core College courses would be technology infused, thus showing you the connections between the theory of technology you're majoring in and applications to other fields. The hope is that by the end, students will know the breadth of career possibilities instead of getting pipelined directly into the average help desk career.
Besides the tech-infusion into typical courses, the program also concludes by having students create a simulated technology business in the classroom. They're asked to go through the process of coming up with an idea, business model, marketing plans, and then working to "sell" that product. This connects their technology knowledge with real world business practices, as well as forces them to read about the current state of the industry, all while imparting those critical communication, groupwork and other soft skills.
The real question here is what skills need to be infused into the Liberal Arts courses so that in their final course they are able to and feel confident in starting their own tech-based business.
OH honestly... (Score:4, Informative)
Those days never existed and for christ's sake I wish IT-types would stop perpetuating the myth. Yeah, sure, there were excesses during the dot-com boom-bust cycle, but rarely, VERY rarely were those excesses bestowed upon 17 year-olds. It was bad enough when people were insinuating that every CompSci graduate in 1997 was getting a 135K/year job with a free Mercedes. Stupid shit like that happened, but the psychology is akin to one Amway triple-diamond sales manager pulling up in his new Maserati, causing the 300 people in his "downline" running around telling all their friends that they're getting Maseratis too. Then, when the whole thing falls apart, they don't have the Maserati, and everyone gets into a big schadenfreude orgy watching the giant fall...from a height he never attained.
The other aspect of this that is maddening is the implication that utterly normal salaries for middle-of-the-road positions are "high." Take a garden variety IT job that pays about $65-70k today. Well, in 1995 dollars that's $49-52K -- and that WASN'T a great deal of money in 1995 for a skilled occupation. Constantly screaming out this mantra of "high IT salaries" communicates to people that they are unjustified. Go to the BLS and pull up similarly skilled occupations. You'll find that by and large, IT salaries are--and have been for some time--totally in line with, say, being an electrician or a telco engineer... or a PLUMBER for christ's sake.
The bubble was a five-year abberation that has been over for five years. Get over it and please stop perpetuating and exacerbating what is largely urban myth based on what are at best statistical outliers. In short, shut-the-fuck-up already.
Re:I got a suggestion. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I got a suggestion. (Score:4, Informative)
incorrect: I got a suggestion.
correct: I have a suggestion.
incorrect: Rules for management that is drilled into the students in these classes.
correct: Rules for management that are drilled...
incorrect: Teaching them to actually listen to the engineers and tech people?
correct: Teach them to listen... (P.S. Don't split infinitives.)
I'm sure you will dismiss this message as the rantings of a pedant, but having good communication skills goes a very long way in this modern world. So much so that people actually will listen to your comments during a meeting. Conversely, many will tune you out as soon as you show that you don't have a grasp of tenth-grade language skills.
Re:I got a suggestion. (Score:2, Informative)
Now as far as "Rules for management that is...", that can actually be correct if "Rules for management" is considered a single list. In that case, one would generally want to write it as a title (in quotes or something) but "Rules for management that is..." might actually be considered correct.
Also, "I got a suggestion" might actually be correct. If the suggestion came to me from someone else at some time in the past, then I got a suggestion.
In this case, though, it is more likely that the GP simply made errors. I just felt that if someone was being picky about grammar, I would be too.
Re:Personel Skills (Score:3, Informative)
I have worked with developers in their 60's on some projects involving more mature technologies, embedded programming, assembly, even c/c++, and have been utterly amazed at their skill set, as they had been doing this sort of work since it existed.
At the same time, I have worked with older developers on emerging technologies, java/.net/xsl/ajax, and been horribly disappointed at their inability to apply their previous knowledge to these newer technologies.
Perhaps it has less to do with age, and more to do with work style and personality. Personally, I spend a substantial number of hours each week investigating and learning new technologies, trying common tasks on new platforms or in new langauges, etc. For this reason I am always ahead of the game for any new technology. I think anyone who 'loves' the technology does this, regardless of age. And as a corrolary, there are people, regardless of age, who are only useful with the skillset they learned in college, and have never thought to learn anything new.
As a young developer though, I have always known to go to the mature developers for advice on more abstract matters. Their experience will always prove useful in dealings with managers, clients, and design.
Re:OH honestly... or Do Jobs Dream Of People? (Score:4, Informative)
Those days never existed and for christ's sake I wish IT-types would stop perpetuating the myth.
Actually, they did exist.
My first job, in 1980-1982, was as a Power Engineer for Tek Cominco (back then Cominco), and it paid $12 when I started as an Assitant and I was making $22 within a year. Back then, that was more than a wealthy white collar worker made, and even CEOs only made about $40 an hour then.
When I moved to Seattle, shortly after the tech boom hit, and many people were getting four or five job offers at 100K+ if they left work in one place, in the late 1990s. I remember having a job end, going on vacation to go surf in Santa Barbara, and getting two job offers the week I was surfing, starting work the day after I got back.