[rebekah-aimee]

What if colleges started offering this as an alternative to the basic MS Word class most schools make everyone take? Then people who didn't know how to use a computer would be too intimidated by it, but students who already knew the basics could move on to this more interesting course.

You should still be able to test out, though. That way, if you're totally uninterested, you can test out of the MS Word class and move on.

I think there are enough students sufficiently interested in computers that they'd check out the harder course if its name didn't sound too obscure.

[mathattack]

Do schools really make people take an MS Word class? I've never seen anyone have the courage to put that on a resume or transcript.

[rebekah-aimee]

Mine does. They called it "Intro to Computers" but it was really just a giant ad for MS Office. The only part of it that most people wouldn't already know was the Access databases... which they had in the curriculum for some reason. I don't know of anyone who actually uses it at work.

At least they let you test out. The only reason I know Access is in the curriculum is that I BSed my way through that part of the test. Probably the reason it was there was so more people would have to spend money on taking the class.

[mdpopescu]

I've had people show up with Word and Excel on their resumes when I was advertising hiring C# programmers...

[mathattack]

Are these long resumes playing Keyword Bingo, or shorter resumes?

I've kept my resume to 1 page and avoid the table stakes skills.

[mdpopescu]

One, two pages at most. They just had no clue about programming and had to put something in there. Ours is a strange field :)

[mathattack]

Indeed. In this instance a negative keyword filter would be appropriate. :-)