Many high school students are self taught, but post-secondary co-op programs help
When Neville Samuell was just 10, he was programming his first video game. He quickly progressed from Games Factory, a simple, no-coding-required program, to more advanced applications like Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio, which allows users to create their own Xbox video games. He did all of this on his own, without any help from courses at his high school in Huntsville, Ont.
“I didn’t get a whole lot of instruction in technology until I reached the university level,” said Samuell, who is now in his second year of a mechatronics engineering program at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ont. “I’m pretty much self-taught.”
According to a new survey by Microsoft Canada, Samuell isn’t alone. About one-half of respondents aged 17 to 20 said they learn more about technology on their own, while only 15 per cent said they learn more about technology from teachers and courses.
More troubling from an industry perspective is that while 91 per cent of the 1,002 students surveyed said a career in technology would be somewhat or very rewarding, less than half of them said their school is adequately preparing them for such a career.
This is bad news with Canada’s Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) predicting a shortage of 89,000 workers over the next three years, and with enrolment in post-secondary IT programs having dropped by 50 per cent in the past five years.
High school guidance counsellors need to be better informed about the kinds of opportunities available to students who go into information technology, said Margaret Evered, an IT consultant and member of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS).
In her work with CIPS, Evered has found that the stereotype of IT only being for the nerd who wants to sit alone all day and write code is still alive and well among guidance counsellors and students alike.
“They really (don’t) have a clue as to the range of jobs available in IT,” she said.
Also, too many students are dropping the high school science and math courses they need to get into IT programs in university because they don’t know they need them.
“People are limiting their options too early,” said Evered.
University and high school co-op programs can provide students with the business experience they need to get jobs after graduation and to learn whether or not a particular field is for them, said Evered.
Co-op gives students the hands-on experience they can’t get in the classroom, said Kate Thoukalas, a post-graduate computer science student at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University.
“It teaches you a lot of things that you might not be able to learn from talking to your teacher or from a textbook,” said Thoukalas, who is doing her co-op term at Vancouver-based software firm Business Objects.
James Hughes, the senior manager of technical recruitment for Business Objects, has already seen a decline in the number of students in IT at university.
“We noticed it early last year. We have been trying to partner closely with schools to get more visibility out there to say that this is definitely still a very viable career path,” he said.
The company, which has hired 300 co-op students from various Canadian universities since 2002, relies heavily on co-op students to fill its staffing needs.
The company usually offers full-time jobs to the top 20 per cent of final-year co-op students and has hired 34 graduates since 2004, said Hughes.
High schools aren’t solely to blame for fewer students going into IT programs, said Eugene Fiume, a computer science professor at the University of Toronto. Parents are influencing their children not to pursue IT careers, he said.
“Parents are helping their children make very short-term decisions,” said Fiume.
That’s because many people were burned in the dot-com bust earlier this decade, said Hughes. Parents want to make sure their children are going to have a job at the end of school and a few years ago IT wasn’t the way to go, but now the industry has recovered.
“They need to get over those prejudices just because they lost some money in the stock market,” said Fiume.
While IT is definitely a growth field, part of the reason companies can’t find people to fill positions is because they’re overlooking the talent currently available to them, said Evered.
“I think we’re under-serving our new graduates and older IT workers,” she said.
Instead of complaining that schools aren’t producing graduates with the skills they’re looking for, employers should provide more in-house training, both for new graduates and current employees, she said.
Business Objects has embraced idea of developing its own workers and provides internal management and technical training as needed, said Hughes.
By showing students that there is a viable career path within the company, they’re more likely to pursue an IT career, he said.
“I didn’t get a whole lot of instruction in technology until I reached the university level,” said Samuell, who is now in his second year of a mechatronics engineering program at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ont. “I’m pretty much self-taught.”
According to a new survey by Microsoft Canada, Samuell isn’t alone. About one-half of respondents aged 17 to 20 said they learn more about technology on their own, while only 15 per cent said they learn more about technology from teachers and courses.
More troubling from an industry perspective is that while 91 per cent of the 1,002 students surveyed said a career in technology would be somewhat or very rewarding, less than half of them said their school is adequately preparing them for such a career.
This is bad news with Canada’s Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) predicting a shortage of 89,000 workers over the next three years, and with enrolment in post-secondary IT programs having dropped by 50 per cent in the past five years.
High school guidance counsellors need to be better informed about the kinds of opportunities available to students who go into information technology, said Margaret Evered, an IT consultant and member of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS).
In her work with CIPS, Evered has found that the stereotype of IT only being for the nerd who wants to sit alone all day and write code is still alive and well among guidance counsellors and students alike.
“They really (don’t) have a clue as to the range of jobs available in IT,” she said.
Also, too many students are dropping the high school science and math courses they need to get into IT programs in university because they don’t know they need them.
“People are limiting their options too early,” said Evered.
University and high school co-op programs can provide students with the business experience they need to get jobs after graduation and to learn whether or not a particular field is for them, said Evered.
Co-op gives students the hands-on experience they can’t get in the classroom, said Kate Thoukalas, a post-graduate computer science student at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University.
“It teaches you a lot of things that you might not be able to learn from talking to your teacher or from a textbook,” said Thoukalas, who is doing her co-op term at Vancouver-based software firm Business Objects.
James Hughes, the senior manager of technical recruitment for Business Objects, has already seen a decline in the number of students in IT at university.
“We noticed it early last year. We have been trying to partner closely with schools to get more visibility out there to say that this is definitely still a very viable career path,” he said.
The company, which has hired 300 co-op students from various Canadian universities since 2002, relies heavily on co-op students to fill its staffing needs.
The company usually offers full-time jobs to the top 20 per cent of final-year co-op students and has hired 34 graduates since 2004, said Hughes.
High schools aren’t solely to blame for fewer students going into IT programs, said Eugene Fiume, a computer science professor at the University of Toronto. Parents are influencing their children not to pursue IT careers, he said.
“Parents are helping their children make very short-term decisions,” said Fiume.
That’s because many people were burned in the dot-com bust earlier this decade, said Hughes. Parents want to make sure their children are going to have a job at the end of school and a few years ago IT wasn’t the way to go, but now the industry has recovered.
“They need to get over those prejudices just because they lost some money in the stock market,” said Fiume.
While IT is definitely a growth field, part of the reason companies can’t find people to fill positions is because they’re overlooking the talent currently available to them, said Evered.
“I think we’re under-serving our new graduates and older IT workers,” she said.
Instead of complaining that schools aren’t producing graduates with the skills they’re looking for, employers should provide more in-house training, both for new graduates and current employees, she said.
Business Objects has embraced idea of developing its own workers and provides internal management and technical training as needed, said Hughes.
By showing students that there is a viable career path within the company, they’re more likely to pursue an IT career, he said.
