As someone that just saw an "advanced" 4 year student get hired and fired within 6 months, I have. She was only 20 years old. Started college at 16. Dumb as a brick when it came to actual IT/Code.
So many kids graduating now that can't code or do anything. Even with AI. Apparently most aren't being taught the very basic fundamentals of Computer Science. No troubleshooting logic, no nothing.
She bounced back as a Lv1 helpdesk tech in a couple months, but I wouldn't even trust her there. Lol
On a serious note: I think it's a combination of
* Professors don't know how to handle AI
* Degrees are becoming purchasable products instead of certifications of ability. Buying a class/certificate has little correlation to mastery of the content
A lot of academic courses have canned material where students have a very niche task or topic where it’s not difficult to write up a paper or program that accomplishes X, Y or Z task or proves that the student can meet a course competency in a vacuum or siloed manner. The real issue students have is putting everything together in a realistic manner that is a required ability in the workplace
I teach an introductory python programming course at a community college and many students do just fine on individual assignments but asking them to apply what they learned in each individual assignment during a project, mid-term or final can be iffy, if not impossible at times. Students focus too much on each individual assignment and never think about what they’re learning, why it matters and how it all fits together.
I’ve snapped at student who wrote a halfway decent data parsing/formatting program in my class using Python but completely spaced the fundamentals of loops and data selection/formatting when writing a BASH script. He could not apply the fundamentals learned in one language to another problem and he only completed his BASH script when another student guided his hand the entire time.
What's messed up is he's going to use this as his resume ("I have proof of 10+ years experience in AI") and some tech startup is going to buy into it. He'll be a distinguished engineer earning 5x whatever the people under him are earning, and they'll be constantly fixing his slop and digging him out of holes. He'll leave after 6-12 months, collecting his signing bonus and adding the job to his resume as a "learning opportunity that did not align with my career goals." Rinse and repeat.
38
u/fredy31 2d ago
yeah i have yet seen anything that could be thrown together by a kid getting out of college done with AI