Here come the tech students!

[Bibby]

There's a common misconception that the jobs market has an insatiable demand for people who are good at computers, and that anyone who gets a degree in anything IT-related will be swimming in job offers from big tech companies and will be making six figures as soon as they graduate.

It's true that a degree in Computer Science opens more doors than a degree in Art History or Gender Studies would. However, unemployment rates for American CS graduates are much higher than you might expect. I've known a lot of smart and talented people who could do amazing things with computers but have experienced great difficulty finding a job where they could use their skills. This problem isn't limited to people from a particular school, area of study, or geographic region - the IT industry makes it very difficult to get your foot in the door, especially if you're not well-connected. Most IT jobs emphasize experience above everything else - degrees and GPA mean very little, and it's getting harder and harder to use education and certifications as a substitute for the steep experience requirements that almost all IT jobs have. And while some people with advanced tech skills do indeed make big bucks, you probably won't earn a huge salary as soon as you graduate, and many people leave the profession before they gain enough experience to earn mid-career salaries ("median" salaries don't reflect what an entry-level position will actually pay).

As a society, we should not be pushing uninterested students into IT-related degree programs. The United Kingdom has a higher rate of students studying CS than the United States does, yet British CS graduates have some of the highest unemployment rates of any degree program.

As for diversity (or lack thereof) in IT, IT is like all professions in that it tends to attract a certain kind of person with a certain kind of background and interests. The majority of these people are male and are either white, Indian, or East Asian. People who choose IT aren't always the most well-adjusted socially, and they're not always welcoming of people who don't fit this mold. Media tends to exaggerate these negative stereotypes by portraying people with computer skills as being unattractive and unfashionable, traits that the majority of adolescents don't want to emulate.

I'm not a fan of the "everybody needs to major in STEM" movement pushed by many in government. However, having basic digital literacy skills is more important than ever before. The vast majority of jobs will involve using computers in some shape or form, and judging from the students I've taught at the college level, a lot of them struggle with intermediate computing skills - things like managing files and folders, understanding common file formats, and using basic Excel functions. These are things that anyone in any job needs to be able to do, and they're basically prerequisites for success for anyone considering an IT degree. A lot of older people assume that just because these kids grew up with computers that they know how to use them. However, being good at liking other people's Instagram posts is not the same as having the skills needed in business.

To make a long story short, if you like computers and programming things, consider an IT-related major. Make sure that kids are exposed to programming and IT so they can decide whether they like it. If they don't like the idea of debugging code all day, don't push them into pursuing a field they don't like, but do make sure that they understand the basics of computing.