Engineering School Grads - Tradesmen or Thinkers? 325
El Cubano asks: "ITworld is carrying a story (sorry, no printable version) saying that John Seely Brown (former chief scientist at Xerox and director of PARC, currently teaching at the University of Southern California) is encouraging engineering schools to change the way they educate. The article, quotes Mr. Brown saying the following: 'Training someone for a career makes no sense. At best, you can train someone for a career trajectory...'. What do you think? Should engineering schools be producing tradesmen (like an apprenticeship program) or should they be producing 'thinkers' (people who can cope with a wide variety of problem inside and outside their area of expertise)?"
Re:It takes both kinds (Score:3, Funny)
As far as the NASA spacecraft goes
Duct tape is only half the solution (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Trade schools (Score:1, Funny)
Can you give a specific example? You sound like gramps complaining "back in my day we only had 1s and 0s to code in, and sometimes not even 1s"
Re:This is not a new question (Score:3, Funny)
That's a good analogy. Thanks.
Next time in an interview, after the prospect passes all skill things we need to verify, I'm going to look him dead in the eye and say (in my best Eastwood voice):
"Listen, we can see you've got the gun. But do you got the bullets?"
More process than product (Score:3, Funny)
Education is about inspiring each student to do their best. Point out the flaws in their work and challenge them to go beyond what they and others have done before.
Re:The education system. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:handle (Score:2, Funny)
My personal experience has been exactly the opposite.
Employers do not want employees who think. God no, that is the last thing they want. Are you silly?
Employers want employees who will follow orders unquestioningly regardless of how asinine they may be or how damaging their participation might be to their professional reputation.
In my experience the longest lived and most successful employees are the automatons. Or perhaps better expressed, the most successful employees are the ones who do not care about the work, and simply do what they're told no matter how silly it is.
I suspect you have not actually been in the real job market for very long.
Employees who think are very dangerous and are to be avoided at all costs.