I am stopping an outburst here. Pls. u all don't push me.

@woleprof
nice question, wats the way foward?
now a lot of you guys have spoken well but you are forgeting one thing, we should remember that not everyone was born with a silver spoon. we should remember that not everyone can afford the high cost of attending the likes of niit or even going abroad as some folks do.
what i tell people is this if you can't afford these institutions who says you can't learn some of these programs on your own. fine you may not be able to learn the very complex ones but start with the ones you can learn and move on from there, bearing in mind that these days it not the paper that realy matters but what you can do on your own.
so lets start something now cause its never to late.
as the chinese proverbs goes, the best time to plant a tree was so many years ago another best time to plant a tree is now, so lets start now, start learning

@bartigo

nice one my man. thats the best advice. start learning on ur own.

FOR BEGINNER
PLEASE LIST THEPROGRAMS A COMPUTER SCIENCE STUDENT WILL GO INTO,SO AS TO PREPARE WELL

i mean computer science syllabuss

@bartigo & javaprince, you guys r great. Im sure ur advice would go a long way to encourage up and coming computer scientist as they network the world

i agree with everyone's view but Angelchyke pascal programming should not be a yardstick for judgeing.It may seem old fashioned but i tell it's services is still requied in some quaters most especially scientific research programming.An example is CERN-world's largest nuclear&particle research lab.-they still makes use of pascal.

Total Shit! Complete waste. Don't venture into it.

We should focus our attention on solution not problems. But really how hard is it to change the current syllabus.

to be honest with u,computer science is bleeped in an institution like oou, dnt knw abt other institutions in nigeria, i tink professional courses are d best,

@Javaprince:
Thank you very very much for your post. Most of these people bashing getting an education do not realize that theres more to Computer Sciences than PhP/MySQL. You really need to see apps people are developing in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and other advanced things. There are some problems you NEED to have a computer science background to solve.
Theres nothing wrong in learning pascal. You get to program. You get to develop the programming mindset, and think like one, not getting tied to one technology which might be obsolete in a few years.
People like to make excuses and bash the Nigerian educational system, but if you want to learn and get something out of your education, then you will. Simple. When I came for my masters, yes, I had to work a bit harder, but at least I wasn't looking like a fool.
I have nothing against going to ApTech and co, but theres nothing they will teach you that you cannot learn for yourself. And a university teaches you to identify the tools you need to solve a problem, and then you go out and get it, not spoon feed you like most people expect.
Developing a simple web shop and developing an intelligent checkers game (using AI algorithms, which I did for my BSc project in naija) are miles apart. Some of those dudes making noise simply because some unserious students outsourced their final year projects to them, couldn't understand what I did.
University educations important, and if you mention bill gates as an excuse, I have a counter example, the google boys. Google uses a lot of comp science/engineering algorithms. They wont take you without knowledge of those things simply because you learnt PHP at Aptech/NIIT.
I rest my case. One love. (I no be 2face o! )

@javalove, u 2 much pls i'm a computer science student nd all ds ur language confuses me. how do i learn ds stuffs without trouble?

bartigo:

@woleprof
nice question, wats the way foward?
now a lot of you guys have spoken well but you are forgeting one thing, we should remember that not everyone was born with a silver spoon. we should remember that not everyone can afford the high cost of attending the likes of niit or even going abroad as some folks do.
what i tell people is this if you can't afford these institutions who says you can't learn some of these programs on your own. fine you may not be able to learn the very complex ones but start with the ones you can learn and move on from there, bearing in mind that these days it not the paper that realy matters but what you can do on your own.
so lets start something now cause its never to late.
as the chinese proverbs goes, the best time to plant a tree was so many years ago another best time to plant a tree is now, so lets start now, start learning

I really want to learn all this stuffs but as u said not every was born with a silver spoon in their mouth. what are the steps to be taken to start studying it by one self.

Agree with the above statements, The difference between having a computer sciene background and knowing how to program is extrememly vast, computer science teaches you how to make efficient use of resources. A lot of us can write algorithms, How many of us can identify the most efficient algorithms simply by looking at it or how many people can make efficient use of memory and implement proper memory management in the programs they write. I thought I knew how to program before going into college, I was dead wrong.

The Nigerian context aside, my first courses in actual programming (as in after pseudo-code classes) were in VB and Pascal. This was even after Java 1 came out, so I dunno what some of you guys are talking about

As it was presented to us at the time, and I happen to agree, if all you have is a hammer, then everything is a nail. Also, you have to know where you came from to know where you are going. So you are taught how to code in english, on paper, then you migrate to languages that came up during programming's history. At the end of the day, it's not abuot the language per se but logic and how you think logically (i.e. reason). If you can think logically, you can pretty much pick up any language (of course, you have to learn the syntax).

A BSc degree doesn't necessarily imply you know how to code either, not to say you shouldn't get one. As I have said on here before, I once worked with a guy with a history degree who was better than I was at the time. A degree will definitely give you a leg up in the competition come interview time, but it doesn't necessarily mean you know how to code or how to interact with people in a work environment.

I agree with @Yawatide on this one! This takes me back to the early days of the millennium when I started programming. Luckily I chose the available programming language that I could afford C (in terms of materials). My co-friends who happens to gain admission then within the same field believed they were uncontested. It continued like that until I got my a** beyond the shores of our beloved nation 9.j.a

My point here is, universities in Nigeria offer more of the theoretical aspect of computing/programming than practicals. Which has an absolute disadvantage for the learner(s) in the international scene.

Prove me wrong and I will supply my points in details.

- nitation

I studied Computer Science. The little practicals i know was gotten through my exrtra effort outside school. Studying Computer Science in Nigeria can be made meaningful IF all Computer Science graduates are compelled to go to institute like NIIT after graduation compulsorily like lawyer, doctors do. And government should try to strenghtened the NIIT. THAT IS THE ONLY SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM.

By the time you finish a four year degree in computer science or information technology things have changed compared to four years ago. Most of what people should know ought to be through self study or practice. You may then say IT infrastructure not so great or not many people can own computers.

If you are interested in studying, cant pay for NIIT or whatever it is called. ( I would like to see a brochure if anyone has links).

Google for

open free university course
MIT free course

and things like that.

You will get a bunch of things that will be useful in selfstudy. There are so many books online, many tutorials online. The amount of information available online is incredible. So there is no need to complain about how bad the university system is. Get online and great resources to use.

If you are complaining about computer science in nigerian universities. What do you want those studying chemistry, medicine, etc to do? These people need labs to get things done, though they can read. but not same experience. This is the upside of software related computer learning.

You have a computer, you have internet, use opensource tools, and you can become a superstar.

To help IT in Nigeria, government should try to provide scholarship on IT training. This PARTIAL SCHOLARSHIP of NIIT is highly bad they should make it FULL. I know of many people who couldn't afford the fees after winning the scholarship, thereby forefeiting it. There are hundreds of Nigerians who could have made impart in IT, but financially they are handicap. Governmnet should try to offer full IT trainig scholarship for Nigerians. ALL OF US ARE NOT BORN WITH SILVER SPOON.

Hey i agree with Javalove dont even compare urself a graduate that does not know anything in IT to somebody who has a diploma and is tite i was opportuned to be in a company in calabar and i talked with the manager who is a family member he said that one of their staff says he wants to go somewhere else they had to increase his pay and even buy him a car why because he has been working with the whites and has got experience all the machine in dat company he operates them and his not even a graduate . university education is good but better wen u re not an halfbaked graduate. For me computer science in nigeria university is shit. the professor in ur department when was the last time he went for course abroad. imaging i am learning fortran 77 do u know wat that means fortran 1977 wen we are in 2009 even Ghana yr 1 computer science has started doing assignment on C++ and here in Nigeria you are doing the basics of a programming language in your final year you are happy feeling like a village champion i just feel some of us know the truth but we just want to console ourself because we find ourself in such situation.My advice is that maybe holiday u look for a place may be NIIT,APTECH or somewhere to learn something programing or networking or something else cos its better you know one of this things very well than u just know the basic of all.

the best thing to do wen u know u dont have money to go to NIIT or others is to get materials like the software and e books or the compiler of the language u want to learn then look for somebody close that knows that language if it means given him a tip u can do that bt first of all try understanding what programming is all about anything u dont understand u can meet with that person for explanation that way u would learn better instead of complaning.

I guess nigerian schools need to update their syllabus. Because those shit are outdated.
But i guess those lecturers are outdated as well. that's where i'm confused.

I was talking to an English programmer here (who's very good, btw) who was telling me he can't imagine that he finished from his school in the UK without knowing what a semaphore is. He had to look it up when he came here. I knew what a semaphore is since I was in 300 level computer science in Nigeria. Diamonds of knowledge can be found anywhere you choose to look. Dissing the whole educational system just shows me some who have not taken the time to harvest their acres of diamonds where they stand.

@wavemasta

You saying you know what semaphore is while another person that was in UK doesnt know it, is an invalid argument. Not everyone knows all the programming languages even by name. here is a list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages

There are tons on there I am sure not many of us know that other people know. So using this reasoning as a basis for proving a point is not logical

Semaphore is not even in the list. So apparently the people that wrote that didnt know about semaphore. Sounds logical to me

@Cactus:
First of all, a semaphore is not a programming language. Its a paradigm for concurrent programming. If you google it, you will find it.
Secondly, you didn't get my point. My point was that the Nigerian Educational system is not as bad as people try to paint it out to be. You can always find knowledge anywhere you want. And I used the fact that I was thought about semaphores in Nigeria here, while my English friend was bemoaning the fact that their school didn't teach them something this important. And semaphores in concurrent programming are useful in the company which I work at presently.
So, I hope this has cleared the air.

Ok I get it now,

You see, I myself I never heard of semaphore, I didnt study in Nigeria, so what gives?

But, the deal is that many people do the semaphore concept stuff but they wont know it by the name semaphore. I just read about it and I know what it is. I didnt know that was what it is called.

argh

That is all fancy names jare.

Lol, yeah I guess, too many names we have to learn

me, i still use fortran language to solve some complex maths problems.

@Java love, They donot teach Pascal abroad, maybe its a beans skool, d oldest programming language they could teach is C++ and i reiterate again they wouldnt Java would do if not all,almost all what C++ or any generic programming language will do, there are latest technologies, all around, It wouldnt change, Its like tokunbo, na when oyinbo finish 2 dey use am 9ja go carry am,