My team had the opportunity to sit down with a group of engineering students from a university this week and it was interesting to see where they were at.

A large and varied group of kids that were interested in diving in, becoming an intern, being life-long learners, and those that had no interest in entering the work force before the PhD has been achieved.

Our team had 15 minutes to discuss the real-life day-to-day of what it’s like to build software, rub shoulders, and bump fists with customers and other developers.  And we tried to illustrate that sinking feeling of putting a project in jeopardy.

We think we reached our objective of describing successful software delivery, but only time will tell if anything stuck.  I did get quoted by a few of the students in conversations about some key topics, so maybe a bit of osmosis took place.

We’ll have to wait about 6 or 7 years to see for sure.  Advice is great, but you have to mix it with experience to get an elixir that you can take to the bank.

Oh, Go Packers!