Hello.
Today I want to tell you exactly what is wrong with IT education in Russia and how, in my opinion, it should be done, and I will also give advice to those who are just entering, yes, I know that it is already a bit late. Better late than never. At the same time, I will find out your opinion, maybe I will learn something new for myself.
I ask everyone to immediately discard the arguments that “universities teach you how to study”, “you never know what will come in handy in life” and “you need a diploma, you can’t do without it.” This is not about that now, if you want, I will speak about it.
To begin with, I will say that I am 20, I studied at the UNN in Nizhny Novgorod. This is our largest university and certainly one of the top three in the city. I left after 1.5 courses, for reasons that I will describe below. Using the UNN as an example, I will show what goes wrong.
I want to sort out all the problems from beginning to end.
And in order to get to the beginning, we need to go back to 2010 for a cue ball a couple of years ago, when I was choosing where to go.
Part_1 You will choose the place where you study, almost at random
Having little information, you may not realize that you have little information.
Even before the start of the exam, I had to choose where to go to which university and what to take for admission. And I, like many others, climbed the Internet to find out where to go to become a programmer. Then I did not think about which direction in programming is better to choose and which languages are better to learn.
Having studied the UNN website, after reading huge texts praising each direction in its own way, I decided that in the process of studying there I would understand that I should not have done more to my liking in IT.
And it was here that I made the first mistake that too many people in Russia make.
I didn't really think about what I wrote. I just saw the word "computer science" in the same row with other buzzwords and decided that it suits me. So I ended up in the direction of "Applied Informatics".
Problem_1
Universities write information about directions so that you do not understand at all what is at stake, but you are very impressed.
An example taken from the UNN website in the direction in which I studied.
Applied Informatics. The direction is focused on training specialists in the creation and use of software tools for supporting decision-making processes, specialists in the development of algorithms for solving science-intensive applied problems.
Well, who among you is ready to say that he understood exactly what it was about ?! Would you have understood this when you were 17? I don't even know what they are about. But it sounds awesome.
Nobody talks about the training plan either. You have to find data for the last year to understand how many hours are spent on what. And it’s not yet a fact that the watch will be useful for you, but more on that later.
Solution_1
In fact, you just need to adequately write about what you teach at the university. If you have a whole direction of Web-programming - just write. If you have only six months of learning C++, then write like that. But still they understand that then many people will go not where they tell the truth, but where they lie. Therefore, everyone lies. More precisely, they do not lie, but hide the truth with clever structures of sentences. Dirty but works.
Tip_1
Studying the website of the university, of course, is still worth it. Just if you do not understand something - re-read a couple of times. If even then it is not clear, then maybe the problem is not in you. Ask your friends or adults to read the same. If they do not understand or they cannot convey to you what they understood, then do not focus on this information, look for another.
For example, it is a good idea to ask around those who are already studying at a particular university. Yes, some of them may be silent about problems, so ask a lot. And 2 is not a lot! Interview 10-15 people, don't repeat my mistakes 🙂 Ask them what they do in their field, what languages they study, whether they have practice (in 90% of cases they don't). By the way, consider only normal practice as practice, if your interlocutor has done 3 tasks in a semester to iterate through an array of 20 elements in different ways in Visual Basic - this is a serious reason to think about another direction.
In general, collect information not from the university, but from those who study there. So it will be more reliable.
Part 2. Congratulations, you've been enrolled!
Who are all these people? And who threw math analysis into my schedule?!
So, the next stage, when I was enrolled and I, satisfied, came in September to study.
When I saw the timetable, I was worried. “Am I sure I opened my schedule?” I thought. “Why do I have only 2 classes a week, remotely reminiscent of programming, and about 10 classes of what is usually called Higher Mathematics ?!”. Naturally, no one could answer me, since half of my classmates asked exactly the same questions. The names of the items were seriously annoying, and the amount of vyshmat made my eyes water every time someone opened the schedule.
Over the next 1.5 years, I only had 1 year where I was taught to code. About the quality of education further, this section is about unnecessary items.
So. You say - "Well, yes, 1 year out of 1.5, not so bad." But it’s bad, because this is ALL that I have according to the plan for 4.5 years of study. Of course, at times we were told that everything would still be, but the stories of those who were already in the 4th year spoke of the opposite.
Yes, 1.5 years should be enough to learn programming at a good level, BUT! only if these 1.5 years most of the time to learn to progat. Not 2 hours a week.
In general, instead of new programming languages, I got a slightly different language - mathematical. I love math, but vyshmat is not exactly why I went to university.
Problem_2
HORRIBLE training plan.
I don’t know what this is connected with, with the fact that people who are 50-60 years old make up the plan (not ageism, guys, you never know) or the state presses with its standards or something else, but the fact is the fact.
In Russia, many universities make shockingly bad training plans for programmers.
In my opinion, this is due to the fact that for leading people, programming has not changed much over the past 20-30 years, and computer science and programming are clear synonyms for them.
Solution_2
Of course, you need to make plans based on current trends.
It makes no sense to teach old languages and write Pascal for half a year. (Although I love his first language all the same 🙂
It makes no sense to give tasks for binary operations (in most cases).
It makes no sense to teach students a bunch of higher mathematics if they want to become system administrators and layout designers. (Just let's not argue “is matan necessary in programming.” Well, only if you are sensitive)
Tip_2
In advance, hear, IN ADVANCE, find training plans and schedules for areas of interest to you and study them. To not be surprised then what happens.
And, of course, ask all the same 10-15 people about what they are going through. Believe me, they can tell you a lot of interesting things.
Part_3. Not all teachers are good
If your IT teacher is over 50-60 years old, most likely you will not get the necessary knowledge
Approximately already in the first class, it bothered me that we were taught C (not ++, not #) by a woman who is 64 years old. This is not ageism, I'm not saying that age itself is bad. There are no problems with him. The problem is that programming is developing rapidly, and adults for the salary that they are paid, well, they are too likely to understand something new.
And in this case, I was not mistaken.
Stories about punched cards were not bad only the first 2 times.
Teaching was built only with the help of a blackboard and chalk. (Yes, she did write code on the board)
Yes, even the pronunciation of individual words from C terminology was funny to hear.
In general, there was little useful, but it took, again, it took a long time.
A little offtopic with funny momentsIt doesn't make sense, but I can't help telling you how absurd things can be. And here are a couple of points that I encountered during my studies.
There was a case when my classmates tried to pass 3 identical codes to solve a problem. The code is directly 1 in 1. Guess how many of them passed?! Two. Dropped two. At what they filled up the one who came up second. They also told him that he did nonsense, it needs to be redone. Let me remind you that the 1 in 1 code was the same!
There was a time when she came up to check the problem. She started scrolling the code, saying that everything was wrong. Then she walked away, put on her glasses, came back and read off the problem. What was it? Unclear!
Problem_3
Very. Bad. teachers.
And this problem is not surprising, if even in the largest university in the city of a million people, teachers receive less than any novice developer.
Young people have no motivation to teach if you can work for normal money instead.
People who already work in universities have no motivation to improve their skills and maintain knowledge about the current realities of programming.
Solution_3
The solution is obvious - we need normal salaries. I can understand that in small universities they can do this only with difficulty, but large ones can easily. By the way, the rector of UNN, before the recent dismissal, received 1,000,000 (1 million) rubles per MONTH. Yes, this would be enough for a whole small department with normal teachers with a salary of 100,000 rubles a month!
Tip_3
As a student, you most likely won't have any influence on this.
The main advice is to study everything outside the university. Don't wait to be taught. Learn for yourself!
In the end, some at all , but from my own experience, they didn’t ask me about education at all. They asked about knowledge and skills. No paperwork. Some will ask, of course, but not all.
Part_4. Real practice? Is she needed?
Theory and practice in isolation from each other will not be very useful
So we had bad theory and some practice. But this is not enough. After all, things will be different at work.
Here I'm not talking about all universities, but there is a suspicion that this situation is ubiquitous. But I'll tell you about UNN.
So, there will be no real practice somewhere. At all. Only if you find it yourself. But no matter how successful you are, the university will not be interested in this and will not help you find anything.
Problem_4
This is a problem for everyone. And for students and for the university and for employers.
Students leave the university without normal practice. The university does not improve its reputation among future students. Employers do not have a reliable source of competent newcomers.
Solution_4
Obviously start looking for employers for the summer for the best students.
Actually, this will solve all the problems above.
Tip_4
Again, advice - do everything yourself.
Find a summer part-time job at a company that does what you love.
And now how, in my opinion, the training of programmers in universities in educational institutions should look like
I will be glad to criticize my approach. Only competent criticism 🙂
first - after admission, we throw all the people into the same groups, where they are shown different directions in programming for a couple of months.
After that, it will be possible to divide everyone into groups, depending on what they like best.
Second - You need to remove unnecessary items. And ideally, do not throw them away just like that, but leave them as items “at will”. If someone wants to learn mathematical analysis - please. You just don't have to make it mandatory.
Again, if a student has chosen a direction where mathematical analysis is definitely needed, it is mandatory there, not selective. It's obvious, but I better clarify 🙂
That is, if you only want to learn how to program, great. Visited on the right pairs and is free, go home and study there too.
The third - wages should be raised and younger people should be hired more professionally.
There is a minus - other teachers will be outraged. But what can we do, we want to promote IT, and, obviously, there is always a lot of money in IT.
However, it is desirable in general for teachers and professors to increase salaries, but we are not talking about that now.
Fourth – a connection between the university and companies is necessary so that the best students can be arranged for internships. For real practice. It is very important.
Fifth - you will have to reduce the training time to 1-2 years. I am sure that it is the period of learning to program should not be stretched more than for such a period. Further, the skills are already developed at work, and not at the university. There is no point in sitting there for 4-5 years.
Of course, this is not an ideal option and there is still a lot to be done, but as a basis, in my opinion, this option will be very good and can create many good programmers.
Ending
So, it turned out a lot of text, but if you read this, then thank you, I appreciate your time spent.
Write in the comments what you think about IT education in the Russian Federation, share your opinion.
And I hope you enjoyed this article.
Good luck
UPD. After talking in the comments, it will be fair to note the correctness of many statements and comment on them.
These are:
- Then it will be a vocational school, not a university.
Yes, this is not quite a university anymore, since they do not train “scientists”, but simply good workers.
But this is not a vocational school either, since GOOD employees are trained there, and teaching programming requires considerable knowledge, at least in the field of mathematics. And if you passed the GIA for triples and go to vocational school - this is not quite the level of knowledge that I'm talking about 🙂
- Why then education at all, there are courses
Why don't we do courses for engineers, doctors and other specialists?
Because we want to be sure that we have special places where they can train well and give confirmation that a person is well trained.
And on what course can I get such a confirmation that will be quoted at least somewhere in Russia? And ideally in other countries?
Source: habr.com