I think that this is totally overblown. My whole career was in IT, and I had zero formal training in computer science. I've hired many, many IT workers, and degrees meant nothing to me... in fact, I tended to shy away from the CS majors as I found them to be inferior to others.
We keep hearing about the H1B visas and the lack of "talent"... but these stories are only coming from the biggies like Microsoft and Google. The reality is that nearly every company in existence in this country needs IT people, and many of those workers are folks who are self-taught, or just happen to have an aptitude for computers and programming.
If someone likes working with computers, and is willing to put in the time (which often times means being on call and putting in one's spare time to learn new things), then they can make a great career with computers.
When grocery stores are getting H1B visas, yes I can buy that they are hurting Americans
That's interesting; and I do think that most CS courses do a disservice to students. The only reason I can think of that something as useful as Ada's subtype hasn't made it into "mainstream languages" is that the CS-education has been geared toward "industry popularity". (While I could, and do, rant on the subject... it's a bit tangential, though certainly not irrelevant.)
The issue isn't only with CS (I only chose that because that is my degree field, and I've done job-searching), but apparently much of Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) — though I'll bet "technology" is the least severe case.
We keep hearing about the H1B visas and the lack of "talent"... but these stories are only coming from the biggies like Microsoft and Google. The reality is that nearly every company in existence in this country needs IT people, and many of those workers are folks who are self-taught, or just happen to have an aptitude for computers and programming.
Questions: Do you consider programming to be an "IT people" job? If not we're talking kiwi-fruit to potatoes; my particular case is software engineering/software development. If you do, then what programming language[s] do you use? (and, moreover, why?) Do you understand the limitations and drawbacks thereof? [Say something like PHP (or even C++).]
This is a bit off the subject. But, the corporation I worked for in California tended to avoid applicants from Cal, Davis and UC Santa Cruz because of the high probability of their "social toxicity" - disruption to workforce culture and potential for litigation.