LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 
print Printable version 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Does Windows cost Microsoft opportunities?
Microsoft's decision to focus .NET on Windows is stifling innovation due to the specter of...

Mono brings .NET to Android
At Microsoft MIX, Mono will unveil the ability to port .NET applications to the Android op...

Going 'all in' on .NET as default runtime
Programmers for Windows Phone 7 will need to use Silverlight and XNA for development

Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter

Teach Your Children Well


By SD Times News Team
September 1, 2005 — 
Is there anything less useful than a newly minted college graduate? Whether in programming, electrical engineering or journalism, book learning rarely maps directly into the real world.

That’s true not only because college grads lack the experience of working on real projects, being part of real teams, and betting their paychecks on real deadlines. It’s true also because the technologies, paradigms and tools being taught at most universities lag somewhat behind the state of the art.

Professors and faculty can’t revise their courses to take into account every new theory; that’s not their job, of course. Schools focus on opening young minds, laying a groundwork of principles and essential skills. What comes out is (or should be) top-grade raw material for a long and rewarding career in software development—not an analyst, architect or coder ready to assume a leadership role on a behind-schedule integration project.

That leads to a conundrum for software development managers. Do you hire recent graduates, hoping that their youth, enthusiasm and low starting salaries will overcome their relative lack of initial productivity, and knowing that you (and your team) will need to invest considerable time and effort in training? Or do you recruit more seasoned developers, paying more money but gaining the benefit of their prior work experience?

In the real world, of course, most development organizations do both, mixing together a variety of skills and tenures to produce a team that can hit the ground running but also learn as it grows.

The learning process can be jump-started, of course, by finding the right talent and the right places from which to recruit students. Many colleges and universities are helping new grads by providing real-life projects as part of the degree program. They’re also giving courses more relevance by requiring that faculty have recent industry experience, in addition to an academic background.

But even so, most employers need to be prepared to continue the educational process, not only with mentoring, but also with supplemental training on the specific technologies, methodologies and processes used within their organizations. Such training ranges from informal brown-bag sessions, to in-house classes, to online learning, to attendance at industry conferences and vendor seminars.

Many development shops give developers flexibility to buy books and other materials to enable self-learning. Training companies, too, can bring new hires—and old hands—up to speed on the latest tricks, as well as teaching the core fundamentals that the universities forgot.

So, while we’re all frustrated with the blank stares and lack of instant productivity shown by recent graduates, don’t look at this as a failure of the educational system. In most cases, the goal of a college education isn’t to prepare students to begin designing the latest Web services application, migrate a client/server stack onto a cluster, or to teach the specific techniques that protect against a SQL injection attack.

The schools have laid the groundwork. But you’ll have to take the students the last mile yourself.


Share this link: http://www.sdtimes.com/link/28829
 

Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
  • Preview
Loading



 
 
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 
Download Current Issue
ISSUE 3/15/2010 PDF

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Receive the print Edition?


 
blogs tab
Google Code turns 5
Google Code Turns 5, and adds a Paxos Algorithm to make the system more stable and reliable.
03/17/2010 11:16 AM EST

Test your Visual Studio 2010 know-how
Microsoft is offering free beta certification exams for Visual Studio 2010.
03/17/2010 11:08 AM EST

Microsoft lifts the hood on IE9
Microsoft is previewing IE9.
03/16/2010 01:10 PM EST

 

Events calendar tab
EclipseCon
3/22/2010 to 3/25/2010
Santa Clara, Calif.
The Eclipse Foundation

DevConnections
4/12/2010 to 4/14/2010
Las Vegas
Penton Media

MySQL Conf. and Expo
4/12/2010 to 4/15/2010
Santa Clara, Calif.
O'Reilly Media

High Performance Computing Linux Financial Markets
4/19/2010
New York City
Flagg Management

Informix User Conf.
4/25/2010 to 4/28/2010
Overland Park, Kans.
IIUG