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Gates On Future of CS Education
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jul 19, 2005 04:18 PM
from the we-need-more-women-too dept.
from the we-need-more-women-too dept.
lilrowdy18 writes "In an interesting article from Eweek, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates talks about how the lack of spending in research and development is 'kind of a crime'. He also talks about future problems that are facing the computer industry including outsourcing and the speed of upcoming processors." From the article: "Microsoft taps both native-born talent and foreign talent, but Gates said he is frustrated that more U.S. students are not going into computer science. 'The fastest growing major is physical education,' he said. 'The Chinese are going to wake up and say we missed this opportunity,' he joked."
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Donation (Score:3, Funny)
The software shall help easing both the finance and skill shortage.
Re:Donation (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Donation (Score:3, Insightful)
The donation just happens to lock the users into the donor's OS and development system. What a surprise!
In the same spirit I donate an infinite number of copies of Python, an infinite number of copies of PERL, an infinite number of copies of GCC and an infinite
Re:Donation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Donation (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Donation (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Donation (Score:4, Funny)
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It doesn't help... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't help... (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern coporations are cutting off their nose to spite their face. Someday they will be crying in their beer about not being able to find any workers. Well they made their own bed now they've got to sleep in it.
(Sorry once I got rolling on the cliches I couldn't stop myself)
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Re:It doesn't help... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not just them - you and I have to sleep in it, too.
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Re:It doesn't help... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It doesn't help... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exacly. When I was in college getting my CS degree (graduated in '99) many people were in the program because that's where they could make money. The ones I still know about are struggling for work, but I haven't had any issues staying employed. Work hard and with a passion and people will notice and things will work out okay.
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A lack of spending on R&D? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A lack of spending on R&D? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:A lack of spending on R&D? (Score:5, Funny)
No kidding, you could have a similar headline for Steve Jobs. I loved seeing this story in the Seattle Times [seattletimes.com] this morning. The headline was "Gates Stresses Need for Qualified CS Grads", the headline underneath it was "Hewlett-Packard to cut 14,500 jobs in restructuring plan". Do they put these things together deliberately to fuck with us, or is it just an accident?
Parent
Re:A lack of spending on R&D? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A lack of spending on R&D? (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't prove Microsoft R&D is worth anything. All it proves is that their R&D section has a pretty website.
It seems like there are always apologists willing to defend Microsoft, or any other big company that makes shitty products and uses slick marketing to crush its better competitors, with the cry, "Look how much money they spend on $X!" So what? If $X sucks, it doesn't
What are the practical results? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's one thing to work on pie-in-the-sky research (and I have no problem with that), but quite another to do that while also continuing to maintain one of the most problematic computing platforms in history in an almost unchanged state for over a decade.
Some of the money might be better spent r
You mean.. (Score:3, Funny)
Zing!
Ironic... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong tense, Mr. Gates. (Score:3, Insightful)
One correction, Mr. Gates.
It is we in North America who are asleep, and who will one day wake up and have to admit that we missed the opportunity.
The Chinese are wide awake.
20% unemployment rate in CS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wrong tense, Mr. Gates. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
MS doesn't care about academic research (Score:3, Interesting)
Who wants to produce research that is dead before it's ever published? Especially for those who see research as a way of improving the world in some (even small) way, it seems that CS research in many directions may not be the way to go...
the answer lies with him... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the answer lies with him... (Score:5, Interesting)
You hit the nail on the head. When I was in college, my roomate who was a buisness major switched to computer science when he saw an article in US News and World Report which said that computer science majors would start at $40,000 a year. The only major that started higher was chemical engineering. Buisness was somewhere in the middle at $29,000 or so, with art at the bottom with $18,500.
Now people are avoiding computer science because there is no growth seen. There is percieved shrinkage in the USA. HP lays off 11,000. Sun fired 4,000 a few years ago. Who wants to work in an industry where they have no job security?
It is not like someone can get a degree in computer science, get a job at GE starting at $40,000, and work there the next 30 years and retire with a pension. Most comp sci people I know work on a contract basis. One year at a single company is considered a long time by some people. Then there is the pain in the ass of finding a new gig.
How does someone plan buying a house under those conditions? What do you tell the bank? Umm... I have had 5 different contracts the past 3 years.
Then there is the question of sanity. Who will live longer. They comp sci guy, who works 60 hour weeks, under stress, then even when he has no work, he is stressed looking for work. I see an early death due to heart attack. Or is it better to be a PE teacher, making $35,000 a year and spending time outdoors lobbing softballs and playing tennis?
The problem the comp sci students are going to face is the same problem the auto workers are facing. Companies don't give a crap about americans, even though the companies started in the USA, the CEO and board of directors are American, and they sell their product to Americans. They will move their factories and tech support and anything they can to Mexico or India or anywhere they can find cheap labor. The CEO's are pretty much trators and they are crapping on the USA.
Parent
Re:the answer lies with him... (Score:5, Interesting)
In my family, I have people who retired from GM as a factory worker, who still has enough money to buy a new car every 4 years.
Next door is a nurse who is retired. Same thing, she has new cars and has money.
When I was 19 I worked in a bookstore one year during college. One of the women who worked there part time was 60 years old and was a retired teacher. I asked he if she needed the money, thinking how sad that a 60 year old woman needs to work. She said she did not need any money, had more than enough, but she was lonely and wanted to be around people. Since she was a teacher, she loved books.
My friends dad was a truck driver, and he is retired, and living comfortably in a 4br 2.5bath house.
What two things do all these people have in common? An automotive factory worker, a teacher, a nurse, and a truck driver? They all started working in the 1960's and each and every one of them has a pension in addition to social security.
It is a shame when today, skilled workers are not gaurenteed a pension. There should be a law which says that anyone who puts in over 10 years sweat and work into a company will get some kind of pension from that company. Maybe a good rule would be for every year worked, the company must pay a pension of 2.5% of that years salary, adjusted for inflation. A 30 year career would yeild 75% of the that persons salary. Add in social security, and most can retire comfortably.
I wonder what has changed from the 1960's-80's and today. Why is it today most companies don't want to offer health insurance or pensions, or make people pay into their own private funds. What has changed? Companies could afford it back then, but today they outsource work, they close factories, and they don't want to pay workers. But the CEO's get HUGE bonuses, it is nowhere in line with the bonuses they got 30 years ago.
The only way to fix it is to pass new laws. No more outsourcing of jobs. All companies must have a pension package. No lay offs unless the union okay's it. And every company must have a union, or the workers must collectivly agree on pay and terms.
Parent
Re:the answer lies with him... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most companies do have some sort of retirement package, but the shift has been away from defined benefits regimes like that of a traditional pension toward a defined contribution like a 401k or and IRA.
The difference here is a question of risk and flexibility. The pension model was designed around the worker who would stay at the same company for thirty years, then die a short time later. The automotive companies are quickly discovering, like other formerly strong American industries like steel, that these open ended pension liabilities coupled with longer lifespans are like boat anchors when their margins slip away.
The fixed contribution model tries to solve two problems at once. First, workers can more easily move from firm to firm when their retirement package is not owned by the first company. Second, since only contriubtions are fixed, difficult variables like lifespan are removed from the employer's pension equation, allowing them to be focused only on their current workforce.
The shift in risk is a political issue. Does the worker gain by the potential windfall of compound interest and appreciation or does he lose by inheiriting the risk associated with direct exposure to the market?
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Re:the answer lies with him... (Score:5, Informative)
Bill Gates *WANTS* the market of programmers to be flooded. The glut of CS students during the dot com boom was fabulous for software companies who were hiring programmers for 35k a year *AFTER THE BUST*. The economy is starting to heat up again (until oil prices kill us, a story for another day) and wages are starting to pick up again, and companies don't want to pay them. Believe me, bill gates does nothing but serve himself, if he says we need more programmers, we most surely don't.
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The Reason Why...Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Reason Why...Simple (Score:3, Interesting)
Believe me -- with the dummies with new CS Masters degrees I see getting hired,
Re:The Reason Why...Simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Lemme guess - your friend just got out of Law School and you've been out with your CS for five years or more?
In the longrun I'd place my bets on the Lawyer having a larger/more stable income. Law is a field where experience matters. It's one of those fields where the older you get the more valuable you become. Not so with CS/EE/IT where after a certain age your income/employability can fall precipitously off a cliff.
Of course, the way to make a lot of mo
if microsoft can't find staff... (Score:5, Interesting)
Once upon a time you could make real money by working for a startup Microsoft. Today, it's just another job and all the cool ideas are coming out of Google.
The difference is (Score:5, Informative)
In the USA, they're not only laying off IT and CS staff, they're even letting H1-B visas go unused, not that that's keeping Bill and others from lobbying to raise the H1-B cap anyway.
Ironic... (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy is just playing the governments of the world off one another to benefit his own company. Not really news.
No Jokes Here (Score:5, Interesting)
How many of your Comp. Sci. peers got jobs before graduating from college? I know that only two of my fellow students did. How many business, accounting, education, and other students get jobs? Again, I don't know about your experience, but all my friends who chose not to major in Comp. Sci. did quite well and landed nice jobs BEFORE they got their diplomas.
Supply and demand. This is a no-fucking-brainer for students who go to college in order to get jobs and move on with their careers. Last time I checked, nobody wants to spend -- or waste -- for years of school in order to end up unemployed. There are tons of articles that describe newly minted CEOS who decide to hire and developm in India or China because it is cheaper. Kids read that and decide not to fall into the same hole as the previous generation.
Sorry Bill, not every students gets to be one of the wealthiest people on the planet. Software was hot in 80s. Now it is a freaking commodity. Let's move on.
Right... (Score:3, Funny)
Bill Gates wants to have his cake and eat it too (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
Microsoft taps both native-born talent and foreign talent, but Gates said he is frustrated that more U.S. students are not going into computer science.
This is the same Bill Gates that wants to completely eliminate H-1B quotas (that is, allow an unlimited number of foreign software developers in). This is the same Bill Gates that is constructing a huge, sprawling Microsoft Campus in India.
You want more students going into Computer Science, Bill? Then quit telling American students, through your actions, that there won't be any software development jobs left for them in America by the time they graduate!
He's just another F'ing "I want cheap labor at the expense of American workers" prick. Excuse my French.
PE? Makes sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who gets paid millions of dollars to play games?
Athletes and coaches
Who gets put on the covers of countless magazines?
Athletes and coaches
Who gets multimillion dollar contract buy-outs when they fail to perform?
Athletes and coaches
Who gets invited on Leno and Letterman?
Athletes and coaches
Who gets multimillion dollar endorsement deals?
Athletes and coaches
Who gets put on posters and tacked to the walls of thousands of teenagers?
Athletes and coaches
Who gets worshipped and forgiven for all sins for being successful?
Athletes and coaches
Who gets teased mercilessly throughout their school years?
Science geeks and nerds
Who gets fired to raise stock prices even after successful work?
Science geeks and nerds
Who gets taunted and degraded by society at large?
Science geeks and nerds
Who gets underpaid for long hours and little security?
Science geeks and nerds
Who gets to spend 4-8 years in school in a difficult, demanding major with perceived diminishing job opportunities?
Science geeks and nerds
The perception is that you have to be born with certain talents and abilities to become a great athlete, but you can be trained to be a coach (even a mediocre one) and at least be in that field, so something fun, and bask in the reflected glory of the truly talented. Plus, we're not outsourcing football yet.
Yeah, I can't imagine why so many people are choosing PE over CS.
'The fastest growing major is physical education,' (Score:3, Interesting)
well, what would you rather have a country of obese programmers who die of heart disease at age 40? or some of our smarter more talented people going into teaching kids how to exercise and diet properly, so they can lead longer heathier lives.
I guess gates would rather have the former... and rely on computers to design the medical technology to replace a 'frail' human cardiovascular system ith a 'easily replacable' mechanical system..
it's not CS majors (Score:3, Insightful)
not a new problem ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Go check out a copy of The Peter Principle [amazon.com] (copyright 1969 -- pick up a used copy from Amazon) to confirm that the current decrepit state of our managerial skilz is nothing new.
When the nation's leaders stop rewarding managerial ineptitude and punishing technical workers, we might have a chance of turning this around. You can count on other nations (China, anyone?) not making this particular blunder.
If it offers hope to anyone, in today's WSJ (subscription required) [wsj.com] there is a piece advocating outsourcing of our outrageously overpaid top management to bring excessive top management compensation under control. It's the 7th most-emailed article today. But it will take a long time after such practices begin (assuming they ever begin) before they filter down through the corporate structure and clueless incompetence is no longer rewarded.
Re:I was considering majoring in CS, but... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know where you got that one from. Sure, they ask strange questions, but they treat you quite well when you're interviewing.
I've had two friends interview for internships with Microsoft, and a third who got a job there after college. All three of them made it a point to brag about how well MS treated them at the interviews (despite the bizarre questions asked), and how well they treat their employees.
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Nice FUD but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually thought my CS classes were the easy ones. It was that damn Lit class that gave me hell.
2) Going through Microsoft's dehumanizing interview process
There are (e-gahds!) other companies to work for you know. You don't HAVE to be evil.
3) Getting free soda in exchange for 80 hour work weeks at minimum wage I don't get free soda, and I only put in 5 hours of overtime a week to run nightly processes. I get paid a good deal more then minimum wage.
4) Getting fired at age 28 for being too old
I'm only 26, so I can't say for sure, but my Boss (a former mainframe coder) is in his 50s, my team lead is in his late 30s and another developer on the team is in his mid 40s.
Just wanted to shed some light on the ACTUAL life.
-Rick
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Re:I was considering majoring in CS, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
It took me *3 years* to find my first programming job after college (graduated just after 9/11)... Now I know my experience was one of the worst, but it happened. With the worries about outsourcing, the szhizophrenic (sp?) attitudes of companies ... If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have gone to CS either. The average programmer makes no more than the average teacher, and teachers have better pensions, don't have to go through insanely difficult curriculum, don't have to worry about outsourcing, technology trends, the global economy ... Maybe I'll take the cbest and teach CS.
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Re:I was considering majoring in CS, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate doing "me too" posts, but this is exactly what I went through. I graduated during the worst time when the unemployment level was sky high. So did my friends in non-tech majors. Although I love what I do for living, it becomes obvious that the market is somewhere else right now. Not a biggie, let's create a new bubble and retire rich :)
Re:I was considering majoring in CS, but... (Score:3, Informative)
1) Four years of one of the most time intensive majors in colleges
2) Going through Microsoft's dehumanizing interview process
3) Getting free soda in exchange for 80 hour work weeks at minimum wage
4) Getting fired at age 28 for being too old
Funny. I work at Microsoft as an intern, and I didn't find their interview process dehumanizing. It was mostly tests to see if I could solve problems, design as part of a team, and write clean, bug-free code. Sure it was a pain to fly to Redmond,
Re:Screw the degree, get a certificate... (Score:3, Funny)
On second though, I think I'll keep my CS degree.
Re:this is what gates thinks about education: (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, I will troll a bit... (Score:5, Informative)
I thought too that the US were a long way ahead in technology. I came for a conference in Austin, TX last November, and on the way back I stayed for a week in NY. I was disappointed in some ways:
Ok, ok, I have to compensate with some positive points...
Anyway, back to the point: the US are not as advanced as many, Americans and not, think they are. At least not in the level of technology the citizens are exposed to, I have definitely seen enough to deem it unlikely that I was victim of a long series of unlucky coincidences.
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