New IBM Academic Initiative Ensures No Recent Grad Gets Left Behind
I am sure many of you recent-college grads can relate to my short anecdote: I graduated in 2009 with a degree in journalism and began applying to numerous jobs right away. Every e-mail sent felt like throwing another dull dart at a dartboard. To make me feel even worse, the jobs I thought I qualified for – the ones for writers and reporters – required that I know Ruby, Java, C++, and write HTML. Frustrated I considered my options: go back to school and learn computer science? Teach myself with “For Dummies” books? Fortunately, future students won’t have to experience my frustrations thanks to IBM’s new Academic Initiative.
On February 9, in order to make sure no college kid gets left behind when entering the job market, IBM announced the launch of what it calls a free “academic cloud,” basically a bundle of web-based IBM software to help professors teach technology skills to students. The IBM software will allow professors to teach students in many specific and current skills in technology including: software development, information management, web 2.0, and cloud computing.
Not only has IBM realized the trend, but the Department of Labor has noticed as well and recently stated that the majority of jobs in the near future will have a heavy focus on technology and having technical skills, including technical consulting and computer systems design.
So, that begs the question, why the sudden increase in tech? True, we aren’t experiencing the dotcom days of the 90s anymore, but we are witnessing the birth and evolution of web 2.0—social networking and applications. Love them or hate them, Facebook and Twitter have made the masses more comfortable with technology. Pre-social networking, the older generation had no incentive to get online and explore the web. Now, generations old and young, parents and grandparents, are flocking to the sites to find long lost first loves, keep up with buddies from school, and share pictures of their kids.
With more people becoming comfortable with technology and thus tech-savvy, the consumer profile is changing. People Small businesses everywhere are changing the way they market to appeal to the new techie and creating new job descriptions to fill these new voids in the companies—hopefully, with the help of IBM, recent grads will now be prepared.
February 15th, 2010 at 6:19 am
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