09-07-2007, 05:53 PM
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 | PT Admin | | Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: In front of computer...
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 Programming Grads Meet a Skills Gap in the Real World
Quote: Programming Grads Meet a Skills Gap in the Real World
eWeek (09/03/07) Taft, Darryl K.
Although colleges and universities have stepped up their efforts to produce graduates ready to work, there is still a significant skills gap between what computer science graduates learn as an undergrad and what skills they need to excel in a work environment. Teachers and professionals say not enough is being done to ensure the educational system keeps up with the constantly changing needs of IT. Frequently, entering the work force is just as educational as attending college, particularly for programmers. Terracotta CTO Ari Zilka says he thoroughly understands the skills gap because he worked in the high-tech industry while attending the University of California, Berkeley. "I found that UC Berkeley had an excellent curriculum but not only was my schooling lagging behind work, it became very hard to even go to school because work had me learning the concepts and their applicability and nuances that teachers didn't even seem to know," says Zilka. Some of the skills that schools could spend more time teaching include design patterns, coding style and practices, scalability and performance tuning, and the entire software development lifecycle in general, according to Zilka. Additionally, subjects such as quality assurance, unit testing, and stage and release are usually not taught. Texas A&M computer science professor and creator of the C++ language Bjarne Stroustrup says the skills gap is difficult to characterize because there are so many different types of jobs, and that it is important to remember that universities should educate for a lifetime of future learning, not train student for specific tasks. However, Stroustrup acknowledges that many students have no clue about software development and are completely unable to program, which puts them at a disadvantage even if their job does not directly involve programming.
| Source: ACM TechNews Read full article
Interesting eh.... lol...  |