[Tell It Right]

When I got my computer science degree decades ago, there were almost no women in my CS and higher math courses. My son (24) says it's still the same. Of course, now you can take months long courses in Python instead of going to college to try to get your foot in the door. But if you want your team to know nerd-level software design, at least one person needs a CS degree. For example, even though I was the kind of geek that learned how to program my home computer beginning at age 14, and I learned a lot later on the job, there's something to be said about learning how to do software engineering in a good college to make our custom software more robust and re-usable for many projects across decades so that we could depend on the same libraries that are already tested and had the bugs worked out.

Are young white men going to vocational school? I hear that's the case. But if we don't have many going into STEM, then our future higher paying engineering/software jobs are going to people from Asia.

[kearnyirish2]

“But if we don’t have many going into STEM, then our future higher paying engineering/software jobs are going to people from Asia.”

As I understand it, that was already being done - which is why young white men don’t go into tech so much anymore. That apparently happened years ago.

[rlmorel]

I know what you mean, but I will say-the most brilliant computer person I know is self taught (an autodidact, if you will) and I believe the man is a genius.

Not kidding. And I work in IT at a high level. This guy started out as a patient greeter, and he used to help us out when we did upgrades, then we hired him to our team for desktop support, but he codes extensively...all self-taught!

Makes me feel like a clod. I sure wish I had his intellect.