six universities<\/a> (just to remind you, Cyprus population is under 1 million people).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Three private colleges got a status of university, including my alma mater – Intercollege.<\/p>\nThe minister of education says that the new age of education is coming to Cyprus.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s probably true.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure six universities for less than a million heads in population will attract a lot of foreign students, money and all.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’m not sure what will happen to the quality.<\/p>\n
It’s been a while since I last visited Intercollege, even though I am still a student pursuing the bachelor degree (which I probably never get).\u00c2\u00a0 But from the times when I was studing, I have to say that the quality was good enough for college level.\u00c2\u00a0 By that I mean diploma, associate and bachelor degrees.<\/p>\n
My wife, and a couple of friends, did their Masters’ in Intercollege.\u00c2\u00a0 And that was already over their top.\u00c2\u00a0 For example, all you needed to apply for Master’s degree was a Bachelor degree.\u00c2\u00a0 And you didn’t have to have it in the same field.\u00c2\u00a0 So, to start with Master of Business Administration one could have a Bachelor degree in Computer Science.\u00c2\u00a0 That means that you could get a Master’s degree in the area where you almost no prior knowledge or experience, and you could do it in just two years…<\/p>\n
For a number of courses, they\u00c2\u00a0 had to bring faculty from outside the country and pack the studies into highly intensive summer semesters.\u00c2\u00a0 While that was better than not having them at all, it wasn’t as good as having permanent faculty who could teach these courses.<\/p>\n
I majored in Computer Science.\u00c2\u00a0 I studied in Limassol campus.\u00c2\u00a0 We had two Ph.D professors and one Master. The rest had Bachelor’s and were teaching the basic stuff, like Introduction to Computers and things like that.\u00c2\u00a0 All three of those were really good at what they did.\u00c2\u00a0 But all of them left the college long time ago.\u00c2\u00a0 And I haven’t heard of any new good ones coming to replace them. Nicosia campus used to have more faculty, but I remember only one professor who was really good. \u00c2\u00a0 And from what I heard he left the college too…<\/p>\n
Now that I’m working in the IT industry, I see how huge is the deficit of human resources.\u00c2\u00a0 Finding programmers is hard.\u00c2\u00a0 Finding good programmers is impossible.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve seen bachelors who confuse the programming language they are best at with another language altogether\u00c2\u00a0 (Java has “void” in blue, while C++ has it in green).\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve seen Masters of Computer Science who mistype the word “computer” three different ways in the same paragraph.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve seen web designers with a degree, who can’t name 10 HTML tags (Dreamweaver all the way).\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve seen somebody who thinks AJAX works only over WiFi.\u00c2\u00a0 I can go on…<\/p>\n
I wish this could be changed.\u00c2\u00a0 I wish these three new universities could help.\u00c2\u00a0 I wish them all the best of luck and all.\u00c2\u00a0 But I have my doubts…<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n
Back when I was in high school, Russia was going through some serious, and at times sporadic, reforms in education system.\u00c2\u00a0 We used to have just schools, but suddenly half of them turned into gymnasiums, while another half turned into colleges.\u00c2\u00a0 New and weird subjects were introduced, such as Latin, rhetoric and philosophy (high school, … Continue reading Cyprus universities double<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-10833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16150,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/06\/cyprus-photography-by-brian-jc-osbourne\/","url_meta":{"origin":10833,"position":0},"title":"Cyprus photography by Brian JC Osbourne","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I came across Brian JC Osbourne's portfolio in one of the Cyprus-related Flickr groups. \u00a0There are only just a few pictures, and most of them have a simplistic, village even, \u00a0feel to them. \u00a0Yet, I did enjoy them quite a bit. \u00a0The choice of subjects and post-processing filters match the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/shoreline.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16094,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/11\/university-of-central-lancashire-cyprus-uclan-cyprus\/","url_meta":{"origin":10833,"position":1},"title":"University of Central Lancashire Cyprus, (UCLan Cyprus)","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"February 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Cyprus Mail reports: CONSTRUCTION of a modern \u20ac53 million campus has begun in Pyla to accommodate the first British university on the island, University of Central Lancashire Cyprus, (UCLan Cyprus). UCLan Cyprus will open in October this year and students will have the option of studying their programme entirely in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16518,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2012\/07\/19\/bill-clinton-in-cyprus\/","url_meta":{"origin":10833,"position":2},"title":"Bill Clinton in Cyprus","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"July 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The former president of the USA, Bill Clinton is visiting Cyprus. \u00a0Cyprus Mail reports that he will be giving a lecture on the economic crisis: FORMER president of the United States Bill Clinton will give a lecture on the economic crisis, at European University Cyprus on Saturday. Clinton is the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/8zkJS_egIYM\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10551,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2006\/10\/19\/cyprus-blog-network\/","url_meta":{"origin":10833,"position":3},"title":"Cyprus Blog Network","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"For the last two or three years, the amount of blogging that I do was constantly growing. More blogs, more subjects, more posts. It was only logical to pull all my projects under a common roof. In blogosphere, a common roof for a bunch of blogs is often called a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8877,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/04\/10\/on-the-way-to-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":10833,"position":4},"title":"On the way to church","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 10, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the most picturous subjects in Cyprus (and in Greece for that matter) are old ladies dressed all in black. They can usually be seen in the villages and\/or on the way to\/from church. Since I am a bit shy at photographing people (other than my friends and relatives),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8653,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/02\/21\/molos-promenade\/","url_meta":{"origin":10833,"position":5},"title":"Molos promenade","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"February 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Today Olga and I went for yet another walk. This time we went to Molos park. Again, I took a few pictures. And again I noticed the improvements since last year, when I last photographed the area. The pictures are better and opportunities are better. My eyes are more trained\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10833"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=10833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}