Girl sues her college because ... she can't find a job

[Caliga]

I looked at all ABET-accredited computer science degrees, and then searched generally inside www.cs.bu.edu.

*shrug* Not sure what to tell you.  My program was good, regardless of what credentials it may nor may not have.

You do realize accreditation doesn't mean as much as it used to, right?  All the for-profit schools are "accredited" too.

[Caliga]

Hell out of college I would have been happy with 30k with my Computer Science BS.  I just cracked 50k last year after six years in my field.   I just can't get why some of these people have such high salary demands out of college.

Because they don't realize that they live in a culture that rewards hard work and experience, not empty credentials.

[ulmont]

You do realize accreditation doesn't mean as much as it used to, right?  All the for-profit schools are "accredited" too.

Again, the for-profit schools are generally accredited at the school level and not at the program level.  There is at least one thing you simply can't do with a non-accredited CS degree without jumping through a lot more hoops.

I concede the general point, though; when I was programming, there were any number of non-CS and even un-degreed colleagues around, and they certainly weren't any worse than the others.  The best programmer I ever worked with had an MD, of all things.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Hell out of college I would have been happy with 30k with my Computer Science BS.  I just cracked 50k last year after six years in my field.   I just can't get why some of these people have such high salary demands out of college.

Because they don't realize that they live in a culture that rewards hard work and experience, not empty credentials.

To be fair, I think this kind of crap came about during the dotcom boom's early days when expansion was going faster than there were experienced staff.  There were all sorts of stories of Lolz! I guts ma MCSE and am making 80k a year with no skillz!

It irritated me when I was searching for a job that people with no experience but a paper cert were getting offers that I and my four years of actual work wasn't.

[Caliga]

I think it is fairly unusual for the best programmer at any given place to have a CS or related degree, simply because these are going to be the older (and hence more experienced guys) who originally came into programming as a hobby and studied something else in college, if they even went to college.

When I was in college I used to work as a tech support guy for an ISP, and the President of the ISP had an education degree and had been a teacher for most of his career, but was always a computer enthusiast and ran a BBS back in the 80s.

[Caliga]

To be fair, I think this kind of crap came about during the dotcom boom's early days when expansion was going faster than there were experienced staff.  There were all sorts of stories of Lolz! I guts ma MCSE and am making 80k a year with no skillz!

It irritated me when I was searching for a job that people with no experience but a paper cert were getting offers that I and my four years of actual work wasn't.

That is still a very aggravating problem.  When I was recruiting, I'd have clients who would say "all candidates must have an MCSE or we won't even look at them".  I might have a guy who's been a sys engineer for ten years, but lacks the paper cert, so I couldn't even get him in there.  I suspect alot of people like that have started just lying about their Microsoft/CompTIA certs in the hopes that nobody ever asks to see their credential cards.

[Ed Anger]

More than once I got the line "Well, I paid alot of money for college, so I need you to pay me $50K minimum (or whatever) in return."

I don't need to do shit, greenhorn.  GTFO.

Hell out of college I would have been happy with 30k with my Computer Science BS.  I just cracked 50k last year after six years in my field.   I just can't get why some of these people have such high salary demands out of college.

I've noticed that those that went to "good" schools generally demanded more than those coming out of community colleges.

[Caliga]

Well, they cost a hell of a lot more.

[DGuller]

Back when I was in college, CS was considered very lucrative (although that perception was starting to end back then).  It was considered so lucrative that many people who had no business programming went into the field.  I would've went the CS route too, if I didn't know that I had no temperament to do that full time.  I was still a better computer science guy than anyone in the CS major, and was frequently asked for homework and project help by the CS majors (although I don't know how being good at CS translates to being a good at programming).

In fact, just to make a point of how lucrative CS was, there was a whole industry in the Russian immigrant community that was designed around creating fake programmers.  They would be given a crash course in outdated crap like COBOL, and be provided with fake experience.  My dad tried it, and had the job for one project that lasted three months, and made more than he made in a year doing low-level accounting work.  My uncle did the same, and actually managed to acquire enough cred and experience to go legit, and he earns a lot these days.

[Caliga]

That same industry exists in India.

[Darth Wagtaros]

To be fair, I think this kind of crap came about during the dotcom boom's early days when expansion was going faster than there were experienced staff.  There were all sorts of stories of Lolz! I guts ma MCSE and am making 80k a year with no skillz!

It irritated me when I was searching for a job that people with no experience but a paper cert were getting offers that I and my four years of actual work wasn't.

That is still a very aggravating problem.  When I was recruiting, I'd have clients who would say "all candidates must have an MCSE or we won't even look at them".  I might have a guy who's been a sys engineer for ten years, but lacks the paper cert, so I couldn't even get him in there.  I suspect alot of people like that have started just lying about their Microsoft/CompTIA certs in the hopes that nobody ever asks to see their credential cards.

Assholes deserve what they get.  Experience often trumps education.  Especially in a field like IT, where screwing up learning from mistakes and fixing problems that aren't supposed to be possible in the first place is the only way to really succeed. 

[Caliga]

Assholes deserve what they get.  Experience often trumps education.  Especially in a field like IT, where screwing up learning from mistakes and fixing problems that aren't supposed to be possible in the first place is the only way to really succeed.

Typically these sorts of job orders came from HR people at large companies who know absolutely nothing about IT, or from executive management at some small business, again who know absolutely nothing about IT.  The other possibility is from an outsourcing firm that wants to brag to all their clients that every one of their people is Microsoft-certified or something.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I hope this chick wins big.  It may finally show people that the legal system has become a giant slot machine and needs serious reform.

[alfred russel]

She may get a settlement, if the school is afraid of the trial basically putting the legitimacy of the school on trial. If so, you'll be out of luck Wags--I'm sure the settlement will have a nondisclosure portion.

[Caliga]

I hope this chick wins big.  It may finally show people that the legal system has become a giant slot machine and needs serious reform.

I'm sorry, but the Elders of Zion cannot and will not allow that to happen.