Company Paid Training?

screenbert asks: "My employer has just dropped a bombshell on me. He's offered $50,000 in training over the next year to each person in our group. Yes per person. Normally I wouldn't think twice about it, but he's having legal draw up contracts that will require us to pay for the training if we leave. I'm not really happy with my current employer due to changes company-wide. I've worked for companies in the past that had programs like this, but never with that kind of money, usually 5-10K. Should I take the training and stick it out for the 3 years, or just put it off?" That's a lot of money to drop in training, but given that it's always wise to keep up your skill set, might this be worth it.

Comments

Re:Be very, very careful.

[afabbro]

The only people who are successful in computing, I have found, are people who teach themselves. The field is too fast-moving to have a good class in every subject. On the contrary, I have never seen a class that was excellent.

I agree in part and disagree in part. You're absolutely right that being able to teach yourself is vital - if you're not able to suck down big thick books and keep it in temporary storage, then neither systems administration nor programming is the field for you. If you're not motivated enough (or interested enough) to learn in your spare time - i.e., if this isn't both your hobby AND your profession - then your potential is limited.

I agree that classes are often of questionable value, especially since they're often very expensive. I think System Administration 101 classes are a waste of time - learn on your own. Same for a lot of programming classes. The material is in books, usually in many books, and if you can't read and learn from the literature, forget it. It's one thing if you're pursuing a B.S. degree and it's part of the curriculum; it's another if you're expecting your employer to spend $3,000 to send you off to Solaris 101.

However, that said, there are some situations in which training is invaluable. The first training I ever went to was on Auspex fileservers, where are specialized NAS hardware. There's no way I could afford a $200,000+ box to play with at home, no way to simulate one, and no way management would let me "experiment" on the production box. In that case, paying for a few days of instruction + lab access was worth it (and really, it was the lab access).

If the class in question offers you the ability to work in a lab and break things (and fix them), then it may be worthwhile. If that lab consists of PCs, then it's not - yes, Virginia, you can learn Linux (or Solaris x86, or whatever) at home. You can't learn a Sun E10000 at home. Good post!