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Re: [ossig] (Fwd) STI News: Firm discovers good IT help hard to find
i brought this up over dinner last night, and someone said : "The
problem has to do with the value placed on knowledge...for the pure joy
of knowledge itself." I agree...as a society, our educational value is
more focussed on A's (as mentioned in Uwe's mail). A's == mighty $$$$
personally, i would love to see a survey which tracks what all the kids
with 9+As or more end up doing 10 years down the track. i suspect the
results could shatter a myth ? anyone know of such a survey ?
Getting off my soapbox...what's more important is 'What can I/WE do' ?
Is there anyone on this list who can start/attempt a survey like this ?
perhaps a lecturer who can get final year student(s) to do this ? or
maybe start a project within mncc-ossig ? (anyone with survey/research
methodology experience ?)
engsin (possible volunteer #1)
==================================================================
On Tue, 2002-12-03 at 01:49, Chia Chin Yau wrote:
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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
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > To unsubscribe: send mail to ossig-request@mncc.com.my
> > > with "unsubscribe ossig" in the body of the message
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe: send mail to ossig-request@mncc.com.my
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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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