71% of students learn more about IT at home than school • Hacker News Board

Re: 71% of students learn more about IT at home than school

#21

Post by johnohara » Sat, Jan 08, 2011, 8:02 PM UTC

According to figures released by Microsoft, 58 per cent of 16 to 18-year- olds currently in education believe they have a better understanding of IT than those charged with teaching them.

What this actually describes is a lack of respect for instructors who are unable or unwilling to work with students on challenging and difficult problems.

The truth is, most students this age are very good at applying technology but very unsure about creating technology. When you successfully strip away the marketing terms and start going after the actual concepts, it's remarkable how quiet the room gets.

Re: 71% of students learn more about IT at home than school

#22

Post by evilduck » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 4:48 PM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #13

evilduck wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree. Passionate programmers have side projects all the time, school or work. But you can successfully be a completely mediocre (dare I say average?) programmer by just doing your classwork. The typical Java and .Net business programming jobs out there require people who are absolutely lacking passion, otherwise they couldn't bear the day-to-day tasks. These jobs are not really desirable to good program…

You will never find a above average programmer that isn't in some way passionate about what they do. And really, "average" isn't really a good word to use here. People are idiots, but technically speaking your average person is of average intelligence. Those of us who consider ourselves to be in a higher tier generally consider "average" to be very sub-par.

Point taken, I didn't mean to deride the average person, but my issue was with employers only wanting passionate or above average programmers. Exceptional opportunities want exceptional people. But my point was that most opportunities in our field are not exceptional and that it doesn't take much academic effort or ability to successfully meet their requirements. The student who has a firm grasp of OO concepts and can write a little SQL can handle 90% of the jobs you'll find on Dice/Monster/Craigslist/etc. Business requirements programming just isn't that academically demanding.

Re: 71% of students learn more about IT at home than school

#23

Post by al05 » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 8:53 PM UTC

socksy wrote: post #16

I have found from my own experience that ICT teaching is quite shoddy, and a waste of time at best. This has been confirmed by accounts from friends and family at other schools. Most teaching revolves around the ability to use certain microsoft products (Word, Excel, Outlook and Access if you're "lucky"). In some cases, they may even teach you Dreamweaver. I remember one lesson being taught to create websites in Drea…

Pretty much every Uni in the UK, pretty much says when you join Computer Science, forget everything you learned in ICT lessons. I did Btec ND electronic/computer engineering at college, which gained me more respect points with uni profs.

Re: 71% of students learn more about IT at home than school

#24

Post by al05 » Sun, Jan 09, 2011, 8:56 PM UTC

evilduck wrote: post #11

burgerbrain wrote: post #8

In other news, 29% of students are under-educated about IT. Seriously though, I think it's clear, at least in CS, that if you only do your coursework you'll be left far behind your peers and what employers expect from you. It has to be something you can be passionate about on your own. Getting A's in all your classes but never doing anything outside of them isn't good enough.

I have to disagree. Passionate programmers have side projects all the time, school or work. But you can successfully be a completely mediocre (dare I say average?) programmer by just doing your classwork. The typical Java and .Net business programming jobs out there require people who are absolutely lacking passion, otherwise they couldn't bear the day-to-day tasks. These jobs are not really desirable to good program…

Those Java and .NET jobs probably provide you with more money to look after your family as well. All the interesting jobs, seem to lack higher salaries, in the UK anyway.