How colleges teach students

Saturday, May 20. 2006

I just came to understand why local programmers prefer to write code right before there is any specification available. Since last week I've been appointed as a part-time Java tutor for a college student, I'm trying very hard to convince him to at least list down every feature he wants to do. When he told me that his lecturer can't wait to see a simple working program and the documentation is only required to be submitted after the program finished, I felt very upset on the way his lecturer guides the students. I just got a call from the student's father asking me to teach his son start writing code right away the next session, I immediately became tired on this, but I was unable to tell a person who says "prototype" as "protocol" (he said his son's lecturer wants to see a "protocol" first) that his son didn't even know what is Servlet and yet he's going to build a web application.
Last week I interviewed a few fresh graduates but I didn't ask much about technical because what I'm most interested to know are how much they like programming and how much they remember what they have learnt. But most of them disappointed me that in way what they're looking for is just, a pay job.
For those who's fresh and looking for a job, please get yourself fully understand the chapter 3, 11 and 12 of J2EE Tutorial before applying any Java position.

Posted by Steven Yong in non-computer at 11:47 | Comments (3) | Trackback (1)

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It doesn't matter how much you know
What matters is how much you want to know.Just got back from a personal tuition session and I started worrying about the progress. The student didn't at all finish the tasks I asked him to try to do last week, furthermore he still couldn't figure out whic

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Its true that now-a-days is looking for a good pay, even for freshies. It is understandable that things are going much more expensive now than last time. But what I think that people should be more aware that experience is much more important than pay. If you have good experience, you can have good pay on nearly any amount that is acceptable by the management.

An example is that a friend of mine, a local University fresh graduate. Basically, she doesnt know anything about Engineering other than what she learned in University. She actually turned down a job that offer RM1600 a month in a small town. And her reason for it is that her friend ask her not to take the job as the friend had turned down a RM2000 a month job.

Salary is not that important if you are a freshie, but sometimes, management should also do their part to reward their working staff.

#1 Anonymous on 2006-05-23 18:54 (Reply)

probably your student hasn't come across the software development principles portion yet?

#2 keng mun on 2006-05-24 00:20 (Reply)

Hmmm...

I think some students are plain lazy, they pay some professional to do their "prototype". I've come across some of these cases before, esp when I used to interview some freshies about their final year project.

Well, salary is a big factor for a freshie, but sometimes, they fail to look beyond that. Experience, and exposure is more important as when you try to jump the "chasm" for a higher position, management will scrutinize your resume and query your work experience further.

Sad to say, alot of freshies don't have this foresight. It's not the "now" which will sustain you, it's the "future" which will.

How many freshies you know that has that kind of vision?

So far, in my limited experience, I can say, only 3 or 4 out of 10 whom I've met. Most of these freshies are looking for an easy job. Some have the gall to ask for RM3,000 because they know a bit of Java (but not J2EE).

#3 Angie Tan (Homepage) on 2006-05-24 19:12 (Reply)

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