My esteemed colleague writes: >I think you hit the nail on the head here Steve. I volunteer to help with >Universities in Arizona for the IBM Academic Initiative. 2 of the 3 >Universities have been approached in Arizona and the heads of the CS >departments have stopped IBM in their tracks saying mainframes are not a >technology that they see any future for and scoff at the idea of adding >some curriculum to support them. These schools have been offered many >incentives, but the bottom line is they don't want it. They don't >understand the role mainframes play. On an upbeat note, one professor in
>the 3rd school has just introduced mainframes as part of his OS class and >will be attempting to get an upper class z/OS introduction class into >their curriculum. IBM Academic Initiative is working with companies to >try to bring them to the Universities to speak to the CS departments to >convince them of the need for these skills. They are tired of hiring >senior level programmers to do entry level jobs. IBM is actively >soliciting Universities to try to introduce more curriculum. So hopefully >its moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, its an uphill climb at >this point. There's really a simple and straightforward solution to this problem, one which most of you on IBM-MAIN can execute: hire college interns. (IBM certainly is.) That's what most directly impacts campus perceptions. Knock on the college doors and say, "We want three interns next summer -- with X, Y, and Z preparation if possible." College interns are extremely inexpensive, to be totally blunt. (The career investment can cost a little more, but first things first.) And they have secondary benefits for your own organization (e.g. morale). Hire them, now. So is anyone hiring from college? I'll start. Yes, my department has offers out to five new college graduates -- we call them "vitality hires" -- one of which was a summer intern last year in my office. (I was her mentor, actually.) I believe four have accepted (including our intern). They will all undergo intense training(*) and mentoring for several months in mainframe technical roles. And this is just software, just one part of the world, just what my own second line manager is doing. We hope all of them will stay with IBM for 30+ years (if they succeed and if we're able), although quite possibly some of you will enjoy having them available as professional employees after we've trained them, should they desire a change of venue for whatever reason. Anybody want to go next? (*)This part sounds like something Steve could help your company do, yes? - - - - - Timothy F. Sipples Consulting Enterprise Software Architect, z9/zSeries IBM Japan, Ltd. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
