[thelist] Hiring Eye Opener - Web Skills Testing (long)

[Michael Barrett]

> not wanting to start the old coder/designer thing again, but it may
> highlight the approach that educational establishments are taking when
> teaching students, with very little crossover between the two disciplines.

I think this is very good point. I will now elaborate at length ;-)

>From my personal experience in two Art programs, and my teaching experience
in an interior design program, I can say that there is no cross over.

Many art departments in US universities are a dumping grounds for all visual
arts. Which means there are lots of "fine arts" faculty, and perhaps one or
two "design" faculty. A student focusing in design gets mixed messages from
the beginning, as they are taught from two different camps from the
beginning. While I was in grad school, I remember undergrads, who majored in
design, being forced to do a "fine art" style project for their senior
project, largely because the faculty that taught the class didn't respect
design.

Most Universities, staff and faculty, are far from technologically savvy.
That role often times falls on the shoulder of the one or two 'young guns'
hired out of grad school to fill that role.

Often times the faculty teaching design addresses web design and new media
without the proper training. Because they are the only faculty who can
handle it at all. The painting faculty certainly won't be of much help.

There are seldom any forays between the computer science departments and the
art departments of universities. I don't know from experience, but I imagine
that computer science departments face similar problems. I can imagine a
professor trained in COBOL trying to teach ColdFusion.

The short version of the story. Universities and colleges are large and slow
to change. Partially because they are large bureaucracies, partially because
tenured faculty have to retire or die before they are replaced with faculty
having current knowledge. Unless it directly benefits their career, most
faculty will not learn new technology. They don't have to, their jobs are
secure.

Most design or art departments will tend to quickly blow through the subject
of web development, introducing only the major commercial software.
Most computer science students will never ever learn a thing about visual
design.
Library Science students will learn a ton about information architecture,
but never learn programming, never learn a thing about visual design, but
might learn a few scraps of HTML.

Most undergraduate degree programs are only 4 years. The material that must
be covered in those 4 years in any field is very diverse, and can only be an
introduction. In all field the best learning happens after the 4 year
introduction in college.

--
Michael Barrett
-O^O-
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mbarrett at triad.rr.com
AIM: device55