I gave the opening keynote at an Agile conference in Limerick this morning and enjoyed the questions and company. The slides and podcast went up this afternoon (If you have downloaded another podcast recently you might want to fast forward a bit at the start). We had a good panel session and a fair debate on several issues. One of the things which came up is the nature of education in matters technological in Universities. Now I have some fairly strong opinions on this and was happy to express them!
You take people who are already heavily into computers (in contrast to people) into a University course in which most of their encounters will be virtual. At the end of three years (more with post grad) they go out into the world to develop systems for people with very different perspectives. We know there is a degree of partial autism in Computer Science (the other is Economics), so in effect we are emphasising a disconnect with the world. By the time you reach 25 the brain is a lot less plastic. so if we don't get the right sort of patterns in place by then it will be difficult to do it later.
My suggestion was that we should encourage more joint honours, combining humanities with computer science. Anthology, Psychology, Philosophy (but no taking the mathematical logic options), History all spring to mind. I know managers in IBM who employed architects to do screen design as they had five years of training and experience in how to represent three dimensions into two. I think I might even go further and say that anyone wanting to interact between users and systems needs to be at least in part (and a significant part) outside of computer sciences.
Comments (4)
I work for a company with a Summer Intern program, with many of the interns coming from engineering degree programs. They've sometimes asked me what classes they should take their senior year in order to be ready for a career. I'm sure they're expecting me to recommend another course in finite element modeling or software development, but I've told them if they really want to get ready for a career classes in psychology, writing, sociology and drama (especially storytelling!) would all be most helpful. It's precisely your point, Dave, they need to get out of the solo routines that technical academia puts them into and prepare themselves for a world of interactions with others.
Posted by Steve Holt | June 13, 2008 5:25 AM
Posted on June 13, 2008 05:25
It gets worse, since many academic programs seem to be cutting back their education mission for "relevant" training.
I agree with you about joint honours. I also think that Computer Science has something to offer the world too. At one level, I think there'd be less rubbish code in the world if more developers knew more theory. I keep seeing situations where something as simple as a state-transition diagram makes everything clear.
On the other hand, I think other disciplines have something to learn from Computation too. It's the same problem as humanities graduates not understanding probability.
Posted by Steve Freeman | June 16, 2008 9:18 AM
Posted on June 16, 2008 09:18
Dave, this was a very interesting talk. Thanks for sharing it. I especially enjoyed the section about collecting and sorting user stories for products. That has been something I've been thinking about and doing a bit of work on for a while now (I spent a number of years in product management). The statements on combining quantitative analysis with qualitative story backup were fascinating as well.
I'd love to understand better what you are doing in the product-assessment area. What's the best way to engage? (Also, I am eager to find an accreditation seminar on the east coast US--any plans to add one in, say, Washington, this year?)
Regards, John
Posted by John Caddell | June 24, 2008 3:18 PM
Posted on June 24, 2008 15:18
Best way to engage is the accreditation seminar - or email
Next east coast will be Boston in the fall
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June 24, 2008 11:30 PM
Posted on June 24, 2008 23:30