IBM and Red Hat Offer College Prep

Califa writes "IBM announced Tuesday it will work with Red Hat to bring universities up to speed in teaching college students open source skills." From the article: "The company said its research of technology training at universities around the world have shown a need for more open-standards offerings. About 75 percent of a group of CEOs interviewed by IBM's Business Consulting Services said education and a lack of qualified candidates are the two issues with the greatest impact on their business."

Comments

Which skills?

[Agelmar]

I wonder what exactly will be taught in IBM's ideal, new program. According to the story, "The companies' training will help teach students skills for Linux as well as IBM software and servers." What training for IBM software and servers is appropriate for a University program? For an IT-certification, training on specific IBM programs may be appropriate, but for a true computer science degree, I should think a familiarity with *nix and the ability to learn a new OS would be much better than specific training on "IBM software and servers".

A question of goals

[ProfaneBaby]

I question these types of programs. What do you want an applicant to have? Familiarity with a specific distribution and a specific skill set, or the ability to learn?

I got passed over for a job or two because I didn't know application 'X'. Sure, I know the theory - I've written a TCP stack from scratch, I understand the core components of operating systems, and I've acted as a sysadmin on 6 UNIX variants for over 10 years, but I didn't know some specific keyword used in a Postgres config, so apparently I'm "not qualified"

Everytime I see something like this - the same type of programs where Microsoft sends out techs to teach people how to pass an MCSE so they can be 'network specialists' without ever explaining what a SYN packet is - I wonder what the goal of the program is. Are they trying to teach people a specific platform, or are they trying to teach people concepts and theory.

From experience, I'm afraid that they're going to train people to be the ReHhat equivalents of an MCSE - and we all know how respected they are in the 'real world.'

Re:A question of goals

[kfg]

are they trying to teach people concepts and theory.

They are training NOC monkeys. People who are trained not to think,to perform a specified business task, mechanically and interchangably. Parts is parts.

The above is expressed somewhat cynically, but it is not a troll. It really is what they are up to, and they not only know it, it is a codified business practice. Never stake your business on that which cannot be replaced, since the business fails with the failure of the irreplacable. People are guarunteed to fail. Mediocrity, by definition, can be easily replaced.

Of course this is why a small outfit comprised of a few exceptional people can come out of nowhere and eat the lunch of some big establishment, but in doing to they become a big establishment. . .

Rinse and repeat.

Besides, we both know this is more marketing than anything else, to make sure the future NOC monkeys jabber for IBM and Red Hat kit. Gentoo on a beowulf cluster of old PIIIs need not apply.

KFG

Yeah, but can they donate as expensive software?

[team99parody]

Microsoft's popular with clueless university admins (and politicians for state schools) because they donate zillions of dollars worth of software. If these guys donate Linux can they get as much credit by marking it up to the same huge numbers that clueless admins will be impressed by?

Unwilling to invest in training

[boner]

When the CEOs of companies complain of lack of education and skills, what they are saying is that they cannot find people that have the right mix of skills for the job. Having worked for a large IT company for nearly ten years I have been involved in many interviews. When you enter an interview with a specific skillset in mind, most of the candidates will not be a good match, however, if you are willing to dig deeper and actually look at the way they think and approach problems, you will find people that could exceed your expectation.
Turning towards universities so that they can provide IT level classes to their graduates is nice for product placement and breeding familiarity. It is however totally useless if you want to teach them the specific skills that are so in demand.
Most companies work under operational constraints that limit the amount of time and money they can invest in training people so they are looking for the dark horse out there that has all the skills and is willing to work for a lower salary. Unfortunately, most all those companies are finding it extremely tough to (a) find the people and (b) keep them.
Once a company has found a person that can do trick A, they will make him do trick A all the time. Whenhe discusses his career development he will be limited to performing trick A over and over again. Not many people I know will stick around.

Having worked with the folks of IBM services, I have seen a large spectrum of people, some very good, some abysmal. Yet, in those projects no college graduate would have been any use with skills advertised in the article.. Why, because real IT problems are caused by real IT needs and are usually the result of decisions made a few years back, therefore an understanding of that type of environment is a requirement to being effective.

If universities really want to train their graduates on IT skills, then they should take all the money RH and IBM are willing to spend but also open a consultancy service for small and medium companies. That will expose students to the realities of IT, not some class. As we say in the group I work for, 'we are looking for the people with the scar tissue in the right places'.
And yes, we do hire out of university, but mostly PhDs