IT techs getting younger?

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
When my daughter went to GA Tech ~20 years ago they were having trouble in the computer dept. with losing students. They were being recruited out of college BEFORE graduating and making insane salaries to do so. That said, all the HP techs that serviced our mini mainframes were in their late 20's. Now, the guys that Dell sends to service their contracts (as well as other companies as they work for many companies on an as needed basis) are all different ages and abilities.
 

MrSalts

Joined Apr 2, 2020
2,767
I know kids today are getting more tech savvy, but they appear to be employed writing instruction sheets.
I just replaced my OBD-11 reader for a WIN10 ver with just a simple card of 5 instructions.

See No 4 :p
What's the point of connecting diagnostic equipment to a car if the engine if it sounds so sweet?
 

GetDeviceInfo

Joined Jun 7, 2009
2,192
Electric vehicles employ OBD as well. No prrrrrr, too bad, but I can help with a ridiculously low purchase offer, your choice.
Seriously though, any time one thinks the next generation is younger and ill equipped, it’s a natural consequence of getting older.
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,979
Electric vehicles employ OBD as well. No prrrrrr, too bad, but I can help with a ridiculously low purchase offer, your choice.
Seriously though, any time one thinks the next generation is younger and ill equipped, it’s a natural consequence of getting older.
While that factor is at play, it doesn't nearly explain everything. When you teach the same course six semesters in a row and see a significant decline in the ability of students to perform the same tasks, that's not a misperception as a consequence of getting older. Similarly, when you pull up a first homework assignment in a course from a decade earlier that was used as a softball refresher of the prior course's material and had an average score in the 90s and you give it to the current crop and the average is below 50 with a bunch of students complaining to the Dean about how unreasonable it is to be expected to know that stuff, that's not due to the instructor getting older.

I think there is a general and ongoing degradation in fundamental preparedness over time and I'm more than willing to acknowledge that it didn't start with the class after mine -- on average, people in the generations before me had a stronger grasp on the fundamentals than people in my generation did.
 
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