Re: [ossig] (Fwd) STI News: Firm discovers good IT help hard to find

[Chia Chin Yau <chiacy@sinchew-i.com>]

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I strongly believe that this is the result of exam oriented nature in our 
Education system, and expectaction of the society/community at large.

Everyone is out there for the best student, but no one ever even remember that 
best IT guys like Stve Wozniak, and best IT marketing person like Larry 
Ellison and Bill Gates did not even perform well during their school days.

Rgds,
chiacy


On Monday 02 December 2002 19:06, TM Tan (aka Meng) wrote:
> I have one comment and a rant :)
>
> 1. In the context of the kind of people who hang out on *this* mailing
> list, probably the article could sound insulting. Anyway this JONATHAN
> Searcy 42-year-old senior vice-president of Information Technology for
> Malaysia's Genting group is going about this in a totally wrong way. The
> fresh grad is a clean sheet, they should damned well train them to the
> level they require. When I was hiring people 2 years ago, I didn't look for
> advanced skillsets or any fancy college or university degree (see my rant
> below)...I looked for good attitude, willingness to learn, and one criteria
> I look for is what kind of games they played - you can tell a lot about
> people based on the games they play :) It is a damed good sign that they
> have a passion for IT...its not just a job.
> Then we trained them, two years on these guys have great potential. FreeBSD
> "make world"s are routine to them nowdays.
>
> 2. However, we are talking about the quality of IT grads nowdays. Sad to
> say, the article is pretty close to home. A bazillion years ago when I was
> an undergrad the first lab session was eye opening...UNIX on a PDP 11/44
> compiling pascal and Ada programs on the command line, not to mention a
> 6809 assembly language course. Fortunately the blinking prompt after the
> "%" wasn't too different from the blinking prompt after the "]" :) We
> learnt about algorithm design and how to test for correctness etc etc.
> People in Computer Science wrote compilers for their final year
> projects...we had some 128k fat macs with MacPascal but by and large UNIX
> on Vaxes and PDPs were the main systems we worked on.
>
> Back to the present, 2002 (BTW I'm generalising, there are exceptions, not
> many but there are) ...what do our students learn nowdays ? Windows, for
> sure. Visual Basic ? yep, that too.....many get taught how to *use* the
> visual basic development environment (ie what menu item does what)....not
> how to spec, design and code software....principles of which are compiler
> independent ! These skills will be useful whether you are using GNU C or
> C++ or Visual Basic or whatever. Ask the new grads if they can program in
> assembly language ?
>
> Basically the demand for IT skills is so high, almost every college has
> jumped on the bandwagon, cobbling together a "syllabus" without knowledge
> of "instructional design" or in- depth knowledge of what basic IT skills
> are really needed...some vendors who donate or heavily discount hardware
> and software are contributing to pushing their product....wanna guess who ?
> Does anyone check or control the quality of the courses provided ?
> To add to that, who is training the trainers ? Back then my lecturers were
> professor so-an-so or Dr so-and-so.....how many colleges can afford top
> lecturers ? Are there enough qualified lecturers to go around ?
> It used to be a degree or diploma said that the holder has a certain level
> of expertise and that was enough. Why the sudden requirements for
> professional certifications like MCSE etc etc ? Employers want to make sure
> the person they are hiring knows what DNS, IP numbers and netmasks are :)
>
> Wonder how many IT grads nowdays know who Knuth is and read "The Mythical
> Man-Month" ? How many can hand optimise code instead of turning on some
> compiler option ?
>
> We live in a place where "programmers" are the lowest level of IT
> staff...hmm, what does that tell you ? Seems like no one is proud to be
> called a programmer.
>
> I want to end with this story. I have a friend who works for a large local
> corporation, he is a lawyer for that corporation. He gets a new laptop and
> tells their IT support guy that he wants the hard drive partitioned into 4
> sections. The IT guy says "What is a partition?" Windows is turning our IT
> grads into idiots ! It is NOT FUNNY.
>
> Cheers
>
> Meng
>
> > I feel the article is quite shallow, lacking in substance and research.
> > What do you guys think?
> >
> > The url.
> > http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,4386,157951-1038693540,00.h
> >tml?
> >
> > Cheers
> > Tsewai
> >
> > ------- Forwarded message follows -------
> > Date sent:      	Mon, 2 Dec 2002 01:48:51 -0800
> > From:           	twchong@infotech-partners.com
> > To:             	twchong@infotech-partners.com
> > Subject:        	STI News: Firm discovers good IT help hard to find
> >
> > This message was forwarded to you from Straits Times Interactive
> > (http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg) by twchong@infotech-partners.com
> >
> > Firm discovers good IT help hard to find
> > by Leslie Lau
> >
> >
> >
> >  JONATHAN Searcy has tried everything over the years to hire good
> > software programmers, from the traditional interview process to
> > conducting written tests.
> >
> >  But most candidates were just not up to scratch.
> >
> >  So this year, the 42-year-old senior vice-president of Information
> > Technology for Malaysia's Genting group, decided on a radical approach.
> >
> >  He organised a contest with the prize - cash and a lucrative job with
> > the research and development arm of Malaysia's giant casino and resorts
> > operator.
> >
> >  'Still the results are not encouraging,' Mr Searcy told The Straits
> > Times.
> >
> >  'I think it should provide a reality check for students and colleges
> > offering IT courses in this country.'
> >
> >  A total 122 applicants, mostly fresh graduates and some undergraduates
> > as well, turned up for the contest last week.
> >
> >  They were given eight hours to write software and provide solutions for
> > one or more of four business situations. But the results provide a
> > telling indictment of the kind of technology-related courses offered by
> > universities and colleges here.
> >
> >  Fifty people had left before lunch.
> >
> >  Of the rest, a preliminary review of the results showed only three gave
> > what the company considered credible answers.
> >
> >  'The results should provide feedback to educational institutes on how
> > well their students perform when put in a real software development
> > situation,' Mr Searcy said.
> >
> >  The outcome of the contest was only marginally better than when the
> > company used a written test to screen candidates. Then, not one credible
> > answer was returned.
> >
> >  The contestants were asked to write software for various situations
> > related to Genting's business, from recovery of old data to communication
> > with its cruise ships and even a traffic light system.
> >
> >  'When you look at the cocktail of skills needed to write software,
> > obviously you need to know programming language but you need analytical
> > skills too, something the students here are lacking,' he said.
> >
> >  The problem, say IT experts in some foreign companies here, is that
> > Malaysia's technological push in recent years has placed too much
> > emphasis on entrepreneurship rather than the basic knowledge needed to
> > solve every day problems.
> >
> >  'Every IT student here seem to think they can start up a dot.com and
> > make money. It is very superficial,' an expatriate computer engineer told
> > The Straits Times.
> >
> >  He said most companies operating in Malaysia were still forced to hire
> > expatriates because Malaysians were still wanting in basic and analytical
> > skills.
> >
> >  An official with a major head hunting firm told The Straits Times that
> > they were not surprised at the novel approach taken by Genting, pointing
> > out that there is a dearth of 'right candidates' for jobs in the IT
> > sector.
> >
> >  The government's stress on developing a technology related economy has
> > seen an explosion of private colleges offering IT related courses but
> > most of them are far from cutting edge.
> >
> >  'Many Malaysian students choose to attend courses at these small
> > colleges where you can practically get a diploma online,' Miss Christine
> > Siew, the IT department manager of HELP Institute told The Straits Times.
> >
> >  HELP Institute is one of the few local colleges here offering
> > degree-level IT courses in partnership with foreign universities.
> >
> >  It has also received a grant from Apple for its students to develop Web
> > applications as well as a host of internship programmes which Miss Siew
> > says gives students the 'real life experiences' needed for jobs like
> > those offered by Genting.
> >
> >  Mr Searcy said: 'The job of a programmer only requires skills that are
> > borderline sophisticated in nature. We are not rocket scientists.'
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  THE CONTEST
> >
> >
> >
> >    Write software for scenarios related to a company's business, from
> > recovery of old data and communicating with its cruise ships, to a
> > traffic light system.
> >
> >
> >
> > THE PRIZE
> >
> >
> >
> >    The top three place-getters receive cash prizes and a lucrative job
> > with the research and development arm of the Genting group, Malaysia's
> > giant casino and resorts operator.
> >
> > THE RESULT
> >
> >
> >
> > Just three out of 122 contestants gave what the company considered
> > credible answers.
> >
> >  The results were marginally better than when the company used a written
> > test to screen candidates. Then, not one credible answer was given.
> >
> > THE REASON
> >
> > IT experts say Malaysia's technological push places too much emphasis on
> > entrepreneurship, sacrificing basic problem-solving skills. IP
> > Address:203.121.0.11
> >
> >
> > ------- End of forwarded message -------Tsewai Chong
> > Infotech Partners Sdn Bhd
> > Tel: 03-62010020
> > Fax: 03-62010021
> >
> >
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- -- 
Chia Chin Yau
Chief Operating Officer
Sinchew-i Sdn Bhd
19 Jalan Semangat
46200 Petaling Jaya
Malaysia

website: http://www.sinchew-i.com
email: chiacy@sinchew-i.com
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