{"id":10192,"date":"2009-12-09T19:46:49","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T19:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=10192"},"modified":"2009-12-09T19:46:49","modified_gmt":"2009-12-09T19:46:49","slug":"students-interns-and-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=10192","title":{"rendered":"Students, Interns and IT"},"content":{"rendered":"

We just had a government national budget today \u2013 I won\u2019t be able to sit for a while.  I\u2019ve been listening to the radio most of the day while working and I heard one good point from the talking heads.  One \u201cexpert\u201d said that some of the new tax funds should be pooled for training of future new skills.  Here\u2019s the scenario.<\/p>\n

We have around 12% unemployment.  IT has gone into recession.  All sectors have been making staff redundant.  There\u2019s nowhere for students to go after graduating college (what we call non-university third level institutions) or university.  There no where for re-educated working people to go to get that first piece of experience.  If our economy is to succeed then we\u2019ll need these additional skills.  We can\u2019t have a 205 year gap in skills that never developed.  I doubt Ireland is unique in this.<\/p>\n

For any recent\/near graduate who might read this I have some bad news for you.  Sure, you\u2019ve gotten A\u2019s in all your exams and your parents are proud and your lecturers called you a genius.  But \u2026<\/p>\n

You Know Nothing!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry; I know that hurt but it\u2019s true.  Your college education simply laid a foundation.  You probably learned about the OSI model in 5 different classes over 4 years like I did.  You probably learned about Token Ring like I did.  The reality is that you have few skills right now that a real business can use.  You\u2019re simply putty that something will be made from.  For the first part of your career you will likely achieve little of consequence.  The same is true for anyone who got an MCSE (or whatever the hell that\u2019s called these days!) on a re-education program.  You are what we call a paper-MCSE.  Lots of facts and answers for questions that have little real world use.  It\u2019s a good start but unlike those TV adverts in the UK, you will not be earning \u00a345,000 per year from day one.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it normally goes.  You get a job where you answer phones, run cables, etc.  You\u2019ll pick up a little as time goes by.  If you\u2019re good enough then you\u2019ll be delegated with more work, maybe a small project.  Then a larger piece of work and a role in a larger project.  It takes time; it certainly doesn\u2019t happen overnight.<\/p>\n

But this is where the problem is right now.  NO ONE is hiring.  There is next to no work out there.  I can\u2019t imagine how bad it must be for this past years graduates.  They must feel awful after spending 4 years in classes, studying and doing continuous assessment and exams.  My class was mostly employed before we left our last exam \u2013 I got my job offer the week before our finals.  Graduates were in amazing shortage back then so we were thrown right in.  I was doing exams one week and the next I was porting code from Solaris to HP-UX in a team of 1 leader and 3 graduates.  I just can\u2019t imagine your predicament.  <\/p>\n

Anyway \u2026 back on topic.  The expert on the radio suggested we needed a national program for interns.  Company\u2019s can\u2019t afford the entire cost of staff.  The country can\u2019t afford to have people sitting on the dole doing nothing and learning nothing.  What if we had a program where we met half way.  What if the person worked 20 hours a week and did work-related studying for half a week?  The government could reduce dole payments fairly and the company could have a part time staff member at a low cost.  The idea here is that eventually the recession will end.  Hopefully the company would then be in a position to hire and would want to take on the intern as a full time employee at full cost.  <\/p>\n

I would add to the program: the program should be contingent on the person continuing to learn and achieve professional certification\/passing grades in the training program.  That protects those who are investing in the intern, i.e. the tax payer.  The company should also be requiring the intern to be doing real work, i.e. not flattening boxes \u2026. I\u2019m not ruling out coffee making because we once had one poor chap who had to get us coffees and breakfast sandwiches every Friday morning for nearly a year.  It was a tradition in the department that the rest of us enjoyed \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Who gains?<\/p>\n