Even in medicine, the first triage will probably be done by a nurse, then a doctor, finally a specialist.
You don't need a CS PhD for most of the work done with computers and it would be unrealistic and uneconomical to require such a high standard everywhere.
People make a good living customizing WordPress sites and the buyers get good value from it.
>There are markets for a wide range of abilities.
Even in medicine, the first triage will probably be done by a nurse, then a doctor, finally a specialist.
Then why require long time in school and residency for doctors? A boot camp should be enough.
>You don't need a CS PhD for most of the work done with computers and it would be unrealistic and uneconomical to require such a high standard everywhere.
No, you don't need any degree to use Excel or MS Word or modifying WordPress themes. But you should need a batchelor degree if if you want to be a high level specialist, programmer or architect.
>People make a good living customizing WordPress sites and the buyers get good value from it.
Likewise, you need a proper education to be a civil engineer or an architect. You do not need a degree to lay bricks or pour concrete.
I am asking for degrees for the higher levels of IT field, not for the people who modify WordPress themes, whom I am sure do a great job and are highly needed but are not exactly exponents of high level work in this field.
> But you should need a batchelor degree if if you want to be a high level specialist, programmer or architect
I'd like to ask, how are any of these specialties technically related to a bachelors degree?
One does not learn how to be a successful software architect in a semester or two of university. Neither does a bachelors degree make you anything more than a beginner in any specialized topic. While the definition of what's a "good" programmer is up for discussion, universities definitely do not produce them in any dependable capacity.
From my personal experience, at this point in time, major part of the students that complete a bachelors degree are in it just because programming is viewed as a well paying job and are about as worthless as a person that completed a 6 month bootcamp. The only difference being that the person with bootcamp experience might actually end up with an exact match of knowledge an employer wants, which hasn't had time to slowly evaporate over 4 years of "study".
Lastly to bring up another one of your points, I'd argue that learning from YouTube videos is not the same as going to a bootcamp. I do not view either highly, but I'd say that learning on your own deserves some level of commendation as it's the most crucial skill in a field that's constantly shifting and changing.
There was an expression at my school, in response to exactly what you're questioning.
"We train you for the last job you'll ever have, not the first."
The intent of a well-rounded bachelor's education isn't to be able to walk through the JavaScript library du jour from memory, but to have at least a base level of understanding how everything adjacent to the thing you're doing works.
> "We train you for the last job you'll ever have, not the first."
That's a bit funny for Computer Science since, even though I don't have numbers, I expect the average graduate now to work until they're 65+, and the vast majority will probably be out of the field of direct software development by the time they're 45 (burnout, people management, program management, project management, executive suite, etc).
>One does not learn how to be a successful software architect in a semester or two of university. Neither does a bachelors degree make you anything more than a beginner in any specialized topic.
That's entirely true. But if you din waste your time in school, you know fundamentals, you have the necessary background to proceed further and become good or excellent.
> that learning on your own deserves some level of commendation as it's the most crucial skill in a field that's constantly shifting and changing
I agree. You have to continously learn. But having a solid grasp of the fundamentals and understanding how things work will just help you on your path of future learning.
In University you still learn by yourself, but under supervision.
> I am asking for degrees for the higher levels of IT field, not for the people who modify WordPress themes, whom I am sure do a great job and are highly needed but are not exactly exponents of high level work in this field.
The IT field is multi dimensional, a person who is building a 3D engine is not the same person who is going to set up the backend system for your bank or write your kernel drivers. If put everything in one hat you are either going to teach too much or not enough in the field that the student will end up pursuing.
Why do you believe the education sector would be a worse place if we would have 3D engineering, backend engineering, mobile engineering and Wordpress theme development as separate fields? I would enjoy it when hiring people if there would be more specific credentials to the role I want to hire for.
I agree with the general premise, but the job market is insane enough to see this more as trying to cure the symptoms than the treating the cause.
3D engineering and backend engineering are very different, but backend engineering is generally easier than 3D engineering. Meanwhile, mobile engineering and backend engineering are far closer related. If one argues mobile engineering and backend engineering are different enough to warrant separate majors, you might as well argue "console/pc game development" and "mobile game development" do the same. You end up with so many ways to split hairs you're really just appeasing hiring managers being lazy.
To put into perspective the absolute insanity, if it were up to hiring managers, we'd have a university trajectory "Bachelor Java backend developer", "Bachelor .NET backend developer", "Master of Microservices", etc. which are obsolete within 2 years and catching up is left entirely to the individual. The field changes way too rapidly while also denying the similarities between different aspects and the ability to learn most things as long as someone can function as a specialist (and most places have a specialist already). Current courses may be too generalist, but at the very least they acknowledge almost every field in CS is effectively still data creation, modification and storage, while strategizing around physical limitations.
I believe that the cause is the following:
IT has evolved far too quickly for education to pick up and education itself is resistant to change for both good and bad reasons, we cannot change the system every year and expect grades to be comparable.
I do believe that we could create specializations that are not too specific yet useful, the main goal is to get rid of subjects that the student likely never encounter, I mean, we can start teaching history in Computer Science because maybe you'll program the next Age of Empires, yet we agree that the likelihood of that is so small, we can round it down to 0, my issue is that we don't check this for all the current subjects so that we don't waste people's time teaching them stuff they will never use.
> To put into perspective the absolute insanity, if it were up to hiring managers, we'd have a university trajectory "Bachelor Java backend developer", "Bachelor .NET backend developer", "Master of Microservices", etc.
You don't need "Bachelor .NET backend developer", you just need "Backend Developer", someone who has a good knowledge of one stack can easily migrate to another in the same field.
> which are obsolete within 2 years and catching up is left entirely to the individual
- MVC was invented in the 70s, still useful, it's been over 50 years and counting
- SQL also appeared around the 70s
- OOP appeared in the 50s, that's over 70 years and counting
If you know MVC, you can do MVVM.
If you can handle MySQL it's doubtful that you will have trouble with MongoDB.
I'm not implying that there were no changes and you don't need to keep yourself up to date, I'm saying that there are technologies and concepts that have longevity.
>The IT field is multi dimensional, a person who is building a 3D engine is not the same person who is going to set up the backend system for your bank or write your kernel drivers. If put everything in one hat you are either going to teach too much or not enough in the field that the student will end up pursuing.
I think that for a Batchelor degree, things are good as they are. Students are better learning CS fundamentals.
Learning the framework or the language du jour, is easy to do by yourself. Frameworks, libraries, tools, languages come and go. Fundamental concepts will stay.
I did a master in Web Development, so there is some specialization. Others did masters in Data Mining, Machine Learning, Database Technology, Bioinformatics.
I plan to do a PhD related to using ML in Web applications, so there can be even more specialization.
>I would enjoy it when hiring people if there would be more specific credentials to the role I want to hire for.
There are plenty of credentials out there. You just mostly don't get them from universities because universities are not in general in the business of granting trade credentials.
> Then why require long time in school and residency for doctors? A boot camp should be enough.
Someone else answered the question: Nurses do not require a long time. In some (mnany?) states you can become a nurse with a 2 year associate's degree, and career outcome/pay is correlated with experience, not the degree.
And nurses aren't even at the end of the spectrum. You have LPNs, etc.
But the reason I commented: This notion that it takes so many years of school + residency is mostly a US/Canada thing. In many/most countries, you go to medical school right after high school - it is typically a 5 year program.
Even in medicine, the first triage will probably be done by a nurse, then a doctor, finally a specialist.
You don't need a CS PhD for most of the work done with computers and it would be unrealistic and uneconomical to require such a high standard everywhere.
People make a good living customizing WordPress sites and the buyers get good value from it.