At 10:13 AM 2/21/01 +0000, [log in to unmask] wrote: > >>I recommended to several department chairs that both schools of > >>Engineering and Computer Science should require a one year internship > >>prior to graduation. > > >Interesting. My own proposal is similar to this. My proposal is that > >prospective software developers should get a REAL degree in Math, Science, > >and/or Engineering (preferably all three), THEN do (at least) a one year > >internship. I tend to think it would be better if it were 1 1/2 years or > >longer. > >I don't see why Comput(er|ing) Science should not be considered as a REAL >degree, as long as the course content is adequate. . . . etc. Well, the explanation is rather a long one and in just a few minutes I am going to leave home for most of a week or more. So here is the short answer: To learn what one really needs to learn to have a chance to be a good software engineer simply requires a lot more time than is available in the Undergraduate curriculum. It also requires a substantially different format, for some aspects of the process, from that available in the college classroom. And much of the important stuff requires more maturity than many Freshmen and Sophomores have (especially males). The first problem is especially serious here in the U.S. where our K-12 educational system is failing so miserably that we simply cannot assume nearly as much understanding of Math and Science (and NOTHING of Engineering or Management) of incoming Freshmen as we could 20-30 years ago. This aspect of the problem is really rather severe. Moreover, in spite of a lot of "talk" in recent years about solving this aspect of the problem, I see little improvement. Things are probably continuing to get worse. I'll return to this issue in more detail in a couple weeks. :) sro S. Ron Oliver, semi-retired professor of Computer Science and Computer Engineering. www.csc.calpoly.edu/~sroliver caress Corporation is proud to be the U.S. representative for Top Graph'X, developers of high quality software components, using Ada. For more information, check out www.topgraphx.com. Tired of sucky software! ? Check out www.caressCorp.com and follow the links to software sucks and The Oliver Academy.