Ready, Steady, GO!

In a recent blog entry on Michael Mitzenmacher's Blog he asks the question "Does University, in particular his classes prepare you for the real-world?" He is a computer science teacher at Harvard University and wanted to know peoples opinions on this subject.

Michael thinks that his courses and university in general prepared you in good stead for the working life out there in the real world.

I can't help but think how much of my university work I have used in the real-world, and that has been almost 3 years of industry specific work.

My opinion of university is that it gave me a great foundation for real world. I learnt how to meet deadlines, work in groups, and manage my own time to name only a few. These are all key skills that I now use every day of my life and i have university to thank for that as it was the first time I had to do things for myself.

University also improves your learning ability. When you are thrown in at the deep end in the first week to produce a C# module you realise that there is support for you, but essentially you have to get up of your backside and do it yourself. The same thing relates to real-life, all organisations have support in place for their employees especially graduate programmes, but you will have been selected for the job because you are a quick learner that is prepared to jump in at the deep end and swim to the top using the resources available to you.

I am in no way disregarding that a computer science degree will not help you in you career should you choose one in technology, but there is no reason why having done a business or physics degree to name a couple you can't still do as well in a career in technology as the computer science graduates.

How do you think your preparation is going? Are you ready to face the real-world?