VP Biden Briefs US Governors On H-1B Visas, IT, and Coding 225
theodp writes: Back in 2012, Computerworld blasted Vice President Joe Biden for his ignorance of the H-1B temporary work visa program. But Joe's got his H-1B story and he's sticking to it, characterizing the visa program earlier this month in a speech to the National Governors Association as "apprenticeships" of sorts that companies provide to foreign workers to expand the Information Technology industry only after proving there are no qualified Americans to fill the jobs. Biden said he also learned from his talks with tech's top CEOs that 200,000 of the jobs that companies provide each year to highly-skilled H-1B visa holders could in fact be done by Americans with no more than a two-year community college degree.
2+2=? (Score:5, Insightful)
So perhaps he can reconcile those two concepts and explain why we allow H1Bs when we have MILLIONS of unemployed college grads?
Mr. Biden, I have a word of advice for you - CEOs lie. And not just a little, but as their primary (and sometimes only) qualification. You might not want to go around repeating the crap they spew to try to sway you to do their bidding. It just, y'know, make you look like a little like a Special Olympics winner, if you get my meaning.
H-1b should not be used for lower-level workers (Score:4, Insightful)
Some places want them to fill lower-level rolls and low pay as it's much cheaper and they locked into the job.
Now maybe if there was say very high H-1b min wage say 100K + COL and forced OT pay (so they can't get the work 2-3 people out of 1 h-1b) that would get rid of a lot of the abuse of the system.
4 year degrees have a lot theory & fluff / fil (Score:2, Insightful)
4 year degrees have a lot theory with big sides of fluff / filler classes.
While tech schools and community college have teachers who have been / still are working in a real work place doing IT work.
the 4 years places not so much.
Re:Yay! Hopenchange! (Score:5, Insightful)
The jobs could in fact be done by Americans with no degrees at all. This cultural indoctrination that you must have a degree must end. I've been programming for 30 years as a profession and I have never had a degree, and I'll never submit to the immoral status quo by getting one. I have both the theory, the experience, and the necessary practical skills under my belt, and all without a single degree.
Re:Biden is talking coding?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Joe Biden knows less about coding than my daughter.
He knows less about coding than my Grandma who just now figured out this touch tone dialing thingy... (Forget the cell phone and that pesky "send" button..)
Hell, he probably knows less about coding than he knows about guns...
That's not saying much... Biden generally knows nothing (or perhaps cannot remember anything) about guns or any other subject he goes into public to talk about. He's an old guy who has lied for a living so long he knows no other way, and now he's loosing what was left of his mind and is struggling to keep his story straight enough to get though the current speech without contradicting himself twice in the same paragraph.
I'll say this, Biden is the one major reason I'd never support impeachment of Obama and why I pray he stays alive well past 2016. Biden is off his rocker and off the rails and he cannot remember from one moment to the next what he's said. We are better off with the current president than Biden, maybe not much, but enough I'm not willing to risk Biden.
Re:Biden is talking coding?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yay! Hopenchange! (Score:2, Insightful)
I am with you there. Our best employees are the ones that have not been through the debt claiming process of getting a degree. I personally find that the guys we have that went are way too comment happy. 8 lines of comment for a well named variable. The Cisco techs that we have comment access lists for port 80 traffic as "web server". IF you didn't post AC, I would love to talk more.
College is useful for most ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The jobs could in fact be done by Americans with no degrees at all. This cultural indoctrination that you must have a degree must end ...
In my 30 years of programming experience I have rarely seen a job advertisement that did not say 4-year degree or equivalent, equivalent as in on the job experience, as your experience suggests.
... I've been programming for 30 years as a profession and I have never had a degree, and I'll never submit to the immoral status quo by getting one. I have both the theory, the experience, and the necessary practical skills under my belt, and all without a single degree.
Some of the best programmers I know never finished college. However they are **extremely** rare. They will read and figure out college level material over a broad set of topics on their own time on their own initiative, a broad set of topics comparable to those found in a typical degree program. However most of the self taught do not seem to be that self motivated, they may study some topics that are of interest to them but they will not have the broad understanding that the former or the formally trained typically have. Many of the formally trained are no more intelligent nor any more self motivated, but they had external motivations compelling them to study things that they had little interest in. The odd thing about many of the less interesting topics is that they often have unforeseen application to problems you eventually encounter and/or they are actually more important than you knew.
That said, there are also many in college who really have no interest in programming and are just there to get their "ticket punched", to get a piece of paper. They did not enter the program because of any inherent interest in programming and engineering, rather someone told them it was a good career path. Such individuals do not turn out to be the better programmers either. In contrast those with an inherent interest in programming often go far beyond the work required for class and use the incredible resources found at a university to study things that otherwise would have been beyond their resources.
So if a person has the time and resources to attend college they would do a great disservice to themselves to skip it due to some political position. You get out of college what you put in, and you will have access to resources and people you probably could not find anywhere else. And that includes likeminded peers. Its one thing to collaborate on code over the internet, its another thing to sit side by side staring at the same screen trying to puzzle something out and walking around campus bouncing ideas around. Plus there is also ready access to individuals studying other necessary disciplines. The density of useful knowledge and experience is quite high among fellow students at a university, its just a matter of finding people with genuine interests in their respective fields rather than the ticket punchers.
Re:4 year degrees have a lot theory & fluff / (Score:5, Insightful)
The "4 years places" you speak of so lowly may not have professors doing IT work, but they have highly knowledgeable researchers who have done stuff you wouldn't even be able to grasp for years, often decades. They're just not the people I'd ask about IT.
Appre (Score:5, Insightful)
Our best employees are the ones that have not been through the debt claiming process of getting a degree
Biden is insisting that the H-1B program must go on because it provides a sort of "apprenticeships" to foreigners
Well, I was from China, but am an American and I can speak with the view of a foreigner (the one from China) and that of an American and I can tell you that if America does not stop giving "apprenticeships" to foreigners one day there will be no more jobs for Americans
The old way of giving "apprenticeships" for "foreigners" was the way I got mine - When I landed on the soil of the USA I was a young refugee without a full secondary school education
I had my "apprenticeships" inside America because I had no place to go and after I graduated from college (with no debt, since I worked 3 jobs on the side - sometimes more than 3 jobs - while studying) I worked at American technology companies where I got further training.
After that I started my own companies, sold some of them, and re-invested what I got into other startup and made even more
In other words, while America provided "apprenticeships" for me this former "apprentice" stayed put in America and started businesses in America and created many job opportunities for other Americans
On the other hand, the way H-1B visa program works is that it provides "apprenticeships" for foreigners, and they got back to their own country, taking their skills with them, start up their own businesses in their own countries, create job opportunities for their own people, not Americans
Who loses in this game ?
The Americans
Who win ? The foreigners
Folks, especially you Americans out there --- please top the politicians, no matter from which political party they came from, from destroying America from the inside out
What Biden is doing is to cut out the innards of America and give it to the foreigners
Re:Appre (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't people coming here on H1-Bs, but their difficulty in turn that into a green card. The "apprentices" would mostly stay here if they could. And does anyone really want to argue that immigration of well-educated, highly-skilled engineers is bad for America?
All the focus on the political immigration debate seems to be on low-skilled workers, and the answers aren't so easy there. But anyone who can come here and work a job that pays $100k+? Keep em coming, I say.
Re:Appre (Score:5, Insightful)
"Highly skilled" does not necessarily mean "highly in demand". Given that there are highly skilled Americans that can't find work, yes I will argue they're bad for America.
Re: Appre (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish I could agree, but my experience with the most highly talented IT development talent from India counters this. The majority of those I talked with had a similar plan: come to the U.S., get 5 years of experience, head back to India to jump up in level (become directors or vp's).
I don't blame them. Move away from your family and culture for money? That's not an enticing long term plan. Instead, they move away for a relatively short time then head back to the family and culture they love to be even more prosperous.
No... The H1-B program is a way of making people more successful in their home country not to bring that knowledge and talent into the U.S. on a permanent basis.