Questions to today’s students
Last week I received an email where the sender wrote: “As a grandfather, I hope that all of my grandchildren will choose to study Information Technology for their future careers. While I want them to follow their passions it is important that they should also learn something about computer too. As a person who retired several years ago, I spend most of my time follow the news around the world as well as read many online newspapers and blogs. I found that there was millions of IT jobs in the world that continues to go unfilled. Companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, Oracle and Twitter could not find enough workers and had to outsource to China and India. However companies in India and China also could not find enough workers to fulfill the demand and had to look for workers elsewhere. But at the same time, newspapers were full of articles about unemployment and college graduates that could not find job. I also found that the number of student enroll in computer science was decreasing in every country. Many schools were struggling to fill its computer classes. I do not understand this phenomenon. Why there are programs that offer unique opportunities to get good paying jobs but not many are seizing this opportunity? I do not know how many parents are aware of this fact? I do not know how many of them are advising their children on what to study? I do not understand what young people today are thinking? I do not know what young people want to study? Do they read newspapers? Do they know what the industry's demands are? Do they know what the job market really needs? As a 70 years old person who do not know much about technology but could access the internet to read news, I wonder how many young people are reading the news today. How many of them are following the technology trends? What are they thinking about their future? Do they really care about their career? There is still time to enroll and study in this lucrative field so my question is what are you waiting for? Can you help me to answer these questions?
My answer: I do not have the answer but I agree with you because I have the same questions too.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
