Career Steps: Go by the work and not just by the "BRAND" !

To be frank nobody told me about this, but over the time I understood it. Well the credit goes to my managers and superiors who took special care in teaching me part of industry.

The reason behind the post is, I was at an Engineering college in outskirts of Hyderabad to take a session on Ruby, as part of Open Source talks. Thanks to SWECHA, for giving me the opportunity. Before I started the session I had few questions to the group of 200 odd students so that I can deliver what they are looking for? (Hitting them straight, without wasting my time!).
Interestingly not many of them are aware of any scripting languages, until SWECHA organised series of sessions/talks.
Well during the ruby talk, I did not bug them with usual slides but just directly walked through examples (that kept them awake and attentive through out the session!).
During the Q&A, the usual questions were fired up:

1. What is the future for Ruby?
2. Can Ruby be used for Desktop and Mobile applications?
3. Java vs Ruby?
4. Python vs Ruby?
5. Who are all implementing/working on Ruby?

Let me pick up the 5th question, as rest of questions were answered by many people on various occasions. The actual question they raised was :
Does the company X, Y, Z implementing it?
And then list of few big IT brands started flowing out of them, well I just wondered whether they are looking for the exciting work they will be assigned or just by the "BRAND". Here comes the role of placement officers of the institutes very well to bridge the gap. Occasionally, many groups with industry people visit these colleges to give an exposure and understanding of the industry, current trends, demanding technology/tools...
But what about the colleges that do not get these groups/industry people do not visit?
This is where everyone need play pro-actively in deciding their career based on their interests, knowledge, skills. Students/Freshers should start interacting more with industry people, start gathering/attending to technical/industry forums, discussions and talks.
This kind of socializing will make them understand the reality and they can be prepared for the same and this would help the industry to get skilled people or right attitude people.

As far as I know, Twincling is the one such group with lots of momentum among the student groups, communities, industry that is doing it's role of spreading the awareness. Twincling members are ready to travel length and breadth of Andhra Pradesh (for time being) and conduct workshops for free. Contact the group for more details.