Date   : Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:50:10 -0000
From   : mark@... (Mark Usher)
Subject: No wonder CompSci graduates are unemployed

> > It seems a little too amateurish for the market place I work with.
> 
> And here, I think, you have rather lost the gist of the conversation,
which
> isn't whether or not sure a hack is good or bad, but rather that the
upcoming
> bunch of CompSci graduates would appear not to have the mental
> processing power to complete the task in the first place...

Oh they do have some mental processing power, but in different directions.
We have our yearly intake of grads and you do really get a mixed bunch. Some
think they know it all already and will get a quick shock, some are slightly
in awe of the amount of learning they have to do but knuckle down, but
usually most at least have an amount of aptitude. You have to remember also,
we are lucky that we had our minds trained with problems at those levels and
honed our own skills with the development of PC power. Ask us to fix a
mainframe problem and well, we might start scratching our heads too ;-)
These days they aren't usually taught that sort of thing, as what relevance
does it actually have in the market place.

Yes, if there is an IRQ interrupt problem in an old piece of kit, I'd
probably work it out, or I would actually hope one of the senior engineers
would have, but to be honest most business' throw out the kit after 5 years
when it is end of life and no longer vendor supported (don't get me started
on that), so there isn't the need in the larger marketplace for these old
skills. I totally agree though, they should have at least the rudimentary
knowledge - but that lecture was probably too early in the morning for most
of them. 

Grads are ok, but I'd rather have someone who'd done 3 years in the field
instead. My opinion is, it is more down to the Universities and what they
are and are not teaching them rather than the individuals. Although
sometimes I do change my mind about that too!

-M