{"id":12744,"date":"2010-07-20T17:59:14","date_gmt":"2010-07-20T15:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=12744"},"modified":"2010-07-30T01:37:42","modified_gmt":"2010-07-29T23:37:42","slug":"education-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/07\/20\/education-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Education for IT"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>For a while now I am thinking and re-thinking the misalignment of the computer science education system and the real world needs of IT industry. \u00a0And it&#8217;s not only me, and it&#8217;s not only in Cyprus. \u00a0I&#8217;ve seen it myself of course, but also heard it from many people around the world. \u00a0There are not enough candidates to hire, and the quality of the candidates even coming out of the top schools is very poor. \u00a0It&#8217;s not rare to see a candidate who has no idea what a loop is, yet holding not one, but two bachelor degrees from both UK and American universities.<\/p>\n<p>While I understand that there are differences from school to school and university to university, and that Computer Science is an academic discipline, not a practical tutorial for the programmer wannabes, I still think that there is something wrong with how computers are taught today. \u00a0And there is more than one problem. \u00a0Here are just some of those that I could think of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There should be a balance between theory and practice. \u00a0Computer Science graduates should have some practical value, not only theoretical. \u00a0They should be able to assemble and disassemble a computer, configure a simple network, and write a simple program, at a very least. \u00a0Without that all their theoretical baggage is useless. \u00a0Or so I think.<\/li>\n<li>Technology in general and computers in particular have evolved a lot in the last few years. \u00a0And they continue to evolve. \u00a0Academia is too slow to react to the modern world and something has to be done about that.<\/li>\n<li>Academia is too slow in adoption of the new teaching methods. \u00a0These days pretty much everyone has a computer and access to the Internet. \u00a0Anyone can use Google, Wikipedia, and other excellent tools. \u00a0 But those excellent are only a the beginning of the integration with the official teaching process, even though some of them have been here for years.<\/li>\n<li>The world itself is changing. \u00a0Younger generations differ from the older ones quite a bit, especially in their attention spans, the breadth of attention, and requirements for feedback. \u00a0 They have a bigger need to see immediate effect than we had, and we needed that more than our parents needed. \u00a0The world is getting faster, snappier. \u00a0And I don&#8217;t see a reflection of that in academia.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So we with all those things I was thinking what can be done and how. \u00a0 I don&#8217;t have a solution for any of these problems of course. \u00a0I don&#8217;t know what will work and what won&#8217;t. \u00a0But one thing that I was fascinated to see, for example, was this interview with Sridhar Vembu of Zoho. \u00a0These guys in India see the problem and even think that it&#8217;s magnified for them with an even faster rate of development and with lower access of the general public to the good education. \u00a0And it is absolutely amazing how they went about solving the problem, experimenting, and also the results that they have achieved!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"660\" height=\"372\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Zt5EMnATY_Q?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Via <a href=\"http:\/\/radar.oreilly.com\/2010\/06\/alternatives-to-college.html\">O&#8217;Reilly Radar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>For a while now I am thinking and re-thinking the misalignment of the computer science education system and the real world needs of IT industry. \u00a0And it&#8217;s not only me, and it&#8217;s not only in Cyprus. \u00a0I&#8217;ve seen it myself of course, but also heard it from many people around the world. \u00a0There are not &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/07\/20\/education-for-it\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Education for IT<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\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":[1,62],"tags":[1192,1114,1164,2364],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-12744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-technology","tag-computer-science","tag-education","tag-india","tag-zoho"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":23218,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2014\/12\/26\/awesome-courses-list-of-awesome-university-courses-for-learning-computer-science\/","url_meta":{"origin":12744,"position":0},"title":"awesome courses &#8211; list of awesome university courses for learning Computer Science!","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"December 26, 2014","format":"link","excerpt":"awesome courses - list of awesome university courses for learning Computer Science! While there were quite a few of these from before, this one is a really good selection. \u00a0I'm currently going through the slides of the Cloud Computing course from Cornell University.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10350,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2006\/08\/16\/on-new-skillsets\/","url_meta":{"origin":12744,"position":1},"title":"On new skillsets","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"August 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"After reading this: Instead of only teaching journalism as a profession, they should think of journalism as a basic requirement for a good education. It's a skill they should be teaching everyone who gets a bachelor's degree, from now on. I remembered my own thinking about new skillset. While I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27445,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2017\/03\/20\/what-are-some-things-you-wish-you-knew-when-you-started-programming\/","url_meta":{"origin":12744,"position":2},"title":"What are some things you wish you knew when you started programming?","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Quora thread on \"What are some things you wish you knew when you started programming?\" is a goldmine of wisdom. \u00a0Irrelevant of how experienced you - whether you've been programming for decades or just thinking about a new career path, which programming languages and technology stacks you use, whether you've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27608,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2017\/05\/23\/netsim-a-network-simulator-game-for-teaching\/","url_meta":{"origin":12744,"position":3},"title":"Netsim &#8211; a network simulator game for teaching","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"May 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Netsim is a simulator game intended to teach you the basics of how computer networks function, with an emphasis on security. You will learn how to perform attacks that real hackers use, and see how they work in our simulator! Netsim is completely free to play.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","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\/2017\/05\/netsim-500x348.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9617,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2005\/10\/28\/daily-del-icio-us-bookmarks\/","url_meta":{"origin":12744,"position":4},"title":"Daily del.icio.us bookmarks","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Shared bookmarks for del.icio.us user tvset on 2005-10-27 The Object Oriented Programming Web -- Programming and Computer Science Tutorials, Lecture notes and online books Tagged as: algorithms books development programming tutorials Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures Tagged as: algorithm algorithms computers concepts data development dictionary documentation education engineering howto\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28124,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2017\/10\/20\/periodic-table-of-software-engineering\/","url_meta":{"origin":12744,"position":5},"title":"Periodic Table of Software Engineering","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I came across this Periodic Table of Software Engineering, and I think it's an excellent visualization.\u00a0 For those working their way to become software engineers, it provides a nice map of skills, topics, and knowledge areas to cover.\u00a0 For the rest, it clearly explains why software is so much more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","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\/2017\/10\/periodic-table-of-software-engineering-500x350.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12744","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=12744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12744"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=12744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}