[Novalug] Teaching Computers Science

Eric Helvey eric@alliances.org
Wed Sep 26 10:20:34 EDT 2007


On Wed, 2007-09-26 at 10:02 -0400, Ken Kauffman wrote:
*SNIP*
> It depends on what her focus will be when exiting college.  She needs to be
> relevant to today's technology or strong emerging technologies to compete in
> the job market.
> 
> Ken
> 

Ken, I respectfully disagree.

While I haven't done a lot of hiring, I've been involved in hiring
decisions in the past.  When my team brought in someone fresh out of
college (or relatively undamaged by time), we specifically wanted them
malleable.  I wanted someone who was excited by programming - did it at
work, did at home, did it for fun, etc.  As long as they had a passion
for it and fundamentals, we could teach them what they needed to know
(languages, platforms, idioms, "how we do things here").  I also tend to
think that companies that pick up recent graduates know that they're
getting someone without experience, but with flexibility and without
external time sinks.

So I would say that to compete she need to be capable of learning
today's technologies, and show an enthusiasm for learning them, but she
doesn't necessarily need to know them as she graduates.  Additionally,
she probably doesn't need to have spent a lot of time in emerging
technologies, but in her area of focus, she should know what those
technologies are and have an idea of how they could affect her that
area...

Eric




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