Both reliability and efficiency of IT-tools, qualification of specialists in this field are especially important for high-tech industries and businesses. Neither production, nor business process, nor research is possible without information technologies. The demand for IT specialists is growing steadily, the requirements for them are increasing, and these factors, in turn, are the driving force behind the development of IT education. However, what are the realities of IT education today, what are the prospects for young professionals and what difficulties do young people face in choosing an IT profession? The Pro-Papers were looking for answers to these questions.
Prospective realities of IT education and IT professions
Today, the IT industry is developing rapidly and steadily – the average annual growth is about 30%. Despite the economic and political crises, annual cumulative exports of IT services exceed several billion dollars.
The main advantages of the IT profession today are high salary, interesting projects, comfortable working conditions, prospects, opportunities.
Thus, according to experts, over the next 5 years, more than 5,000,000 new positions in the IT industry will be created in the world. The demand for programs in the world exceeds supply significantly, so they have no problems with employment, and their salaries are constantly increasing. The salary of IT specialists significantly exceeds salaries in other industries.
IT professionals are a sort of wizards because they create something that does not exist yet. Their work is the various technologies of the future that make the world smarter, more convenient and better. At the same time, the implementation of IT projects is rather short – from months to several years. Therefore, you can always see how your idea materializes with your efforts literally right in front of your eyes, while in other industries it often takes decades to go from design to implementation.
Usually, a modern IT company is not only a large office in the city center but also a good social package: bonuses, medical insurance, gym membership and many other bonuses such as flexible hours, the ability to work remotely, free drinks and snacks, game zones, etc. Most often, IT projects are created for foreign customers; therefore, the work involves constant communication with foreigners and foreign business trips.
Problematic aspects of IT education
However, the realities of today are such that traditional approaches based on the development of uniform standards, their introduction into the educational process, the development of working curricula and programs on this basis, followed by filling them with specific content, can lead to a lag behind modern requirements for IT education. It is possible to cite as an example the teaching of such disciplines in the natural science and mathematical cycles as mathematics, physics, theoretical mechanics, etc., in the process of which both the results of recent scientific research and those obtained in the past were used. Buying term paper is a common solution among students, who tend to avoid disciplines, which not related to IT or programming.
Modern information technologies are developing so rapidly that one of the main problems in training IT specialists is the need to maintain an appropriate level of equipment for the educational process and, above all, from a technical point of view. Therefore, the need to constantly update the technical equipment – in terms of cost savings – is an urgent problem. The close cooperation of universities and IT companies would contribute to its solution, at least partially.
In order to ensure the compliance of the content and the level of teaching IT disciplines with the requirements of today, serious, painstaking daily work is needed to organize real interaction between potential employers and universities. The forms of this interaction can be very different: the organization of production and pre-diploma practice, the development of alternative or additional professional educational programs in the field of modern information technologies, taking into account the current and future needs of production and the business community, the organization of thematic portals, chat rooms and forums on the Internet, the creation basic departments in enterprises and so on.
That is why, more and more often, young professionals choose distance self-study instead of university education.
Young professionals increasingly complaining that lately, it has become more and more difficult to get into IT, despite the fact that there is a steady shortage of personnel in the industry. It is because IT is hard work and strenuousness. IT is not a cherry pie. This is a job of work, which at first glance no one sees, and secondly, by the way, too. Whatever the cool teacher, he/she will not do the main thing for you-you need to learn how to work. And if the teacher is not indifferent, believe us, he/she will pay no mind to lazy students and will try to train those who are diligent.
For young people, it is important to understand that the diploma that they receive after the courses has absolutely no value when applying for a job. Only knowledge has value. Diploma courses are worth nothing if you do not have the appropriate skills. Therefore, students once again think about whether they should choose the path of university education or is it easier to master the specialty on their own.
Very often, the level of teaching staff in the courses remains low. In comparison with IT professionals, faculty members get paid peanuts there. And as a result, either enthusiast work on the courses, or poseurs who advertise their own coolness work there, asserting themselves at your expense, including financial ones. Therefore, students with independent educational choices should always choose courses very carefully.
At the end of commercial courses, on average, about 10% of trainees enter the industry. Thus, both university education, and an independent distance learning or through courses, still has many drawbacks. But still, the real advantages of the profession are worth taking the risk and, in any way, plunging into a lot of interesting and complex material, get an IT education and occupy your own successful niche in this area.
