shano1106 said:
ive resently finished my gce ol exams. and ive seen some univercities which offer foundation programs which is equal to AL. (APIIT,ACBT) i just wanted to know if there are any other unvercities/institiues which offer such kind of program. it must be releated to information tecnology.
Warning: This post can be a bit long. Read all to get a clear idea.
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It all depends on your decision machan.
Doing A/L will definitely give you some advantages + the qualification.
But do it only if you think that you can get good results.
Still even if you didn't get good results, it is a great experience for your life.
But it's not mandatory to do A/Ls nowadays because you have many career pathways.
As a simple example, my younger brother didn't do his A/Ls.
He got very good results for his O/Ls and then did some ACBT degree while doing CIMA.
Now he is 22 and CIMA fully qualified + got a Business Admin degree from Monash Uni (through ACBT) and currently working in Sri Lanka for a salary of around 50,000Rs.
As I have heard, you can go to SLIIT or APIIT with or without A/Ls.
So that's one way of doing it.
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If you do A/Ls and get good results in the mathematics stream, you can go to the UCSC (Uni of Col. School of Computing) to do the BSc degree in Computer Science.
Or with normal A/L results you can do Col Unis BIT program as well.
Or, you can simply go to SLIIT, APIIT, MIT or any other institution to do an IT degree in 3 or 4 yrs without doing any foundation courses.
That's the other way of doing it.
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When choosing an institute, you have to do your own research.
Because I can say SLIIT is the best place. Lich might say APIIT is the best. Amila will say MIT is the best place.
But all those commentaries are biased. Because everybody will tell the institution they went is the best place. Nobody knows what other institutions are doing in order to make a fair unbiased judgement.
So what is the best way to decide?
one way is to look at the job advertisements on newspapers. See whether big organisations are asking for or looking for any particular institution's degree holders.
Another way is to simply ask some IT companies about which institutions they think are teaching contents they want from their employees.
As an example, IFS and Virtusa around in 2002 - 2004 wanted graduates exclusively from SLIIT as software Quality Assurance personnel.
Don't know whether it has changed now though.
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So now, go and buy some newspapers and brows some job vacency websites and see whether there is a real market need for IT professionals.
And then choose it if you really love doing IT.
IT is simply not just programming, networking and graphics designing. It's a huge area.
So if you really love doing IT, choose it and enjoy doing it.
Then decide whether you really want to do your A/Ls.
Have your parents got enough money to spend for an external degree?
Don't you want to have some fun with friends while doing A/Ls?
Can you get good results for A/Ls?
To do IT, do you really need to do Maths for A/Ls?
Then do you like to do Maths?
Those are some of the questions you might beed to answer in order to make a decision.
After that choose an institution depending on your own research outcomes.
As I've said before, don't choose the institution only because someone recommends it. They talk only for themselves. You have to do it independently.
Probably it's good to ask from a reputed professor or a lecturer who works in many universities.
I have studied in SLIIT and some foreign universities. and I can recommend SLIIT as a moderately good university compared to foreign universities. Still it's not upto foreign standards. But it's a better place in Sri Lankan standards. Also some of my colleagues told that MIT is also a good place.
All the best machan.
Let us know if you have more questions.