Perspective: It's back to school for IT

perspective The latest findings from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that by 2014, the IT industry will create close to 1 million jobs.

With all of the opportunity that lies ahead for the information technology professional, there still remains a significant skills gap. Especially when you consider that the number of students majoring in computer science continues to decline, with the latest reports showing a 70 percent drop from the years 2000 to 2005.

The decline in computer science enrollment may be attributed to the misconceptions about offshoring and outsourcing, not to mention the well-publicized dot-com days. Some may even point to the stereotypical computer science nerd with taped glasses and a pocket protector as a reason to avoid a technology career.

However, for the IT professional who fully understands how to align technology with the needs of the business, the career opportunities are abundant and seemingly limitless. And far from boring.

Today's computer science curricula must expand beyond lines of code to include lines of business.

What the facts and figures don't necessarily bring to light is the dramatically changing role of IT in the workplace. No longer relegated to writing programs to support a tactical business function, today's IT professional is intertwined with every aspect of the business.

For example, consider the requirements of a company that is competing in a global economy and aims to expand operations overseas. A company of this ilk demands a technology system that is designed to support the import and export of goods around the world. This system must take into account border regulations, currency conversions and language variances among myriad other business requirements.

Clearly, the IT team that is supporting a company's global business strategy plays a critical role in the organization. Moreover, in this scenario, the opportunities exist for the company's traditional IT professionals to evolve into strategic advisers, international team leaders or project managers, for example.

To reflect the changing view of the role of IT in the business world, there needs to be a fundamental shift in the classroom. Mastering the traditional computer-engineering courses will always be required, yet today's computer science curricula must expand beyond lines of code to include lines of business.

Teaching students programming languages is quite different than training students to apply technology to real business problems. Students are best served when classroom exercises are based on applying technology to solve real-world business challenges, as opposed to quizzing students on language proficiency (which, in many cases, tests only a student's memorization capabilities).

What's more, the proliferation of open-standards-based IT strategies makes the traditional computer science coursework somewhat dated, unless the professor is continually honing his skills and connecting with real-world users to keep up on the ever-changing industry shifts and specification ratifications.

Additionally, the educator needs to be held accountable for having the foresight to realize which skills are required on the job today and will still be in demand five years from now.

Key to recognizing what the future skills will be is the understanding of the business drivers that led to the creation of programming languages Java, Python and PHP, for example. Otherwise, the student may graduate but be left behind in the work force.

Interestingly, a recent Forrester Research study reports that it is accepted and expected that IT professionals will work alongside various business groups and ecosystem partners to use technology to advance business goals. These paths span sourcing, architecture, management and innovation.

One area of employment growth that taps into all of those paths and is increasingly on the rise is service-oriented architecture. SOA is based on the ability to more closely align the use of IT with the needs of the business, much like the examples of the global distributor and the bank merger. This segment of the market is expected to reach $18.4 billion by 2012 and shows no signs of stopping.

However, to ensure the next generation's success, professors, students, and IT and business executives must work in concert to expand the education of today's students by teaching critical business skills that will complement traditional computer science training.

Biography
M. Brian Blake is an associate professor in the computer science department at Georgetown University, and a facilitator of the Georgetown-IBM SOA Curricula. He is also a consultant at Mitre.

More Perspectives

[Dachi]

What ever

Comp Sci. does provide useful structure to someone in programming or application development, but the best developers I speak with all say they learned more on their own than in school.

They have differing opinions on the foundation formal schooling provided, but the reality if someone is a very good developer and they managed to get that way with little hand holding, most employers are not going to lose sleep over hiring them without the degree.

With my company, we have had such bad experiences in the past hiring people directly into advanced level IT positions that we tend to filter just about everyone through the lower leave positions first and let them compete for promotions.

With interviews, the best candidate gets the position. With the possible exceptions of management, paper credentials are not worth much during our interviews (which are really just exams).

The degree is really only useful to help your chances of getting the interview.

I don't speak for every company, but I do speak for more than a few.

As for your other point "science curricula must expand beyond lines of code to include lines of business." I could not disagree more.

If anything, IT is expanding into several more specialized functions as technologies grow more complex. Long gone are the days of "computer guy" although some IT people tend to be very versed.

I disagree that there is some kind of huge shift for "soft skills" IT workers. This is something IT women tend to have but if you notice they still are not exactly dominating the ranks of geekdom.

Our best engineers are too busy getting stuff done to be sitting on conference calls.

More than a few times I have seen "soft skills" people spend hours trying to fix a problem via conference call before getting someone competent to find and correct the problem in the time it would have taken to dial in.

Anyway, the fact is that real world experience still trumps education and pays better too. The people who tend to be most successful are people with a passion for what they do, and these people tend to be resourceful enough to learn the ins and outs outside of traditional academic environments.

[arluthier]

Somewhat agree with Dachi

I agree with Dachi on several points. For one compsci doesnt need to get diluted with touchy-feely crap. A large part of a undergrad degree is extraneous stuff already. World history, greek mythology and all the "requirements" just make a student check the blocks to get the degree. While the bulk of the lurn'n comes in those highly specialized computer theory and coding classes.

If schools want to make thier programs more relevant to the evolving IT world... dump the non-it specific courses and fill them with IT related stuff. Like IT business models, GUI thoery (as in psychology and ergo), etc.

But I guess that would make the universities into Tech-Schools.

[spm82]

I think that's part of his point

You said you disagreed and that real world experience is more important, which is a point that the author made in the first point in stressing a new approach to classroom-based education.

The reason that the best programmers learn more in on their own than in the classroom is because they're actually applying their knowledge of a specific language rather than just learning new syntax.

I think one good approach for a comp sci program would be to have an introductory course that teaches some basic programming concepts and a specific platform (Java, C#, PHP, VB.NET, whatever) and then use another course to take upon completion that has more of a team/lab approach with real-world examples.

The best course I took in college was a ColdFusion course, because it was light on syntax and heavier on understanding RDBMS and building fully-functional web apps.

Oh, and while I know they'll always be around, cutting some of the "history of computing" type courses would definitely be a move in the right direction to actually help some grads get a decent job right out of college. I've done far more without a degree than most of my peers my age have accomplished with one.

[technewsjunkie]

VideoConferencing. And I agree.

"Teaching students programming languages is quite different than
training students to apply technology to real business problems"

Hallelujah! Solve real world/business problems. This would require
communicating and understanding those "other" people! Yikes. A
tall order, for many.

[timcoyote]

Cycle Repeats

When you say traditional computer-engineering it sounds like everyone who is in an IT position comes from that style of degree program.

When I was starting college back in the early 80s the computer department to changed their major programs to be more business oriented and the even renamed the major to Systems Analysis which made it attractive to students who were interested in both technology and business. The idea was to give the students curricula beyond the lines of code to include business. So to me this is an OLD idea but still a good one, so read Blakes article here and take it seriously.

What I think is really happening here is that the business schools at universities are embracing technology more and giving them the opportunities to learn to apply technology to business and drawing students away from computer science departments.

I wonder if the numbers here (70 percent drop) really represent as big a loss as it may appear, from my Alma Mater it looks that they are just moving back to the business school leaving the computer science departments thin, but not leaving the job market thin.

[Marcus Westrup]

The Job

I switched from computer science to physics mid-degree. I found physics to be more interesting, more challenging, and a lot more computer intensive than the computer classes! It was the difference between just learning how to program, and actually writing code to do real work (i.e. simulating magnetic fields). I had a better understanding of computer science in general by not going through the traditional route. Unfortunately employers dont often see it this way.

With quantum computing on the way, educational requirements will drastically change. I cant imagine how non-physics literate students will cope with all the new stuff.

[WJeansonne]

Some Folks Just Don't Get the Whole Picture

Some of the guys that posted here sound as if they have a chip on their shoulder about education. Sure there is a lot of theory in education, but how in the world will you be able to sit in a meeting with middle and senior managers and truly understand the language of business, particularly global business without the requisite education such as an MBA or at a minimum an undergraduate degree. You certainly won't come across as sophisticated and you will be relagated to the world of geekdom forever, LOL.

[Dachi]

Not true

Usually when we have a meeting about what we are going to do and how we intend to do it, it isn't the MBA's giving the insight.

Sure we have our "special" IT people who can't communicate, but no MBA or degree is going to make those people any less abrasive.

In fact, our most difficult IT people to deal with often hold 4 year degrees. This is becasue people without BS degrees started in the IT equiv of the "mail room" and worked their way up. The ones that can't communicate or deal with co-workes were filtered out on the way up.

We (semi) recently did some Chapter 11 house cleaning and sent many of our difficult to deal with "that's not my job" IT people packing. Most of the ones who were shown the door took degrees with them.

We replaced most of them with non or 2 year degree employees who were already in lower level positions in the company and I would be hard pressed to find too many people complaining about the changes.

These days we get more done faster with fewer people AND we pay them less.

[itchief]

Could it be the Lifestyle?

Perhaps the decline in computer science enrollment can be attributed to the 24x7 demands of the industry and global business. For every CrackBerry addict there are many who do not want to be "that connected". While that type of "always on" lifestyle is required once one reaches a certain level of management, many IT worker bees are expected to do the same. To some it is a choice between a lifestyle in what many times is a thankless profession or a life.