Re: [SAGE] Computer Sciences degrees in IT

["Jon 'maddog' Hall" <maddog@li.org>]

> Mastering technology takes a degree of interest, whereas everyone deals
> with business as part of life. That casual exposure can, for someone who
> pays attention, provide a grounding in the subject.

I agree to a certain extent.  Yet I believe the statistic for small
businesses closing is something like 50% in the first five years of
their existence.  If business and finance were something that people can
pick up by "casual exposure", then a lot of people seem to be wearing
sunscreen.

On the other hand when I am driving on a slippery road in the winter
(yes, I live in New Hampshire), it is physics which keeps me on that
road.  And when I cook a hot dog in the "Radar-Range", it is physics
that tells me how it is being heated, and that it is not being cooked by
atomic radiation (as thought one gentlemen who I met in a luncheonette).
I have never understood how people could go through life without having
any clue about how things worked.  Of course there are lots of things
that I do not know about, such as the proper way to nurture
single-celled algae..... 

My belief as to why it is harder to teach the "business person"
technology is that a lot of the technology (or the explanation of it) is
based upon advanced math and science (physics and chemistry) that has
roots in our educational system back in grade school, and is extended in
college and universities.  And I should be clear that it is not
impossible to have a person trained in business and finance "good at
technology", it just seems to be a lot rarer.

Whether a person needs differential equations or Laplace Transforms to
be a good computer programmer is a matter for debate, but I do remember
Prof. Haas lamenting that he would not teach "real statistics" to the
general business person because they did not have the math background
that engineers had.  Relatively early in our educational system people
seem to separate into the "college bound" and the "non-college bound",
then (further) into the "geeks" and the "others".  "Geeks" do math and
science, and without at least a certain portion of that math and
science, it is a lot harder to explain disks whirling at almost
impossible speeds, with head displacements of only a molecule or two.

I was always rather proud of the Connecticut State Technical College
system that did a "placement exam", and if it found that the applicant
was weak in math or science from their high school, it had a "pre-tech"
program that allowed them to "catch up" before entering the main
program. The "pre-tech" program required three years to get an
Associate's degree, Rather than giving up on the student that late in
their educational career decided that math and science were the "way to
go", we allowed them to follow that path.  Some of my very best students
came out of that program.

I started to say that the businesses "failed" after five years, but then
I went back to check my statistics it was pointed out that while a
certain number of businesses "fail" (i.e. go out of business because
their revenues never go above their expenses), another huge number
"close" because their success did not match the expectations of their
owners or because their owners underestimated the amount of work that it
would take to build them.

So with all of this "exposure" to business, people still make the same
mistakes.  And with all this exposure to physics, people still go off
the road.....

Warmest regards,

maddog