To a lesser extent, the same can be said for those who get an "IT" degree from a no name school from the college of business. I've spent a lot of my time training people who graduate from local small colleges instead of say, Georgia Tech or UGA (I'm in Atlanta) because management at my big corp is throwing cheap bodies at the solution.
Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed mentoring but done kids graduate with no clue and the wrong expectations.
I've mentioned to management these kids don't graduate with the proper foundation... And I'm told it's my job to give it to them....sure, I'd love to if they give me their college tuition!
>local small colleges instead of say, Georgia Tech or UGA
This really only applies for CS, but I wouldn't hire people with "IT" degrees for programming jobs no matter where they went (not based on their degree anyway).
GSU is much larger than either GaTech or UGA, and it just received an award for being the 2nd best teaching institution in the US. Kennesaw is about the same size now that they merged with Southern Poly, and their CS program is also ABET accredited.
I've taken CS classes at both GSU and Tech, depending on the classes the person takes at GSU, there isn't a big teaching disparity. The type of person who makes it into Tech changes things, but if you look at their transcripts when hiring you can quickly see who took the easy classes and scraped by with Cs and who really took it seriously
I don't really have a good answer but I'll give it a shot.
I can only speak for my team. In big corp, your work experience is based on your team. We have 4 senior dev, 7 college hires who have been with us between 0-4 years. The experience/aptitude varies. i.e. there are some who have been with us for 2 years that is not as good as the one hired. We've had some come on our team and move onto other teams. I have one who's been with us for 4 years, and at 3 years I felt is like a competent senior dev. He's moved to another team and runs laps around his new teammates.
Because I have the most patience in the group...I end up being the person most of them come to for help. I'm technically the architect on the team (manager gave me the title recently, too modest to accept it...) and the senior devs even come to me with questions...but of course I don't truely mentor them. But to give continuing education to the team, I've implemented a "Tech talk Friday" where I book a 1.5 hour of our time on Friday and watch and discuss various conference talks on YouTube that I feel are applicable for us. It's a nice way to end a Friday, too :)
There's no defined ratio. A grad who has a good foundation, is a go-getter and can learn on their own only needs to be guided. While others need to be handheld. Mentors' should not be bogged down to the point they are not able to do their real work - otherwise they'd get burned out and would just dismiss mentees.
Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed mentoring but done kids graduate with no clue and the wrong expectations.
I've mentioned to management these kids don't graduate with the proper foundation... And I'm told it's my job to give it to them....sure, I'd love to if they give me their college tuition!