Ok, that is a very direct, generalised and harsh statement but if you are reading this, then it got your attention. So let me explain why I would write such a thing

During my weekly activities with the group this week (see AC32002 for details) a number of realisations and observations came to my attention and were then backed up by recent articles in the media regarding the IT skills shortage. I started thinking about this in relation to the people who are supposed to be filling those gaps in a couple of years, my fellow students. At this point in time I am in my third year of Applied Computing at Dundee University in Scotland. Students who started in first year have been taught the following:

• Java
• Data Structures (Stacks, Queues, etc.)
• Web Authoring
• HCI (at varying levels)
• .NET (VB and C# 2.0)
• ASP.NET (in VB)
• JSP
• C++
• Design Patterns
• Waterfall and Agile methodologies (working on Agile at the moment)
• Databases (mostly relational but also covering the theory, use and design)

So, really a very solid covering of things for 3 years of work and bar some minor organisational issues has been very well taught and structured. The majority of the material is relevant, the lecturers and staff know their subject areas and teach them well. We have outstanding facilities, the Queen Mother Building was opened three years ago and is a magnificent work of both architectural ingenuity practical design. Inside we have (usually) enough mid-level machines to meet the needs of the first three years that use them, dedicated hardware, software and research labs for areas of study, the list goes on.

Where am I going with this? Dundee University, like a number of institutions in the United Kingdom put a lot of money into their IT-based subjects since that is a huge growing market that needs people to fill the jobs. What I realised this week after discussions with my peers was that a in theory a good, employable student needs two things: The tools and the willingness to learn and better themselves. In essence a “good” (I am sure there is a better word to use here, I am just missing it) student has a passion for the subject they are studying.

So what has that got to do with anything? Students aren’t known for being “perfect”, in fact that is part of the idea of a student. You go to university to learn, to be taught more advanced and in-depth concepts from those at school or college with the goal of finding a job that requires the skills you have studied. What I have started to notice, and it is not limited to Dundee is that there are quite a number of students that at this point don’t go that little bit beyond getting the grade they need, they don’t look deeper into a subject to find out the “how” and the “why”. As it was pointed out to me this week there are still students in my year that don’t even pick up their assessment feedback, they look at the grade and either go “I will do better next time” or “oh, OK, I live with that”, not every student actually reads the feedback they have been given and go find out how they could improve on that in the future.

It does seem to be that getting the grade is of the highest importance and anything beyond that is a waste of time and effort. Part of working in software development is being able to see where you could improve your work in the future, always reassessing the technology and your development styles. There are situations where simply getting the code to work is not going to cut it with managers when a certain level of code is required or a certain methodology must be followed.

It is one thing for a student to achieve a given grade, it is something completely different for the same student to learn from it, to look at it and think “How could I improve on that?” and then actually apply it on their next assessment without even needing to be asked or told to do so.

Now University is a very intensive thing, we are currently swamped with work and it is hard, but to me, that is not an excuse to cut corners. And of course not all students do, that is not what I am saying here at all. There are many students who have begun to realise that they don’t only need the mark, they need an understanding of the work and as such there have been some really good projects and discussions to come out of it, what does concern me is the number that actually do this.

This is all conjecture and purely based on what I have been listening to, reading and seeing. Perhaps I am reading too far into this, perhaps I simply went into university with my expected standards set too high but then if I am in a job and I have to work with someone in a team, I would expect a certain level of knowledge and understanding if they have been hired to do the job.

Comments welcome.