Education

Most programmers go through a gradual occupational awakening. When I wrote my first small programs, I thought, "Once I get the program to compile and quit getting all these syntax errors, I'll have computer programming figured out." After I stopped having problems with syntax errors, sometimes my programs still didn't work, and the problems that were left seemed even harder to figure out than the syntax errors were. I adopted a new belief, "Once I get the program debugged, I'll have computer programming figured out." That worked until I started creating larger programs and began to have problems because the various pieces I created didn't work together the way I thought they would. I came to rest on a new belief, "Once I figure out how to design effectively, I'll finally have software development figured out." I created some beautiful designs, but then some of my designs had to change because the requirements kept changing. At that point, I thought, "Once I figure out how to get good requirements, I'll finally have software development figured out." Somewhere along the path to learning how to get good requirements I began to realize that I might never get software development figured out. That realization was my first real step toward software engineering enlightenment.

Programmers take many circuitous paths to personal enlightenment, some resembling mine, and some different. Most developers are well-educated in general but self-taught about software development. As Table 7-1 shows, about 60 percent of software developers have obtained bachelor's degrees or higher. According to the United Engineering Foundation, about 40 percent of all software workers obtained their degrees in software-related disciplines.^[18] About half of those who eventually obtained a software-related degree did so after first obtaining a bachelor's degree in some other subject. Another 20 percent of all software workers obtained degrees in subjects such as mathematics, engineering, English, history, or philosophy. The remaining 40 percent completed high school or some college but did not obtain a four-year degree.

Universities in the United States currently award about 35,000 computer science and related degrees per year^[19] while about 50,000 new software development jobs are created each year.

The implication of all these statistics is that a great many software developers have not received any systematic training in computer science, much less in software engineering. What education they have obtained has been acquired through on-the-job training or self-study. Providing more consistent education in software engineering represents a significant opportunity to improve the level of software development practices.

Table 7-1. Software developer education^[20]

HIGHEST LEVEL OF EDUCATIONAL ATTAINED	PERCENT OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS
High school graduate or equivalent or less	11.8
Some college, no degree	17.2
Associate's degree	11.0
Bachelor's degree	47.4
Graduate degree	12.8