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The Tools Don't Get You the Job
An anonymous reader writes: It's a trend that seems to permeate education across every discipline, from creative to technical: reliance on a single expensive, proprietary, vendor-driven tool. Whether it's the predominance of Adobe in design programs, of Visual Studio in many computer science programs, or even Microsoft Office components in business schools, too often students come away with education that teaches them how to be rote users of a tool rather than critical thinkers who can apply skills in their discipline across toolsets. Relying on knowledge of a single tool chain can create single point of failure for a student's education when licensing comes back to bite. What can we do to bring more software choice into education to give students more opportunity when they get out into the real world?
Random updates (downgrades) to the UI don't get you more readers (or clicks).
You mean like grinding my life away on SolidWorks?
At my school for my undergrad and grad programs we used a various set of IDEs and OSes. The only time we needed to be locked into a vendor for dev tools was when the class was targeted at that. A large % of the time we could use whatever worked for us.
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
The Tools Don't Get You the Job
Well except for when the company hiring for the job only uses a certain set of tools and actually wants you to have experience in them, right? Because that is hardly an exceptional case.
That has less to do with knowledge than how broken the screening system is. You've got to SEO your resume for the machines then add keywords for the HR people who pick up the ones that made it through.
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
If you are looking for MS office on a resume for DBA's you need to fire that HR staff. They should be looking for the part of the resume that says "I know how to use that damn database you bought"
Unless by DBA you mean 'microsoft access'.......
Because HR Drones don't understand software, I am finding that quite often the tool DOES get you the job, and consequently, it's incredibly hard to break out of either the LAMP or Microsoft Silos when designing software. Sure, for a particular industrial robot, FORTH may be a better language, or for certain expert systems, LISP machines work well, but when doing such a project in the real world, there are only a few real choices- C#, C++, Java, or Python is all anybody cares about.
So make sure your students are exposed to a wide variety- but make sure they're EXPERTS in learning new frameworks and learning new syntax.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
1980's: Learn to use a computer
1990's: Learn to use a word processor
2000's: Learn to use Microsoft Word
2010's: ?????
2020's: PROFIT!
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
>A diploma is worthless if you can't think for yourself, but this isn't something that can be taught, apparently.
See: Philosophy
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put all office suites (Microsoft, Libre, TeX, etc) and all certs in the resume. somewhere in there, also squeeze in your specialized talents. if you don't win Buzzword Bingo, they don't call you.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
reliance on a single expensive, proprietary, vendor-driven tool. Whether it's the predominance of Adobe in design programs, of Visual Studio in many computer science programs, ...
Visual Studio is free for students, OSS contributors, and small teams. It's only larger enterprises that have to pay for it.
Visual Studio Code is free and cross-platform, runs great on Linux (and mac), and is a pretty handy tool for working in node.js and other languages.
(disclaimer: I work in the Visual Studio team)
If the students actually care about what they're learning
They don't.
unless they are blithering idiots
They are.
they'll use their critical thinking
They have none
go learn what extra they may need all by themselves.
They won't.
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
To get away from the Slashdot front page.
BlameBillCosby.com
...most companies use the Microsoft stack and Microsoft Office. So, yes, being well versed in them could actually help you get a job.
I can't even get close to understanding my girlfriend
You could have stopped there; that describes the entire population of boyfriends and later husbands once girlfriend becomes wife...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
A blacksmith will typically create an anvil for personal use, rather than buying one. It's a part of the process of becoming a real blacksmith. It's not unique here, many craftsmen make or customize their own tools. I see hardware engineers doing this a lot as well, jurying rigging up some device to help them out.
This used to be true with programming too, there weren't many tools so you had to write your own or modify someone else's (and you shared them with others). If a new type of computer came out you would port the tools are maybe even write some from scratch. Today the kids can't even begin to imagine this: if there's not a button on their IDE's to do what they want then they don't do it, they don't bother learning a scripting or shell languages to do what they need. I mean it's a frigging computer, the whole point of it is to be able to program it to do what you want it to do!
In the end, many people will find that dropping a few buzzwords on their resume is easier than going into business for themselves.
As a former teacher, the following is in order:
They don't.
It's up to you to give them a sufficient reason to care. The incapable or the apathetic can find another career field, and the defiant can go spend their careers at McDonald's.
They are.
No, in general they are not: ignorance != idiocy.
They have none
So teach them how to gain the ability to think critically, and then show them how to use it. The sufficiently clueful will put it to use, and the others are no longer your problem.
They won't.
...so long as you give them the impression that they shouldn't, they won't. One of the first things I warned new students about was that the learning never ends, but the rewards can more than make up for it. I also told them point-blank that if they didn't want to buy into a lifetime of learning, they would be better served by transferring to another class immediately.
Out of the couple of thousand students, most likely never got far in CompSci. Of those that did, they're doing extremely well nowadays, if their LinkedIn profiles are any indication. It's been 10 years since I left academia, and seeing a decent number of formerly snot-nosed high-school-aged kids raking in six-figure salaries? It's pretty damned satisfying.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Whether it's the predominance of Visual Studio in many computer science programs
I must have missed that.
The premise is correct, but why would that need to be on your $deitydamned resume? Anyone with a pulse can do the basics of any office suite (or work it out in half a day).
Do you also mention that you're toilet trained and can tie your shoelaces?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That post brought tears to my eyes, brining up fond memories of the old /. I know and love. Now, where's tub girl?
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"That makes the difference between those who can do a job, and those who are really good at it."
But still, as you say, you need to encourage it.
"The latter are rare to find."
Not only because good professionals at any trade are difficult to find (after all, no matter the average, the top performers are always a tiny minority), but because that's not what people look for.
It's difficult to defend oneself as being a 'jack of all trades, master of no one', when the one making the hirings specifically looks for something "with two years experience on, say, VMWare 5.0" instead of "virtualization servers and IaaS". No wonder the prospective employees specialize in being good at what the employers are looking for: tools instead of principles.