At a previous job at a university, one of the student assistants in charge of running a computer lab called in and told us that several machines in the lab hadn’t been working for over a month and he didn’t know why. When I went to check them out they were all either unplugged or the monitors were unplugged.
The funny part? The student assistant that called was several years into a computer science degree.
via: [Spiceworks Community]
It may be a little counter-intuitive, but working in a setting where I interact with folks with advanced Comp Sci degrees, there is a world of difference between the theoretical knowledge behind planning and building the infrastructure, and actually being competent at using it in a practical manner.
Let it suffice to say that while Comp Sci folks are brilliant at math and machine logic, it’s like all practical knowledge has been displaced from their skulls, leaving many of them varying degrees of technophobic and inept at basic computer operation.
Unfortunately this is taught, nay indoctrinated into us at a collegiate level, by professors that have not had to do anything more complicated than make an Excel spreadsheet in years. In fact, some universities (I’m looking at you, SUNYIT) has explicitly stated that there is to be no “hands on” training until the senior year, and it is more important to teach semester after semester of the OSI system as “networking”.
That is a common problem with all schools. Their task is to put human cattle under a stress test and pick out a subset that passed for the employers to utilize.
“Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”
I don’t agree, astronomers have to constantly adjust for the flaws of the telescopes and avoid false readouts caused by their particular type. Granted, they don’t have to polish lenses, but they certainly know a lot about telescopes. Just like a bus driver is able to fix simple things on the road.
Yup. I’m going for compsci and it seems they wont be showing us any of that. I learned all those things in high school, from friends, and on my own though. I would hope these other people would at least know basic troubleshooting, but I guess not.. sigh. Whenwe were using the lab at the library some online program(that many students use for homework) needed something installed and asked for admin permissions, they told my friend to move to a different computer.
Yup. I’m going for compsci and it seems they wont be showing us any of that. I learned all those things in high school, from friends, and on my own though. I would hope these other people would at least know basic troubleshooting, but I guess not.. sigh. Whenwe were using the lab at the library some online program(that many students use for homework) needed something installed and asked for admin permissions, they told my friend to move to a different computer.
And this is why I got my BA from ITT tech…hands on work not book work. I now am a Computer Electronics Engingeer, with Networking, and Programming, minors. So much better working in a “realistic” setting rather than the theoretical one.
This is because Computer Science degrees are geared toward preparing students for graduate degrees for PhD programs in Computer Science rather than to be employed as technical support or other “hands on” jobs, though many universities have dual-track programs designed to prepare students for more “hands on” careers or for continued studies.
This isn’t much different from a psychology degree or a degree in a foreign language — these are degrees intended to lead to more advanced study where the “career path” is something other than your typical entry level position. Many university degrees are this way.
The “traditional” break out was: Vocational and technical, and community colleges provided “jobs training” associates and “practical” degrees for employment (e.g., job readiness and training). Colleges and Universities provided broader based liberal arts-based degrees oriented on preparing students for higher level career placement (e.g., management, planning, supervisory roles, etc.) or professional careers (e.g., law, architecture, librarian, engineers, etc.) or further advanced study (doctors, physicists, mathematician psychologist, etc.)
Unfortunately, the impression and focus now is that ALL education MUST be geared to JOB training to meet the needs of corporations and businesses. Which is, decidedly, unfortunate.
CompSci does not equal CompTech or Networking. CompSci is geared towards programming, not networking or workstation/server repair. I work for an MSP that has both a programming and networking dept. Your average programmer isn’t concerned with the OS or the machine it runs on (unless they are an OS/hardware developer). I know several that can’t fix anything beyond rebooting the machine to see if it fixes the problem. This is why there are networking/systems people.
Good point; I cant imagine why I expected even a coder to know how to plug a computer in or turn it on.
If it’s anything like my current workplace, simply seeing a dead computer does not equal ‘plug it in and see what happens’. We have to log a tech support call practically anytime the printer has a bad day, or we need to do something as radical as reinstalling a plugin on a browser. I may have admin rights on the regional databases I’m in charge of, but according to my company IT policy, I have as much technical ability as a dead rat. Sad but true.