Comment I have noticed this as well (Score 1) 431
I recently graduated from a 4 year computer program at the local university. I now work as the lead developer on a small team. Our organization has a very strong internship program where we get college students for a summer, or part-time during the school year. The students coming in have pretty good problem solving skills, but college has not prepared them for making reusable and maintainable code.
The problem, based on my own experiences as well, is that the school focuses mostly on solving one very specific problem in the assignments. There weren't any large scale projects where you had to figure out the requirements and then break it down to the smallest parts and build your way up to a final product. My school had professors who covered concepts such as requirements gathering and modeling, but it seemed like an afterthought instead of a department-wide strategy.
I would like to see assignments where students have to fix and clean up bad code, so they know why it's bad and gain an appreciation for taking the time up front so future enhancements are easier to implement. This would be in addition to a senior project where a small team would have to go through the entire development process (requirements, planning, development, testing, bugfixes and enhancements, etc.) so that it's not all new to them when they start their first jobs. When I'm looking at a resume I do look at the curriculum of their school; If I see something along those lines I am much more excited to bring them in for an interview.
The problem, based on my own experiences as well, is that the school focuses mostly on solving one very specific problem in the assignments. There weren't any large scale projects where you had to figure out the requirements and then break it down to the smallest parts and build your way up to a final product. My school had professors who covered concepts such as requirements gathering and modeling, but it seemed like an afterthought instead of a department-wide strategy.
I would like to see assignments where students have to fix and clean up bad code, so they know why it's bad and gain an appreciation for taking the time up front so future enhancements are easier to implement. This would be in addition to a senior project where a small team would have to go through the entire development process (requirements, planning, development, testing, bugfixes and enhancements, etc.) so that it's not all new to them when they start their first jobs. When I'm looking at a resume I do look at the curriculum of their school; If I see something along those lines I am much more excited to bring them in for an interview.
