Davao aims to make a mark in PhilNITS

August suddenly became a very busy month for me, as I was just informed that I will conduct two more batch of review courses for around 50 graduating students to help prepare them for the upcoming PhilNITS-FE exam. The additional courses will start early September, but I need to prepare early as the schedule will become "frantic" come September and first half of October.

I am very happy for the additional review courses, but at the same time very worried as conducting simultaneous reviews, with a compressed schedule, and with a large number of participants for each batch, will surely be a challenge. It turned out that from September, all my weekday evenings are fully booked, with only Tuesday as a day-off. Even the whole days of Saturdays and Sundays were booked. This is one time I cannot afford to get sick, or else we cannot anymore meet our target before October 19 (the day of the PhilNITS exam).

The first batch of reviewees are mostly professionals. Some already working in the IT field, others have just decided to transfer/go back to IT. There are also a good number of faculties from the academe. This is a good opportunity for me, as whatever I can share with these batch, they are at a position to carry on the sharing with their colleagues and students.

The second batch are all students, mostly coming from UP Mindanao, and some from the University of the Immaculate Conception (UIC) engineering department. I am both excited, and in a way intimidated, to teach this batch as so far UP has produced the most number of PhilNITS passers in Davao. I am sure to learn a thing or two from the participants as well.

The third batch are mosty from Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU), plus some from the University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP), UIC, and UP Mindanao. I am also very excited to teach this batch as I know their students have good capability, and that I might be of help to produce the first (except UP) passers from these schools.

It will also be a good opportunity for me to compare the performance of these different batches, as the program I will be using is common for all three. You may visit this previous entry for an overview of the review program I plan to conduct (http://abrightfit.blogspot.com/2008/07/philnits-review-course-in-davao.html). This will provide me with a unique insight as to the readiness and competency in the fundametals of IT of these different organizations. I believe they are also a good representation of Davao, so this would be my first snapshop of Davao's capability to pass the PhilNITS-FE exam.

We have yet to see effectiveness of our review program, but I am hopeful that we can produce a decent number of passers this time from Davao. And in our own little way help Davao to be noticed more when it comes to IT (particularly in the software development field) in the Philippines.