<p>Perhaps the problem is that you misuse the words “foster” and “talent.” Even worse, you misuse them almost simultaneously.</p>
<p>“Foster” means to nurture, especially someone unrelated to you, usually without significant compensation beyond reimbursement of expenses. </p>
<p>Think of foster parents, or dedicated, effective and yet poorly-paid school teachers.</p>
<p>To pay for someone’s grad school education primarily because it will benefit you, or your company, is not “fostering.” It is just a business deal.</p>
<p>“Talent” is a natural aptitude or ability, often unrecognized by those who possess it. It is apparent that many who work in what can be loosely called “IT” do not even have a degree in computer science. The percentage might be in excess of 60%. A few of them might even be liberal arts grads. You will assume that they have no “talent,” however. After all, they have the wrong degree.</p>
<p>The OP’s dad is concerned about the potential disappearance of jobs that his child might want or even need should he or she graduate with a CS degree, so the OP probably has some serious questions. All you have really done is suggest that people with ~4.0 GPAs and the right kind of degree from the right kind of school will have great opportunities.</p>
<p>@DTBTSE, LOL, you are getting warmer (though still pretty far out there on the flakiness scale, IMHO). You sound like an unemployed English major parsing my words. Good luck with that. </p>
<p>I’m suggesting that people with 3.0 or better GPAs who have put in the extra effort to develop and master a marketable CS skill set, who graduate with the right kind of degree from the right kind of school will have great opportunities. It’s nowhere near as steep a hurdle as getting into medical school. I want the right degree because a liberal arts major who doesn’t yet know what they want to be when they grow up is a riskier person to invest in when I can find someone who has already made enough of their own investment in themselves to be committed to their profession. If things heat up so much like they did in the 90s, liberal arts majors who are smart and can code may have a bright future too. We’re not there yet. </p>
<p>By talent, I mean where the primary driver of the hiring decision is your capabilities and intellect not your price. A commodity job is one where they try to find the cheapest person that can do the job, the price is the driving factor - hence outsourced.</p>
<p>By foster, I mean, they will invest in you to develop your talent because they don’t expect to be able to find someone who already has it. Kind of like the minor leagues in baseball.</p>
<p>Your writing is all over the place. I merely summarized it for everyone. The restaurant worker you hired had a “near perfect GPA,” in your own words. NOW you are talking about 3.0 GPAs. Here’s a clue: 3.0 is not “near perfect.” You’re the flake.</p>
<p>I knew of a programmer who had a degree in English. He was able to communicate clearly. If you had asked him to define “foster” and “talent” he would have been able to give you the correct definitions. Whether you would have retained that knowledge is anyone’s guess.</p>
<p>The restaurant worker’s GPA was above 3.9something. I don’t remember the hundredths place. </p>
<p>You don’t need a 3.9 to be sought after as “talent” in the current environment. You probably need a 3.0 to get an interview and then you do need to be able to demonstrate good capabilities to get the job. It’s much easier than med school. </p>
<p>Foster and Talent: Let me google them for you:</p>
<p>Foster: “Encourage or promote the development of (something, typically something regarded as good)”. </p>
<p>My usage: We foster your development by paying for your graduate school. </p>
<p>Talent: “1. A special natural ability or aptitude, 2. a capacity for achievement or success; ability”</p>
<p>My usage: If you have sufficient ability to do the difficult jobs that are vacant and going begging for talent and you can prove that with a degree in CS and a demonstration during your interview, then you are talented. You are sought after and in demand. </p>
<p>@DTBTSE, I don’t think you’re dictionary business is going to fly, LOL! It’s commodity stuff. I can do better for free.</p>
<p>No one cares about your made-up definitions. Your talk is nothing but hype and buzzwords, no substance. I keep a large dictionary nearby to which I refer whenever I come across someone who seems to be playing fast and loose with the English language. </p>
<pre><code>“My usage: We foster your development by paying for your graduate school.”
</code></pre>
<p>So, in essence, your employees have to work off the cost of the additional education that you “provide?” And it will be education “customized” for your needs, not theirs?</p>
<p>If they want to become more valuable on our nickel and earn the high salaries that we pay them when they become that valuable, in essence, yes you finally have it right. Most people <em>like</em> this arrangement which you seem to find sinister. It’s one of the benefits of working for us.</p>
<p>As far as my definitions, you or anybody else can duplicate my google search. You’ve heard of Google right?</p>
<p>Could a person with a electrical engineering degree develope software for a company? The first female engineer at facebook Ruchi Sanghvi has a EE degree and worked as a software developer. How can this be?</p>
<p>There are 3 tracks within EECS, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science. There is a common core and then different requirements for each track, but there is plenty of overlap and plenty of opportunity to carve out what you want to study within this framework. </p>
<p>As a graduate with a BS, MS and PhD from this program, and a current recruiter at their career fairs, I can tell you that if you graduate from this program in ANY of the tracks in “Course 6”, you will be aggressively pursued.</p>
<p>Then you finally admit that you aren’t actually paying for your employees’ further education since they have to pay back with work (or you reimburse them after -they- pay for their own education.) If an employee wanted to get a Master’s in English or Anthropology you would probably not want to be involved. You are not “fostering” talent in the way that educated people use and understand the term.</p>
<p>I had a high school math teacher who could have made a much better salary working in the “real world” but who chose instead to run a small computer lab for the students, some of whom were very enthusiastic. He fostered talent. You almost certainly do not. </p>
<p>Definitions found via Google need to be treated with a great amount of skepticism. Bad usage (such as yours) tends to seep in and erode the language.</p>
<p>Don’t think of it as a battle, think of it as an educated person giving ClassicRockerDad some help with his vocabulary. CRD said that he doesn’t hire liberal arts grads, so perhaps very few of those with whom he works have any better a vocabulary than he does.</p>
<p>That was my explanation of what “foster” means.</p>
<p>I had never had cause to look up the word “foster” before, but when I did look it up, my dictionary’s definition closely matched my understanding.</p>
<p>Someone who fosters someone or something is not hoping to profit or become rich in the process.</p>
<p>A company that “pays for” an employee’s further education, but expects to be paid back either in cash or work, while perhaps making far more off of that work, is not “fostering.” This would be even more the case were that education to suit the employer more than it suited the employee.</p>
<p>No, I have not. Employers who tend to hire large numbers of CS grads obviously have an interest in increasing the number of CS grads from which to choose. It is reasonable for an onlooker to question their comments.</p>
<p>The OP’s dad was concerned about outsourcing (offshoring?) of CS jobs. I would tend to disagree with the OP’s dad that biology is a better choice than CS.</p>
<p>CRD seemed to claim that so-called higher-end jobs won’t be outsourced while “commodity” jobs such as coding will be. This leaves unanswered the question of what will happen to the jobs that fall between the extremes. We don’t know where along that spectrum the OP might find work. In order to get this thread “back on track,” what say you?</p>