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by Anonymous Monk
on Jan 24, 2006 at 16:09 UTC ( #525216=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

in reply to Re: (OT) Real World Skills Versus CS Skills
in thread (OT) Real World Skills Versus CS Skills

You learn all those things in school; some of them in public/high school, and some of them in university.

1. communicational skills

I had 14 years of formal English language training before I even reached university. I worked on group projects, learned brainstorming techniques, and was forced to deal with general group dynamics long before I hit university. So was everyone educated in my country -- unfortunately, the workforce doesn't just consist of people with the same background and education as the native citizens here. This re-introduces a communications barrier where none existed before. Short of training in every concievable language, there's little that can be done about it, however. It's not the fault of the education system.

2. organizational skills These were formally taught to anyone who wants to take a class in them at my university; they were informally taught by forcing students to organize their time in order to meet workload demands.

3. stamina You've got to be kidding. One of my friends was working up to 80 hour work weeks for Corell during his co-op work terms. He considered it a break from the stresses of school; doing a double major in CS/Applied Math with sufficient grades for grad school had him averaging 4 hours of sleep at night.

4. appropriate dressing This is an interview question, not a cultural absolute, and it's taught in the interview skills handout that you learn in a decent co-op university. Some places have a strict dress code where programmers wear a suit every day; other places, they wear t-shirts and jeans. Wearing the wrong attire in either environment is a cultural faux-pas.

A decent education teaches you all of those things.

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