What skills should a graduate have?
There's a question What Skills Should Undergrads Have running on slashdot from the aftermath of the whole "Java is damaging students" article. There's a lot of answers already but I think one of the important ones is being able to visualise how software connects to each other.
As a graduate programmer it's highly unlikely that you will be given a green field development project. It's more likely that you'll be maintaining or enhancing an existing system, so it's important to be able to see in your mind how and where the different components connect.
I've tried to answer questions like this before, but it's so difficult as a professional developer needs to have so many skills it's impossible to narrow down even a few as being the most important. But I guess when you're starting out in the business you need to:
- Realise that you don't know anything
- Be willing to learn
- Not be afraid to ask questions
- Be able to analyse problems and visualise solutions
A friend of a friend I met in sixth form college once claimed that he didn't need any computing qualifications to get a job, as his proven ability at writing his own programs would set him apart from everyone else. And admittedly he had written a lot of programs.
Yet from an employer's point of view all that work he's done hasn't been in a commercial environment where change requests are common, priorities change, your projects are moved to other developers, and you're asked to work on projects of which you have no knowledge.
The experience he had of writing programs didn't cover any of that, and being flexible enough to handle those situations is a very desirable attribute to employers.
I don't know what he's doing now. Maybe he's carrying on doing what he wants and making a living out of it. But even if that worked for him it's certainly not a path I would recommend for people wishing to get a foothold in the industry.
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