Introducing IT varsity
Hi. I’m Bilal. I am the founder of IT varsity.
There was a time I really wanted to become a Java developer.
As I neared the completion of my degree, I sent my CV to various companies.
The feedback I got was totally depressing. Nobody was prepared to hire me! Why? Because I did not have experience.
Bilal Kathrada
Founder
The Vicious Job/Experience Cycle
So how am I supposed to get experience without a job?
It started to dawn on me that my studies and good grades were not worth much in the job market. Nearly everything that I studied was irrelevant, I was told. What employers wanted were practical, on-the-job skills.
“Show us what you can do.”
I found myself caught up in the Vicious Job/Experience Cycle which is:
You cannot get a job without experience, but you cannot get experience without a job.
So I taught myself professional development skills. There was so much more to learn than I was taught at University. But nobody told me that. I had to figure it out myself.
After lots of effort, I got my first job as a Java developer. But it was tough getting there. What frustrated me most was the amount of time (and money!) I had put into my formal studies – had I gone directly and taught myself what the market really wanted, it would have saved me so many years!
The Ideal IT Institutes
It was around then that I began to wonder about an institute that actually did teach practical development, exactly as the job market wanted – how great would that be!
How awesome if there were an institute that
• was in touch with the outside world
• understood global technology needs
• provided sincere guidance to all students about the best IT careers to get into, without them having to figure it out for themselves
• taught its students exactly the technologies they needed to know to become exceptional developers
• prepared its students for the job market
• used modern teaching methods
• provided accredited qualifications
It would be the ideal institute! And when my son Maseeh decided to study IT, it became more urgent.
IT varsity is born...
I realized that there was no such institute in South Africa, and I had to do something about it. I decided to start IT varsity, which would be the institute of my dreams, the one I had wished for when I was younger.