And I mean no disrespect to plumbers for that comment. Many states require plumbers to be licensed, unlike software engineers.

I was reading the comment thread to this Slashdot post on the declining percentage of women studying computer science. All the explanations you would expect are offered, with a fair amount of point and counterpoint. But one commenter offered a very real example of the difference between computer science and the various professional engineering fields (civil, mechanical, etc.):

My wife and I have been married for 31 years. We met in college. She was a civil engineering major, I was a computer science major. She later changed her major to mechanical engineering when she learned that ME’s are more widely employable than CEs. When we met she was a freshman and I was a senior.

I went on to get a masters degree, she took the classes for a master degree but spent the time she would have spent on a thesis getting ready for, and passing, the P.E. exam. She has had her stamp for a long time.

We are both now in out fifties. She gets calls several times a year offering her jobs. Some in the private sector, some in the public sector. People value her decades of experience. People look up to MEs with decades of experience and a professional certification.

I was laid off for the last time on my 49th birthday and have not been able to find a technical job since. It is hard to find a company that will believe that I actually have the experience I have. I can’t tell you how many times I have had an interview where I have been challenged on my experience and even though I can prove every bit of it people just don’t believe it. And, don’t get me started on certification for computer people, compared to getting a PE certification in the computer world isn’t even a bad joke. It is mostly just a con.

Both sexism and ageism are quite rampant in the IT field. Much of the hiring that goes on consists of bringing in cheaper labor willing to work long hours without overtime. Such an approach is, I believe, counterproductive, but that’s true of much of what passes for IT decision making and management within corporations and government agencies.

The problem is that no certification and licensing standards were set up 30-40 years ago, when they should have been. The debate raged — we discussed it at length in my CS 404 class as an undergrad — but the problem was that software engineering was just then being created, and there was no consensus on what the governing standards and practices should be.

Thoughts?  ..bruce..