OOP, RDBMS and BTEC

[eek]

That's because "Analyst" on there doesn't mean statistician.
According to that "developers" earn only £35 ph.

Lets hope the young un has better analytical skills than his dad, eh?

are you such a knob in real life or just online?

[sasguru]

are you such a knob in real life or just online?

I'm quite sarky online. You, on the other hand, are thick all the time.

[hyperD]

Maths, English, Physics and Chemistry.

With those sorts of educational interests it'd be worthwhile looking at the Oil & Gas/Energy sectors. There is still quite a specific vertical market of expertise with a reasonable demand for such potential skills.

He could even try for a scholarship from companies such as RES to be honest.

Better opportunities initially than the resultant employment prospects of standard IT from what the feedback from most of my GF's daughter's peers leaving uni has been.

[mudskipper]

I did BTEC years ago on day release. Bear in mind this was 1985-90, so it's probably completely different now...

Firstly, there was a marked difference between the part time day-release students, and the full time students. Part time we did the National Certificate over two years, and a further year to convert it to the National Diploma (although most didn't bother - went on to HNC/D instead). Full timers did the diploma over 2 years. Occasionally we (part timers) would have a lesson with the full timers - they seemed lethargic and unmotivated and treating it like school. We had a couple of pratts in the part time class, but they were soon sorted out by the more mature students. Content wise, the National Certificate was pretty basic, but a good grounding for the HNC.

The HNC and HND were fantastic- again I did them part time, and went down the software engineering route - we covered a lot of stuff including design: Yourdon, and Booch - early OOP stuff which was pretty cutting edge at the time. We did Ada, C and a bit of assembly language and some comms stuff. We touched on other things- formal methods and mathematical proofs. Enjoyed every minute of it - many of the guys on the course were military, so very motivated and able to use what they were learning in their careers (I went on to build databases )

[DodgyAgent]

With those sorts of educational interests it'd be worthwhile looking at the Oil & Gas/Energy sectors. .

Its PJclarke you are talking to, IT's answer to George Monbiot. How dare you speak of fossil fuels

[doodab]

I don't know which Uni he's hoping to get into, but a lot of courses will want a decent grade in A level maths as well as the BTEC.

[Old Hack]

The main differences to me are that HND etc courses tend to be vocational i.e. they teach you how to program, they do not teach the theory behind it. On my CS degree, in the 3rd year we had a few HND students come across and they struggled a little, especially with the OOP stuff.

So either bin it for a year, resit some exams and start again next year, or HND it and make sure you really look into OOP etc.

As for the Bobs taking over the market, I am finding a lot more bobs going home as they realise wages are improving out their way. They'll not all want to be here, if they can get work at home. India is up and coming globally remember. The reasons bobs came over here, was because not enough kids were studying ICT courses here.

If you're a good programmer, developer, you'll always get good, well paid work.

I'd not listen to Sas, as, well, he's a liar.

[doodab]

Bobs have made inroads because they were a cheap option for a lot of big consultancies and a few bodyshops. There are some good guys but most of them have a masters from the university of rice crispies, couldn't program bigtrak and don't stand a chance in the market on their own.

The poles I've dealt with on the other hand are almost uniformly tulip hot. I have no idea how their education system works but we should copy it.

[sasguru]

I'd not listen to Sas, as, well, he's a liar.

Yeah, sorry about lying.
Us statisticians are on the breadline, what with our miserable rates.
Stick to the mass-market of programming/development.

[d000hg]

CompSci university courses normally do not assume prior knowledge, as most decent schools prefer students to do maths/physics instead of daft computer A-levels. It would definitely be useful if he already knew some programming but I don't know it would help him get in. I don't see any need to learn RDBMS though, just basic principles of programming. Databases are very theoretically underpinned; I found my course on databases to be one of the most useful even though quite theoretical.