I taught Management of Technology for the first time ever this semester. Management of Technology is suppose to be a capstone course, a course that puts all things together. Its suppose to be that final course that talks about what it means to be an IT manager today and more importantly what students should expect out of a job.
I didn't feel that this course went so well for me. In the end I did get a number of students compliment me on the course, but overall I felt there was a massive disconnect between my goals and expectations for the class and the students themselves.
First off, the vast majority of these students can't write. I know they're IT majors. Some of them can't string two thoughts together coherently to save their lives. Some of them have terrible grammar and many of them don't turn their spell checker on (or don't bother with the results). And I'm complaining from a "who taught these kids?" perspective and I know my writing wasn't perfect, but this is pretty ridiculous. As an IT person, and hopefully an eventual manager students have to realize that writing is critical for their position. IT involves LOTS of documentation - comments in code, requirements, emails to executives, etc. Without a solid foundation of writing skills, an IT person will not make it up the ladder.
Second, I found the entitlement attitude to be very true amongst this group. Not all mind you, but there were just many students who failed to turn in assignments throughout the semester and then wanted reprieve at the end. When my manager tell me that something is due for a client on Friday, its due Friday, the expectation is that I will give it on Friday. I had assignments which I gave extra notices that they were due and sent reminders and still did not have them turned in.
This was extremely frustrating. I understand these are young and eager IT majors who want nothing more than to start configuring routers. Life is not all about configuring routers. I went through a very traditional CS program where life was all programming and when I hit the workforce I was woefully unprepared for the management crap that I was subject to. I just want to portray the importance of writing and management and timeliness to these students before they get into the workforce, but no, a number of the same students who turned projects in late are upset because they didn't get an A or B in the course.
In the end, I learned a few things:
1) Even though it was hard, I stuck to my guns and felt ok about it.
2) I need to do a better done of explaining the purpose of the course in the beginning.
3) My own preparation and documentation needs to improve.
About three weeks ago, I really had felt that I had hit the wall and wasn't sure that I would continue past the next semester. Now that I've had a little time to regroup, I'm going to keep marching forward positively into the Linux course and just work to make it as prepared as possible.
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2 comments:
Interesting thoughts. As we drive further along the information age I believe that verbal and written communication skills will become more important. IT students need to realize that only a small portion of persons in a organization really know about or understand technology issues. A good IT manager should be able to convey information in a manner that can be understood by those with and with out a technical background.
This is so very true. I keep running into two challenges in the classes I teach.
1) While many of my students are interested in IT, few are passionate about IT. I believe that many of these students will probably burn out eventually.
2) The "elitist" IT professional attitude is also prevalent. This is scary because of what you alluded to. The days of the IT practitioner who was paid lots of money out of fear are going away. IT practitioners who are not contributing to the business will not survive and that requires the tact and political savvy to operate in the modern organization.
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