Post-graduate assessment of CS students: experience and position paper

This paper describes first-hand experience with post-graduate skill assessment of newly hired CS students at a small software development company. The assessment included technical and cognitive skills. The paper focuses on the cognitive skills (mainly critical thinking and problem solving), and it represents the author's position on the re-enforcing critical thinking and problem solving throughout the CS curriculum. The experience described in this paper does not represent a formal study of student skill assessment. The group of students involved in the assessment task represents a very small sample, and the outcomes do not represent the general population of CS students. The paper highlights most noticed deficiencies and recommends remedies that can help students overcome such problems.