I often get hired by really big companies to come in and teach part of a 2-3 month curriculum for the recent college grads they hired (software development). I always HATE those classes. The guys in the class are certainly motivated since their new jobs depend on how well they do. They are also usually pretty smart. But they have NO real world experience. They have nothing to gauge what parts of my talk are important vs what is corporate or industry B.S. (Note: About 30% of what I talk about is CRITICALLY important to their future success; the other 70% is crap.) To make matters worse, my classes are usually about 9 hours long per day, with about 6 hours of that being lecture.
On the other hand I cannot, in good conscience, just pass them along. So, my usual plan is to spend the first day introducing myself and going through the corporate B.S. Then I usually ask the whole group out "for a social beer" on my tab - I limit it to around $200 out of my personal pocket. During that time, I give them the "code words" they need to pay attention to in order to get through my part. Following that, I act like a cast iron prick every day in class following, and I try to keep in mind that my goal to winnow out at least 30% of them.
This whole effort usually puts me at odds with the HR department (that hired me and is paying my bill) since their goal is to get the whole group through with flying colors. But there are a good portion of the grads from college that are not cut out to be in the IT world. It is really a shitty system, but it is what we have...
On the other hand I cannot, in good conscience, just pass them along. So, my usual plan is to spend the first day introducing myself and going through the corporate B.S. Then I usually ask the whole group out "for a social beer" on my tab - I limit it to around $200 out of my personal pocket. During that time, I give them the "code words" they need to pay attention to in order to get through my part. Following that, I act like a cast iron prick every day in class following, and I try to keep in mind that my goal to winnow out at least 30% of them.
This whole effort usually puts me at odds with the HR department (that hired me and is paying my bill) since their goal is to get the whole group through with flying colors. But there are a good portion of the grads from college that are not cut out to be in the IT world. It is really a shitty system, but it is what we have...
