Any tech breakthrough is almost always a joint effort. To add a single feature to an iPhone app, teams of front-end engineers, user experience designers and graphic designers must work with cybersecurity specialists, back-end developers and iOS developers — just for starters. That means that today’s best engineers are prodigious collaborators and communicators. And yet we still train too many prospective coders to work alone.
From their first day in the classroom, computer-science students are nudged to value individual successes over team victories. Most assignments are completed and submitted solo.
While liberal arts majors are drilled in methods of communication, and vocational programs like business and medicine feature tons of group work, many computer science programs prize technical output over so-called “soft skills” such as collaboration and communication. Conflict resolution and critical thinking get short shrift.
Computer-science classes are among the most likely to grade students on a curve, which pits classmates against each other, ensuring that one student’s success has the potential to lower another student’s grade; this approach has been found to deter female students in particular.
The deepening shortage of computer-science professors has led many programs to adopt “competitive enrollment” models, which make introductory classes even more cutthroat, making students believe they must compete to stay in the major.
Even when students want to work together, they are often deterred by strict policies that consider collaboration to be cheating.
Yet students who learn through “pair programming,” in which two programmers work together at one computer, earn higher grades, create stronger projects, and display higher levels of satisfaction with their computer-science classes.
The benefits of pair programming are particularly pronounced for women: In one study, women who coded in pairs during an introductory course earned higher grades, were 36.8 percent more likely to major in computer science, reported greater levels of confidence in their solutions, and enjoyed the programming process more than women who did not work in pairs.
Another study found that working in pairs increased women’s confidence by 24 percentage points, compared with a 15 point increase for men.
Students who did not grow up coding at home or learning computer science in school benefit most from the engagement, social ties and active learning that arise from collaborative work.
Perhaps if collaborative learning did not remain so rare in coding education, the field could improve its dismal diversity record: Computer and mathematical occupations in the US are just 25 percent women, 8.4 percent black, and 7.5 percent Latinx. Those numbers are even worse in many top firms, where black and Latinx coders report feelings of isolation and often represent just 3 to 6 percent of employees.
Meanwhile, employers consistently find their new hires to be proficient coders, but struggling collaborators.
While the vast majority of employers value essential “soft skills” even more highly than a candidate’s college major, hiring managers place communication and problem-solving skills among the top-five competencies computer-science students are missing.
The results can be seen in Silicon Valley’s individualistic culture, in which engineers struggle for power within their teams and even refuse colleagues’ input for fear of losing sole credit for their work.
Code reviews are supposed to be opportunities to workshop issues, but instead become contests for recognition. When new team members have questions, they are told to “RTFM” or “read the fine manual.”
Every time a coder fails to offer direction to a colleague, the industry loses out.
When we tell prospective engineers that individual victories are the only kind worth winning, we set them up to enter the workplace as competent coders, but poor collaborators. We squeeze out coders who do not see themselves in the image of lone wolf inventor. The industry cannot afford to lose out on that potential.
Nathan Esquenazi is a former start-up entrepreneur now serving as cofounder and chief technology officer at CodePath.org, a nonprofit working to increase diversity in tech.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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