Every once in a while I get a doubt ... did I answer this person correctly ? And this especially happens when I am asked questions regarding the software field.
The latest in the line was a question posed to me by a teen. God knows why he asked me ... he is such a go getter already - a paying blogger website , knows Joomla , his twitter updates ( and no of followers ) leave me astonished ... . This along with him being a student ..... Hmm may be he asked me just to make me feel distinctly uncomfortable and outdated .... now there is a thought !! :)
He asked - What technical skills do you think collegians should invest in ? Uh oh ..... what could I say ?
Seemed to me he was better updated than I am ... nevertheless I considered the question carefully and answered that learning any of the following would be good .... Now I am wondering .. did I get it right ? Is there something I have missed ? And what about suggestion for soft skills ? Shouldn't I have suggested that anyway ? But ... how do I suggest he learn that ?
My answers -
- Java , JSP , Java based frameworks
- .Net technologies - VB .Net, ASP .Net, C#, LINQ
- HTML, CSS , Flash, jQuery
- PHP, MySQL, Ruby on Rails
- Google Web Toolkit, Android apps
- Learning to make apps for 'i' Apple products,
- Animation [ Have no clue of software's in this area )
- Testing area - QTP ?
- SAP
- Linux
- Apache , Weblogic ?
- Photoshop
The reason this list makes me uncomfortable is that - it feels like deja vu. So what have I missed ??
Skills update .... ?
Posted by
Vidya
on Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Labels:
General,
Inputs,
IT,
Ruminations,
Tech
6 comments:
:) too many there... Main thing is attitude and THAT no one teaches/learns, everythin else can be learned. If I have to choose from your list I would say choose a few things/languages that one likes and become an expert(?) on that. :)
Any list you or anyone comes up with is only valid for a point in time.
Imagine an actor asking "what do you recommend for a good acting career? Policeman character or villain character or a romantic hero?"
In my view, developing business sense, integrating with the organization will bring more success than any technology will.
I disagree.
I feel, A CS undergrad should spend whatever time she wants to invest in better understanding and exploring core subjects, plus an OOP language or two. That is more than sufficient, considering 80% - 90% of todays CS eng. graduates do not know the basics.
All the frameworks, technology stacks are a passing fad. Besides no body expects a college kid to know all or any of those technologies in-depth anyways.
My suggestion, in addition to concentrating on core subjects is to pick up a good project in any language/tech and expend all creative energies on it. Nothing teaches like first hand experience if one has the aptitude and curiosity.
@Namratha @Rao @Ashwin - Thanks a lot for your inputs.
@Rao - What you say applies in the long run but a student has to start somewhere. Right ? So developing business sense , integrating with org are all valid but not good as a starting point unless the student is an entrepreneur which is a different game altogether !
@Namratha - yes I meant learn any skill [ not all ] in the list mentioned... looks like that is not very clear from my blog ! :)
@Ashwin - Yep .. OOP language or two is what I am looking at ! :) I meant any skill in my list can picked up ... [ and are there more to add ? ]. Agreed stacks, framework etc are fads and nobody expects college kids to know them as experts but if they wanted to expand his/her horizons I would still think looking at relevant skills makes more sense than say doing a project in DBASE III !!
if i were to select from the list, I would think, thinking... not many people do that nowadays. Oops! the list is taxing I wonder what it would be to go through so much of books forget the implementation stage....
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