MESSAGE
| DATE | 2006-01-24 |
| FROM | rc
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Retraining for Silicon Alley
|
Sadly the article mostly mentions Microsoft training (some Java) but
perhaps we can work together with this group.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/jobs/22software.html?pagewanted=print
January 22, 2006
Retraining for Silicon Alley
By JOSEPH P. FRIED
HUGO COELLO was skilled in a basic software program for database
management, enabling him to work as a database administrator for a
nonprofit group. That skill later got him a job with an information
technology consulting company, but to be more valuable to his employer,
he needed to master software for creating and managing larger databases.
Roberto Ruggiero and Anika Reynolds majored in computer science in
college. Mr. Ruggiero could not get a job in software operations, and
Ms. Reynolds wanted to learn a major programming language that her
college courses did not cover before she started her job search. All
three found the same solution: training courses offered by the New York
Software Industry Association, the leading trade group for software,
information technology and Web development companies in the New York
City area.
The free courses, financed by a grant of nearly $3 million from the
United States Labor Department, have been offered for two and a half
years as part of an effort to help Silicon Alley - the city's slice of
the information technology industry - rebound from the battering it has
suffered in recent years.
The blows were inflicted by the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2000,
the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 - which hurt
Silicon Alley even more than it did the industry elsewhere - and the
outsourcing of technology jobs abroad.
"There was a serious downturn," said Bruce E. Bernstein, president of
the software trade group. But, he added, the industry in New York "never
went away, and now it's coming back."
Citing developments in areas like blogging and Web video, Mr. Bernstein
said, "New technologies and new sorts of services on the Internet are
giving rise to new companies doing new things." The training program, he
said, is intended to help the revival by enhancing the abilities of job
seekers and advancing the skills of current workers who are challenged
by constant change. "The training program is part of an effort to keep
the New York region as competitive as possible," not only with China and
India, he said, but with high-tech hubs like Boston and northern Virginia.
After growing an average of about 15 percent a year since the early
1990's, Mr. Bernstein said, the number of software and information
technology jobs in New York City has plummeted in the last five years.
How much, he added, is not entirely clear.
The New York State Labor Department has estimated that the number of
jobs at New York City companies specializing in computer systems design
and related services totaled 50,000 in November 2000, but was 33,000 to
34,000 in November 2002, 2003 and 2004. It was estimated at 35,000 two
months ago.
Such companies, however, employ fewer than half the computer specialists
in the city, the department's statistics indicate. Many are employed by
financial institutions, communications companies, government agencies
and other organizations, and their numbers are more difficult to track,
Mr. Bernstein said.
In any case, the Labor Department has estimated that the overall number
of computer specialists and systems managers in the city will grow to
127,000 in 2012 from 103,000 in 2002.
The training courses, offered on two levels, were drawn up by the City
University of New York's Institute for Software Design and Development,
which also provides the instruction.
An advanced level, completed so far by more than 450 people, is for
workers like Mr. Coello, who attend on their company's time to improve
their skills. These courses are short but intensive, usually running 25
to 35 hours over a week, covering topics that have included building and
deploying firewalls, managing software projects and working with XML, a
Web standard that facilitates data sharing across systems.
An intermediate level, completed by nearly 80 people, is mostly for
those seeking their first job in the industry and for those who have
been displaced because their skills are obsolete. These courses, running
several months, include topics like designing and developing Web-based
applications using the Java programming language, and installing and
maintaining servers, the computers that provides services like e-mail
routing to other computers on a network.
Mr. Bernstein said that the federal grant paying for the program would
run out in April, and that his group was looking for alternative
financing. One possibility, he said, is having companies share the cost
of the advanced courses.
Two more advanced course are scheduled with the remaining grant money,
both starting in February, and have openings. Their subjects are
described on his group's Web site, nysia.org. Further intermediate
courses - students in the latest will graduate Jan. 31 - will be
scheduled when new financing is arranged, Mr. Bernstein said.
The program, which has no beginner courses, has included efforts to help
the intermediate students get jobs, and many have been placed with
organizations like I.B.M. and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he said.
Mr. Ruggiero, 24, a Brooklyn resident, said recently that he had been
unable to land a job in the computer industry despite a computer science
degree earned at Hunter College, from which he graduated in 2004. He
realized, he said, that the kind of companies he hoped to work for "want
to see that you have hands-on knowledge of the Windows environment,
especially the Windows Server environment," which he had not been taught
in college.
So after passing the aptitude test for the intermediate program, he
signed up for classes that included instruction in the Microsoft Windows
Server System. Now, as a network engineer with Corporate Power, a
technology management consulting company in Manhattan, "the majority of
work I do is on Windows Server," he said.
Ms. Reynolds, a 30-year-old Manhattan resident, graduated from City
College two years ago with a major in computer science. After working as
an intern in computer programming at General Electric, she decided that
her next step would be learning Java, so she took a course in the
group's program.
Though she does not use Java in her current job as a program analyst
with ALLSector Technology Group, a Manhattan consulting company, knowing
the language, she said, will be valuable for a future job.
Mr. Coello, 27, from Staten Island, was already working as a database
specialist at Metis Associates, a consulting company in Manhattan, when
he took an advanced course. He had been working with databases built and
managed with the Microsoft Access system, but to work with larger
databases, he said, he had to learn a more comprehensive system,
Microsoft SQL Server.
So at his boss's suggestion, he said, he took the course on Microsoft
SQL, and "it enabled me to get into more advanced and bigger projects at
my company."
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