Closing the Employment Gap in Software DevelopmentWorking in the software development industry we are very familiar with the problem of finding enough software engineers to fill all of the positions we need. This seems like it will be an ongoing problem, I read this week on girlswhocode.comthat in 2018 there will be 1.4 million computer science-related job openings, but there will only be able enough computer science grads to fill 29% of these jobs. Over the last few weeks I have read some interesting things going on in education that will hopefully prevent these numbers from becoming true. Some statistics from Stanford University show that computer science is the number one major at the school. This is great news for the industry and shows that there are strides being made toward filling all of the computer science-related job openings there will be in the near future. This fall New York City will open the city’s first public high school for software engineering. The freshman class will have 400-500 students. The students grades and attendance records were not taken into consideration for enrollment in the school, just their interest in programming. The school curriculum will also include the traditional college preparation classes you would find at a typical public school. The school’s goal is to fill the need for engineers. You probably have fond memories of belonging to clubs in high school like Chess Club or the Math Club. These days there is a new breed of high school clubs and they aren’t even close to what they were when you were in school. The New York Times featured an article about the Paly Entrepreneurs Club at a local Palo Alto high school that has a group of kids who are busy building Apps and starting their own companies. Have you heard of any programs in your area that address the employment gap in software development? |
|