hi all,
I think we got to cast our net wider or maybe deeper... our whole edu
system sucks becos we are too involved in a 'paper chase' - how many
A's you got, what degree you got, etc... and little on actual hands
on, problem solving skills.
(b4 posting this, I read thru it again and the 1st 4 para sound like a
rant, which it is, but I decide to leave it in here as it provides the
reasoning for the later suggestions. If you want to skip the rant, go
to para 5, its marked by a '---------------------------' )
The key thing here is; if you want to develop a skill, you gottta get
your hands dirty! If your'e a carpenter, you work with wood and tools,
get some cuts, maybe bang your own hand with a hammer a few times...
or if a mechanic/engineer, you get your hands covered in oil and
grease, lying under a car... or if youre a veterinarian, you stick
your arm up a cow's a** (apparently its a rite of initiation for
them..) and if you do it enough times you get to become good at what
you do.
the key word here is 'hands on, problem solving skills'. Not theory,
not certificates etc... yes the training and certification may help,
but what is more important getting your hands dirty, and in IT, for
programmers, it means hacking code, for SysAdmins it means setting up
firewalls, servers maybe even building them... and for Network
Engineers, it means pulling and crimping cables and setting up
routers, etc... and you will only do this if you have a passion for it
- becos its hard work!
I'll like to be corrected, but my opinion is that the current batch of
IT graduates (last 5-10 yrs?) have it cushy, they think they can
graduate and get a nice well paid easy job and not have to do any hard
work... they think the hard work is passing the exams and doing the
(cut & paste?) assignments.. and they 'deserve' the easy job. Blame
that on the last 2 decades of 5% + growth, and our the degree mill
universities for churning out the numbers to meet quotas and PKI -
quantity w/o quality.
Sorry the rest of the world doesn't work that way. Were facing global
competition now... our ASEAN neighbour are getting more competitive,
and unless we change, we gonna be left behind in the 'e-dust of the
K-economy' (TM)! !
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So enough for ranting... I just want to pose this question: for a
potential employer, which of the following candidates would be
preferred:
1. IT Graduate with straight A's in pre U, good GPA, did a course with
all the
'correct' subjects in its syllabus. Maybe has a few proff. certs.
MCSE?!, CNE...
2. Non-IT Graduate, but somehow got interested and taught himself
programming. Has done a few freelance projects/websites on his own,
has a passion for programming and has a few pet projects going ever
since he's in Uni.
3. IT or non IT Grad, is an active code contributor to one or more
FOSS projects for a year or so. Is active in online discussions and
forums, and helps provide support for others. May or may not also have
done some freelance work.
I dunno about you, but I will pick 2 or 3 over 1 anytime! And I have
met quite a few in the M'sian FOSS community that fall into 2 or 3.
The point I'm trying to make is, these students have to have FOSS
projects to work on, to get their hands dirty!. And here are a few
suggestions:
(aside from the regular training and certification stuff....)
1. OSDC 'sponsor' a few FOSS projects.
Meaning they initiate it, perhaps look for actual sponsors, do something
like Google SOC, maybe for longer than 1 semester...
and I can think of quite a few projects, all kickass interesting and some
even commercially viable.
2. Have a mentoring program, more senior/knowledgable guys from the
industry (could be MNC, freelancer, etc.. but involved in FOSS) to lead
the rookies, challenge them, make them think different.
(I'll be game for this...)
3. Maybe help the students get academic credits if they get involve in
projects like this.
4. Have some sort of online infra for doing all this... forums,
groupware coordination, online courseware etc... I can think of a few
FOSS apps that already can do this, and setting this up can itself be
a worth while 'project'.
... probably more ideas...
... so what say you guys... are we game? If we gonna do something, do
something really different, bold and meaningful, not MORE OF THE SAME
THING!
Count me in on yr teh tarik, and better still get MDEC involved too...
On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 5:11 PM, Harisfazillah Jamel
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Roger that.
>
> On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 5:02 PM, CL Chow <[email protected]> wrote:
>> one up :)
>> Regards,
>> CL Chow
>> "Please do not send me Microsoft Office/Apple iWork documents. Send
>> OpenDocument instead! http://fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument/";
>
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regds,
Boh Heong, Yap
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