Computer science has one of the highest unemployment rates
"Every kid with a laptop thinks they're the next Zuckerberg, but most can't debug their way out of a paper bag," one expert told Newsweek.
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It would be better to introduce 'programming literacy' course. Like, learn whatever trade you like, but with a computer, because computers are everywhere now.
The computer by itself isn't that much useful, it needs to control something, like CNC welding machine, and if you can write the most basic Python to control your welding machine, you can do twice the work, because you can run your welding machine at night.
Not an employer.
From the outside, it looks like everyone expected Gen Z to just magically become computer literate because they 'grew up with them.'
because it worked for millennials! it wasn't an unfounded expectation. remember Flash? remember how many Flash games were programmed by 12yos? how many websites on Geocities and Angelfire? the 5kr1pt k1dd13z in the hacking scene? it was a golden generation of computer literacy. dev tools were basic tools, we were exposed to foundational technologies while they were new, and the Internet was oriented around producing content rather than consuming it. then came the app era, and the TV-ification of the Internet, and those skills atrophied.
Nah, my script kiddie skills are still perfectly fine. It's just that finding a regular coding job is easier and more profitable now, also the stuff I did 10 years ago is way less impressive now, when you have Youtube tutorials how to do that exact thing.
The Uni I graduated from introduced basic coding into every programm, from engineering to humanities to arts. Everyone used chatgpt to get through it without a second glance because they didn't even understood why they need that. Even management didn't, I guess, but they wanted to check a box of 'being modern and progressive'.
It should be explained and deeply inserted into each program with at least a couple of mixed half-IT disciplines, like Databases in Law Practice or Computer vision in QA or Automation in Accounting or MatPlotLib in Countative Studies or... As it was there, it's an isolated course that's the same for everyone, it's on you to create a project connected to your main interest. And, as I heard, no one really made it besides getting a minimal sum to pass.
Basically, it needs effort and understanding from both sides.
Educational bureaucracy strikes again!
It's likely that you will learn the same exact thing when you're 35 and need to improve your trade skills, but as a self-study and not an university course with zero relation to real life.
The field of programming is vast, and you totally can learn only the tiny part that is useful to you and ignore everything else. And learning CS to write programs is like learning to design combustion engines to drive a car.
And learning CS to write programs is like learning to design combustion engines to drive a car.
Sometimes.
But often people will “write programs” without a decent understanding of the underlying layers and principles or foundation on which the technology is built. (Even some CS majors will do this.) this will result in weird bugs and behaviors they cannot understand or debug. Meanwhile their peers and managers have begun to use and rely on these programs and even integrate them into larger processes and workflows. Once the bugs start showing up, now you’ve got a big problem.
There are also some basics you'd probably won't even register breaking without experience, going as far as pushing user credentials and personal data to an open git repository. I did that in my second pet project with just my temp keys to the cloud API, and github flagged that immediately. I guess, having at least the briefiest knowledge could've helped newbies avoid errors like that.
I don't know if it's bullshit or not, but I discovered that not every person has the mentality of seeing everything through an algorythmic lense, like detecting a repetition in a mundane task - and guessing, if it can be solved with a macro. I invented a lot of simple solutions, like these, or just combos of programs to optimize the workflow in my office, and I see not only my colleagues struggle to use these, many work for years in the least optimal way, even if the program itself, e.g. Excel, provides automated math equations - some still use calculators and put in the result by hand. It got me thinking, maybe IT isn't for everyone, and other learning\working styles won't benefit from such education even if it's given - while acing in something else entirely?
