<p>This is a guest opinion piece, not reporting. Maybe they took him at his word, maybe the fact-checker thought that MIS falls under the umbrella of “CS.” I agree that this is a fact that could be checked…but do you think they called up his profs and asked whether the courses were actually as he described them? There is probably a limit to the amount of “fact-checking” done on any opinion pieces. All points on the political spectrum benefit from that, sloppy though it may be. Sometimes assertions are simply a matter of opinion, and cannot be checked, per se.</p>
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<p>This is not “journalism,” any more that BuzzFeed listicles are journalism.</p>
<p>Well it is very misleading he is saying he got a STEM degree and it puts everything he says into doubt. This is how misinformation spreads. It brings up so many questions. Why couldn’t he get a job if degrees aren’t even required. Was he competing for jobs that wanted CS majors against actual CS majors where he wouldn’t even have the right classwork? I see he is called out in the comments. But you can see that some other commenters don’t understand the difference or why it would matter either. I see the piece has been picked up elsewhere already with the heading 'I got an engineering degree…"</p>
<p>I agree it’s not a STEM degree, in fact, you might not need a degree for this kind of job, CC will do. But I know a few MIS since college days and they have worked at big banks and such, they are making nice salary by knowing only a few things well. Something to do with SAP if IIR.</p>
<p>Back in the dark age of 90s, I moved from engineering to IT with just a couple of database classes and one programming class. From what I know it is still quite possible to do that if someone wants to start in QA.</p>
<p>This guy will probably never get a job in IT.</p>
<p>I’m one of those who majored in English and was hired by a tech company for my ability to write and think critically. Along the way, I learned to program and to manage and to do dozens of other useful mundane things, but I would not trade my liberal arts education for anything. I also have a penchant for hiring and promoting those who demonstrate good communication and critical thinking skills regardless of their degrees or the institutions that conferred them.</p>
<p>So glad my daughter is majoring in medieval studies. We know right now that she will be ill-equipped for a career in computer science, so there will be no ugly surprises. ;)</p>
<p>If you parse what the author actually writes here, you could read this to mean he earned the highest grade in one computer science class. Whether or not MIS is considered a STEM field probably depends on where the student earned the degree. Penn State is best known for its technology-related majors (engineering, information sciences, agricultural sciences, meteorology, etc.), so maybe this guy read “business and technology” and extrapolated “STEM” from that.</p>
<p>Regardless, Supply Chain Management is one of PSU’s hottest degrees, so I’m not sure what caused his job search to be such a disappointment. I suspect that, regardless of how he fared in a comp sci class, he may not have been a stellar math student. Otherwise, he would have double-majored in something of a more quantitative bent. </p>
<p>Corporations, I would think, do want people who can <em>communicate effectively</em> in writing.</p>
<p>Someone else mentioned critical thinking and analysis as things that colleges offer which firms covet. I figured I’d mention the writing aspect of a college education.</p>
<p>Unless you are just a naturally gifted and pedantic writer – or you attended a high school featuring rigorous, writing-heavy courses – you’re probably going to need a college education to learn how to write properly.</p>
<p>A relatively limited person can seem smart if he can write.</p>
<p>In another editorial piece (pennlive) he says he had a choice between 2 jobs - at an it firm or web design. He decided to open his own business - and then brags at how well he is doing.</p>
<p>Apparently he must feel his degree is not currently helping him successfully launch and run his own company. Or did not prepare him for a very important job (instead of entry level) at a major firm.</p>
<p>Either way his lying and whinging are just tiresome - and irrelevant.</p>
<p>In the more technical areas of computer companies (i.e. development and QA, not MIS/IS/IT), college backgrounds are heavily weighted toward CS majors, but non-CS majors are mostly from various liberal arts like physics, economics, history, art, geology, etc., plus some engineering majors. MIS/IS/IT and other business majors seem to be absent. Among liberal arts majors, biology majors also seem to be absent or very underrepresented.</p>
<p>But MIS is still a legitimate tech oriented undergraduate major offered by many business schools and are supposed to be more “practical” than some other traditional tracks, so I don’t think that he had a hard time finding employment because he chose the “wrong” major. The questions are: 1) Was his experience typical or representative of the MIS graduates from Smeal B School of Penn State? 2) If programming is not the right direction, what career is for MIS major? 3) What are the career prospects of MIS graduates from other schools such as MIT and Carnegie Mellon? And why the differences if any?</p>
<p>MIS is something every company needs, but it can be more a commodity job market. It’s easier to outsource. It grows at about the same rate as the economy as a whole because every business needs it. There is also a limit on how good and how valuable someone can be. Companies often invest in MIS based on price. No doubt it requires talent, and great people can do well. </p>
<p>Being a computer scientist is more ABOUT innovation. If you’re brilliant enough, the sky’s the limit. You create something, get some venture funding, and poof you are starting your own foundation. At the high end, computer scientists are hired despite the price. They can often create a lot more value. They are in very high demand now. </p>
<p>Whether or not this guy is being disingenuous, I do think that the enormous gap between what we’re teaching our kids and what they actually need to know/be able to do to get a job is society’s problem, not the kids’ problem. </p>
<p>Of course, there’s a dichotomy between the view that college is intended to be a time of learning and expanding the mind, and the view that college is intended to prepare you for the working world. But I do think that it should be pretty clear to kids which of those they’re signing up for, or what they need to do to accomplish the latter if that’s their objective. And if kids in pre-professional majors – even kids who may not be in the top half of their classes – can’t find jobs after graduation, how does that benefit society? Isn’t it in everyone’s interest to make sure that the future workers, the ones who will keep our economy running and enable us to compete globally, are well trained, don’t study a subject they won’t have a use for, and don’t spend money on a useless degree? </p>
I learn something new every year (or two).</p>