Colleges Should Prep Students For Work
I see an inflow of freshers coming out of college and joining work year after year. I feel that we need to have some sort of prep class for students finishing college. To prep them for actual work. With no disrespect, they have the skills but they lack the drive, purpose and knowledge of what the actual work looks like. I was in the same boat 20 years back.
Our education system is so driven by grades and the only skill they try to teach you there is to beat everyone and come first. At least in the Indian educational system, that's how things work. The curriculum unfortunately isn't built around people management, time management, stress management, money management, perspectives and so on...
The industrial tour or the external project at an institute isn't going to provide all this information and experience. Behavioural training, teaching about the importance of EQ to go with IQ is something that should start before one starts working.
Earlier, I had mentioned a couple of freshers wanting to only join the development. Per them, It is the best thing that could happen to them. There are no innovative thoughts or different other streams that they have thought about. They just want to be at the best place with the best job, doing development and start minting money. It takes more than academic excellence to be an ace at an actual workplace. There are no alternatives, unfortunately.
We all need to be given lessons on how to treat people as it could make or break our career. Even if you are an ace programmer but lack people skills, you won't make it much far. The same goes for the bunch who gets stressed out and do not know how to cope with it or mitigate it. There are even managers out there who really struggle at their job when it comes to Time Management. It is such an important aspect in life, but we lack the learnings on how to manage one's time and other's time as well, they end up doing a bad job. It is not their problem, just that they lack the initial lessons.
In engineering, I remember having a semester on Industrial Engineering. It outta be augmented with topics that prep students to become future workers. They should be taught on these aspects to ensure they have been given a push at that stage itself and when they become part of the workforce, it'll be easy for them to recognize the pattern. They will know how to work through challenges at work and build on that capability.
If I'm given an opportunity to go back, I would be spending time to learn a bit more on that side of behavioural aspects than on learning technology!
