How does education system affecting fresh graduates?
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Recently our company hired quite a number of fresh graduates. Their academic results are very good. After few months working with them, I found out that few of them are doing exceptionally well, but some are not. I talked to them, wanted to understand what causes the differences, and based on my personal point of view, some university teaches differently than others.
Teachers is the key success factor
A teacher's inspiration and motivation in teaching can make all the differences. I still remember when I was studying in my secondary, the most boring subject for me is History. I failed this subject for four years consecutively. In my final year of my secondary, I am lucky to meet a very good teacher that taught History like we watch Hong Kong dramas. We don't need to open our textbook, nor take down any notes. The way he teaches completely turn a most boring subject into a very interesting one. Most of his student get very good marks in History subject.
A Math Professor Matthew Weathers from Biola University in California uses a very special way to get attention from the students. This will create a very good environment and students won't get bored by the numbers.
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Up-to-date Syllabus
The graduates are facing great challenges when there is a mismatch between what they have learned and what the workplace required. Especially in the world of Information Technology, things changed at a very fast pace. We are in the era of IoT (Internet of Thing), Big Data, AI (Artificial Intelligent), etc. Students relied their future on universities and teachers. Universities and teachers need to keep updated on their teaching subjects, follow the current economy, social and technology trends.
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Practical
Practice makes perfect. What we have learned doesn't hold any water until we applied it. Teachers use whiteboard or PowerPoint slide to teach concepts and frameworks. Some teachers encourage their students to put what they have studied into practice, by solving issues that plague our world today. By doing this, students can learn to apply the concepts and frameworks into the practical situation.
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Creativity
A lot of students pass their exams by memorizing teacher's notes. They don't even understand the meaning or not sure how to apply it to the workplace. This will stifle the creativity of students in solving problems. Rather than having their own thought, they just use the answer given by the teacher. It can't be wrong. Teacher's encouragement to their student on creative thinking is very important, perhaps by giving some interesting real-life scenarios or case studies and let the students explore the solutions by using their creativity.
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Knowledge and Character building
This should be the most important part of all. Universities are mainly focusing on academy results of their students, to ensure they will get a job after graduated. However, universities should also focus on building confidence, commitment, sense of care and a good character that able to contribute to the society and make the world a better place. That is what a good quality education system is all about.
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Teachers is the one profession that creates all other professions, together with a powerful education system, create a base for better future for coming generations. Thank you with great respect to all the teachers that put a lot of effort and give their best to educate the students and at the same time create, great personality out of them.
Instead of "blaming" teacher or the syllabus, I think fresh grad has lack of ability and initiative to learn. A lot of my course mates, they striving for good results but during internship, they had a hard time because they do not really know how to apply what they know and learn those what they do not know. So, to sum up, for computer science class, every day things are changing, you will never heard about a school that will teach cryptocurrency. Why? Because this is something very new and "experimental", nobody knows what will happen next, the school will not risk it for teaching something like this. So, as a student, you need to learn to teach yourself.
It's true, i'm guessing a lot of case studies that we have now, like Crypto and also digital driven companies takes years and years to become textbook content... It's great to see that your company looks for these qualities, a lot of what you shared, my personal feeling is that not many companies are seeing what you all are noticing, but I could be ignorant...
A technology company needs to move along the wave. If the company stop moving, it can't go far.
Cant agreed more. It takes both hands to clap. I have the same thoughts as yours at the beginning, but from what I observed on so far, I can see they their initiative to learn. And based on my conversation with them, the above is just my personal view :) I hope to have a colleague like you la... Don't go to AUS larrr... LOLLL
If I am the boss, I wont care too much about their grades. Instead, I would hire those who have the initiative to learn, haha.
Exactly! I will also focus on their personality too rather than grades. Sigh, my boss sees things differently. What to do...
Great post, I'm pondering a lot...Any thoughts the growth of distance learning and online education and things like online courses like Lynda and Udemy, is it something that a company considers as helpful education?
I had been using Udemy in the past, but now slowly switching to read the official documents, youtube and discussion with people who are in those industry.
This is what we called initiative to learn, wanted to be better. You will be a successful person. Can smell that. :)
@calvinlee sure thing. Every individual is different. Some student able to pick up things very fast. But some need more effort. My personal view is that it can be better if can create an extra spice into what is already there, to help those people that need to put more effort. :)
I think the saddest part of our Malaysian fresh grads are their English and attitude. In my previous company, I had to hire a bunch of new employees for my team. I thought since there were so many unemployed people in Malaysia, it would be easy.
Manatau, I rejected more than 50% of the resumes due to horrible English. I rejected a lot more that did come for the interview for barely being able to speak English. Sadly, due to desperation, we hired someone not based on her skills but because she could speak passable English. From then on, we hired mainly from India. As much as we wanted to support Malaysians, we still make hires that wouldn't risk our business.
Every company has a different requirement. My company focuses on academy results. I kinda not agreed. But what to do, I am not the boss.
Having seen this from the other side (lecturing) I have to say that for many students (even in a field as specialized as (Zoology/Entomology) there is an attitude of just being there to get a piece of paper (their degree). It is difficult to instill passion for a subject into someone who is a closed book.
That said, I agree that there should be a meeting halfway between good teachers AND dedicated students.
Yes, students need to have the right attitude as well. For my new colleagues, so far I didn't see they have attitude problem on learning. Perhaps they changed when they step into the corporate world.