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Ok -- I have found the 2 open source project sites you suggested. Thanks
very much for that.
At this stage, I am not sure whether my university has a service to help
graduates find jobs ? I did mention that there is a final year software
engineering project that my university does which is a real life project with a
real life client.
Yeah -- someone made the point that maybe you don't even need a university
education to get a job in IT. But I tend to suspect that having a degree in
IT/software engineering -- is very important. But someone has proved me wrong
(Jason Bell). But I still think that having a university degree is helpful --
even if it still doesn't seem to be enough to meet the skill requirements of
employers.
There are actually 2 companies that I know of here in Australia that
specialise in keeping track of all the skills that IT employers are looking for.
One of them has actually counted all of them -- and found there to be 3000 odd
skills that all employers who advertise have asked for/wanted. And these 2
companies sell this information so that people can better keep track of what
skills are wanted in the IT workforce.
They also monitor salaries of IT employees so you know what sort of salary
you should be getting.
Yeah -- a very good solution would be for the university to help you to get
that practical experience. I believe that a rival university of mine, does some
kind of "experience" program. But I will need to investigate that a bit
more.
Ok -- so my university project is no counted as commercial experience ?
That's bad news !!!!
Some interesting stuff -- I have come across some job ads that say they
"only hire the best" -- and that they want someone who has a high school GPA of
95% or more. They say they are not interested in hiring anyone else -- and don't
apply unless you have this. That kind of p****es me off a bit. And also because
of what I talk about below -- that there are a lot of things that go into making
a grade -- not all of which the student has control over.
Another ad has the following terms in it for applicants to
meet :-
1) "extraordinary academic record"
2) "brilliant intellectually "
3) "Superior degree results (MINIMUM High
credit/distinction)"
--> ofcourse not all jobs, thank goodness ask for these rather
unreasonable sort of characteristics.
I did a search in my main IT employment website -- for "graduate" jobs --
and only found 16 jobs -- and of those -- all were based in Sydney (where most
of the Australian IT jobs are -- more than 50% of all IT jobs in Australia are
in Sydney). That's 16 jobs out of 3277 that are available at the moment. So --
for the suggestion that I should look for jobs that have "graduate" in them --
the results are rather poor and disappointing.
Still nobody has told me if there is anything written (books, websites,
jorunal articles, magazine articles) -- on stuff to do with the "gap between
universities and what employers want in the Information Technology sector" ????
Is there any such stuff written ? It was mentioned about the "buyers market" and
stuff like that.
Being a "tester" sounds appealing to me.
==========================================================================
This next section talks about "grades" and what makes them -- from
my experience. It is in response to one comment that we should "keep an eye on
your grades".
I am concerned about my grades. I have seen some ads
that say they want people who have high grades (sometimes referred to in the ads
as "geniuses").
But part of the system of grades is how the subject is
taught. At my university there is no "formative assessment" ("how am I doing ?"
in my work so far). And some lecturers don't provide solutions to the questions
that they set. I like to be able to check my work, or if there is no other
choice left, to see how the question could have been answered (eg with model
answers). I am a person that believes that alot of the "blame" lies with the
lecturer as far as grades are concerned. I can only do so much -- and I will try
to do as much as I can -- from my end -- to get the sort of grade I would be
happy with -- but in some things -- no matter how hard you try -- you still
can't get the grade that you want.
There are various things that would improve the way a
subject is administered by lecturers. One way is perhaps to provide past
examinations -- and even better if you can provide answers to those papers. I am
thinking of 1 lecturer who definitely does this (he teaches Software Engineering
2 and the Z specification mainly in that-- making available examination papers
from 6 years ago even. Ofcourse though sometimes the curriculum changes which
makes some past examination papers perhaps less relevant. But it may also occur
that papers as old as 6 years may still be relevant.
Another lecturer provides solutions to assignments that
he gives -- ofcourse after the due date of the assignment.
Some lecturers are a lot more approachable than others
and alot more happy to help you than others. At my university -- 1 lecturer is
basically said to me that if I have any questions -- that I can just ask him and
he is happy to help. Another lecturer in the same university, in the same
faculty (in IT ofcourse) is just about the opposite. He won't touch you with a
barge pole. He is unapproachable, doesn't help you and leaves you to wrot
basically. He's not a very nice person.
Another lecturer that taught me (or so that was what
was supposed to be happening) Data Structures in C -- was never available for a
chat and to make things worse -- nor were his 2 tutors.They just weren't
interested in me and I knew well ahead of time that I was battling. But nobody
would help me. I eventually failed that subject.
So my point is basically -- in this respect -- that
there are a number of variables that affect how your "grades" might turn out.
And some of them -- are in the court of the lecturer. He/she has a lot of power
to influece your grade. This is often overlooked. When someone gets whatever
grade they get -- it is always assumed to be solely the student as the person to
"blame". But I have now had quite a few experiences with different lecturers --
and it is clear to me -- that alot of the blame also lies with the lecturer. But
like I said -- not many people acknowledge this.
So you speak about grades and I just wanted to say that
this is complex. It may not be enough to just say "you need to get good grades"
and one may need to examine how grades are formed.
This is actually a second love of mine -- the area of
study of university teaching and learning. And there are a number of
authoritative texts and authors who have worked in this area.
But maybe I've said enough on this topic.
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- [jdjlist] gap between universities and employers ???? Tim Nicholson
- Tim Nicholson
