Need.For.Fundamentals

I'm sure most of us in the local IT industry are somewhat disappointed with the quality of graduates nowadays. Most of them seem 'too fresh' and lacking in many fundamentals in software design and development. A stroll in the local online community will easily reveal this. Even before they graduate, you can see most of them struggling with their Final-Year projects.

While the local educational institutions are being blamed for this misfortune, I'm really thinking whether is that really the cause of the problem. I do believe that some colleges may have some obsolete syllabus on old technologies but I'm looking at the fundamentals here. If we look at it, how has the database fundamentals (i.e. Normalization) changed since the 1970s? The answer is not much (I'm tempted to say None).

I'm starting to think that there's something really wrong with the students. I say this because I'm currently doing my Bachelors degree in Software Development with an Australian University (via Informatics) and I don't find anything wrong with the syllabus. They have all the fundamentals in place.

A conversation with a friend of mine who is a lecturer in another college reveals that many students prefer to go to those colleges where the exams are considered to be 'easy-to-pass'. When his colleges fine tune their syllabus to meet the needs of the industry today, the students quit their programmes and move on to get an easy-pass degree.

I have to agree with that because there aren't many students in my course either. Many took IT Management because "No need to do so much Porgaming mah". Sigh!

My advice to all students is to take some effort to learn up your stuff - take extra effort if you have to. I know that copying work from someone, ripping codes from the net and out-sourcing final-year projects are very common nowadays. Well, getting a degree is only the first step, you still need the substance to drive you for many years (or decades) in your career.