Hot Topics - Messmer The Brain House

Off to a great start!
A+ for Academic Initiative
BY DON RESNIK AND MIKE TODD
On October 3, 2005, hundreds of college
and university students from across the
United States and Canada logged into a
mainframe system for the first time. They
were racing to be among the first students
to complete the challenges set forth in the
Student Mainframe Contest, a grassroots
effort devised by a team of IBM new hires,
customer new hires, college students and
co-ops, brought together under IBM’s
Academic Initiative.
Increasing awareness
Many students are unaware that they use
mainframes on a daily basis, or that the
mainframe is still central to computing
across just about every industry. The IBM
Academic Initiative wants to make sure
that students are aware of these things, but
most importantly make sure they realize
the significant career opportunities opening
up as the current generation of mainframe
professionals nears retirement age.
Through the Student Mainframe
Contest, the Academic Initiative team
hoped to reach out to 200 students. By
the end of the contest, over 700 students
from 77 colleges and universities had
signed on to “master the mainframe.”
The enthusiastic response from students—
driven by their curiosity to find out more
about the system while earning prizes as
they completed mainframe challenges—
clearly showed that students have quite an
appetite for learning about the mainframe.
Pieces of the puzzle
There were three parts to the contest—
each part more difficult than the previous
one. In part one, students learned how to:
• Download a 3270 terminal emulator
• Navigate around the system
• Allocate their own data set member.
They were also encouraged, just for fun, to
write a haiku poem about the mainframe
in their data set. You’ll see some of the
contestants’ poetic talent sprinkled
throughout this issue of z/OS Hot Topics
Newsletter.
In part two, contestants had to:
• Fix JCL errors
• Run REXX execs
• Use SDSF to check messages
and output
52 February 2006 z/OS HOT TOPICS Newsletter, Issue 14
• Debug problems with help from the
LookAt tool
• Create their own ISPF panels
• Track down TCP/IP configuration
settings.
You have to admit—that’s not too shabby
for mainframe newbies!
By the time they got to part three, the
contestants had to solve the most difficult
challenges such as:
• Solving CICS/DB2 interactivity issues
• Fixing assembler and Java programs
• Resolving planted problems in their
JES initiators.
Students showed such an aptitude for
picking up mainframe concepts that they
were encouraged to write their Student
Mainframe Contest accomplishments on
their resumes to discuss with recruiters.
They had to show significant skills to
complete these challenges, and that
skillfulness will help differentiate them
from other job seekers.
The Student Mainframe Contest
increased students’ awareness of the
opportunities and careers that mainframes
offer, while giving them a taste of what the
mainframe can do. The IBM Academic
Initiative is already working to build on
that momentum—with the excitement that
students have shown recently, the future
of mainframe skills is looking brighter all
the time.
To find out more about the Academic
Initiative, visit the Web site: ibm.com/
university/zseries.