
Ask HN: How would you design an IT degree? - muzani
A lot of people say that degrees do a poor job of preparing people for development jobs. It&#x27;s so bad that many people opt to drop out and get experience coding instead.<p>How would you change things? What kind of foundation would create the best developers 5 years after graduation?<p>To clarify terms:<p>IT - something that is more like modern web, app, back end. Not really things like multithreading, AI, signal processing.<p>Degree - a 4 year course in something. Newbies are expected to have good logic and math skills, but no programming skills.
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dozzie
> A lot of people say that degrees do a poor job of preparing people for
> development jobs.

Because IT is a _craft_ , and _universities_ are an not appropriate
environment to teach craft, which is completely opposite to what companies are
expecting.

Craft is best learned while doing the actual job on actual product, so you
need real production lines, machines, and tools -- and somewhat modern at
that. All these are too expensive (in money and man power, both in setting up
and maintaining) to be kept without them earning money (producing), and an
university _would need many of them for different degrees_. It's just too
costly and too far from how university works and should work (science!
research!).

Note that a university has some traits that a normal work doesn't have. For
instance, you won't learn much of the theory behind the craft, nor would you
have a chance to wet your toe in an unrelated specialization of your field.
It's valuable to have both, university degrees and craft training, it's just
they're two different things and IT industry doesn't carry out one of them and
expects the other to fill the gap.

~~~
muzani
But universities do a good job of teaching law, medicine, engineering, and
art. I don't see why it wouldn't teach IT as well, especially when the
facilities you need are just computers.

~~~
dozzie
> But universities do a good job of teaching law, medicine, engineering, and
> art.

Or do they? Can you just get a regular job directly after finishing your
degree in law or medicine or engineering, or do you need to get additional
training in the form of internships? Pay special attention to medicine
training and electrical or civil engineering.

> I don't see why it wouldn't teach IT as well,

Actually, it _does_ work _just as well_ \-- or rather, _just as bad_. It's
just the other fields are regulated and you need to have an actual
apprenticeship-like training on top of that.

> especially when the facilities you need are just computers.

It's not just the computers. Out of everything, the computers are the part
that's the easiest to procure. What you need is software that is actually used
and that needs development and/or maintenance and an environment where
students will not destroy system's code (usually it's achieved by guarding by
much more numerous experienced staff). These parts (idea, users, and a way to
keep the system running) are hard to acquire in IT _even in industrial
setting_.

