Slashdot Mirror
Tech Training Schools Going Bust
superflippy writes "The Associated Press reports that many tech training schools which opened during the last few years are now shutting their doors. During the dot-com boom, there was the perception that a few months of computer training could lead to a fabulous job. Now, it seems all these schools have produced are unemployed people with student loans and dubious certifications."
Outsourcing to India
Cheap College Grads (Although there are too many here also)
Experienced (more expensive) College Grads
And *maybe* a few scraps left over grads of these half ass tech schools
There is still definitely a place for a few of these schools for people wanting to add a skill or become more advanced in a skill, but the days of taking an 8 week course and then finding a tech job are over. I actually know a couple of people that went to these type schools 5 years ago and now have great tech jobs.
at least they are unemployed with only a few months worth of student loans.
seems downright enviable from my position with four years worth of loans.
lysergically yours
Funny, that doesn't seem to stop them from running ads that say "40,000 new IT jobs are opening up every year! Train now for a rewarding career!"
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
They shood do what I did and go to an acredited scholl like the University of Pheonix. Online.
During the dot-com boom, there was the perception that a few months of computer training could lead to a fabulous job.
Perception? How soon we forget - that actually happened. It happened all over silicon valley.
We'll have another unsustainable tech boom as soon as everyone forgets those mistakes entirely.
I am a professional HTML software developer with good working knowledge of Microsoft FrontPage 2000, Microsoft FrontPage 2002, Microsoft FrontPage 2003 and HomeSite. Extensive experience with back-end server management via Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard. I am looking roughly for $80-90K (plus sign-on bonus and relocation), but I can tell you the job field is not that great. I think I should learn PHP and wait for things to pick up. Can anyone recommend good PHP classes under-$5,000 range?
Now, it seems all these schools have produced are unemployed people with student loans and dubious certifications.
;)
So, kind of like Microsoft?
[rimshot!]
Thanks, I'm here all week!
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
1. Kid goes through course
2. Kid does well, but doesn't really learn
3. Kid gets job $63,000/year
4. Kid has no idea what to do, but was able to talk his shit up.
5. Kid goes to teacher and begs him to help
6. Company pays teacher to do kids job $15,000
Cost to company $75,000
I know of this personally. Pretty annoying if you ask me. The kid actually still has his job too.
even the fancy certifications were not enough to keep people employed after the dot bomb. I am letting my CISSP lapse because it didn't do me any good.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
And that is exactly why these schools are as successful as they are.
Or, is today opposite day?
Well if we thin out the population of tech schools some, the more reputable colleges (in my case Cal Poly Pomona) will look a little better, and that degree will mean more. Therefore maybe IT degrees will mean something again...well we can hope anyways...
...in bed
A friend of a friend asked me to help him with a final project for one of his classes at ITT Tech. This was a project in ASP for an online bookstore. He was nearing completion of his associates degree in Web Design, and when I got there to show him things, he knew nothing at all. Not even HTML... When I asked him about that, he said he "sorta learned it a while ago". Last I checked, HTML was the staple of Web Development, no? All of his pages that he had made so far were all autogenerated by FrontPage. Goes to show you what good a $30,000 2-year associates degree at ITT Tech is worth.....or rather worthless.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
Well, no, I'm not really shocked :)
Disclaimer: several bachelor's and master's degrees work for me, as well as several no-degree people with strong skills, but as far as I know, no "certificates", which is the way I like it.
Crispin
----
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
CTO, Immunix Inc.
It seems to me that they're still fully willing to hawk empty dreams for cash with no benefit to the custo^H^H^H^H^Hstudent. I see ads for this everywhere. Except they also (and always have) advertise certificates in Business and Nursing.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
These schools churned out tons of useless "educated" people with little added value from their educational experience. The only purpose that these institutions had was to dilute the talent within the IT and computer engineering fields. I say good riddance!
That is exactly the way I feel with all the online brainbech certifications I have.
I spent 10 months at "The Chubb Institute" gaining a certificate in Network and System Security. During the 10 months, we started with basic A+ cert type information, and worked our way up through Linux and MS ISA Server... none of each in enough detail to actually get a job done.
In fact, we spent 1 week learning Redhat where we installed the OS, Installed Samba, and FTP.
Then we spent 4 weeks (5 hours a day 5 days a week) learning how to write resumes and interview.
Somehow I feel like Linux is more important then what color my suit is for the interview. (blue vs. grey)
Lastly, they promised "Job Placement" - however, the only calls that the Graduating Security Class received were helpdesk positions.
My question is... if the Network Security class... the most esteemed program at the Chubb Institute is getting calls for Helpdesk positions... what positions are the helpdesk classes getting?
Janitorial?
I mean seriously - I was a director-level IT manager at two multi-national companies over the past 12 years, and neither I, nor any of my peers, would even think about hiring someone from one of these tech schools.
Even the smallest amount of real-world experience was far more useful than several months of training at these schools. Sure, they learned a few rote solutions, but I can teach those to a new recruit who shows a bit of intelligence in a short time.
In fact, for an entry-level position, give me a liberal arts grad with a bit of tech knowledge learned on their home computer, and I've got the makings of an excellent eomployee. People who can read, write and converse are better candiates than many of the "tech school" grads I ran into.
Frankly, I never felt these schools were worth anything, and if they are now closing, all the better.
Information Technology's ("IT") progressive evolution, which is due to the advancement of computers and communication technology, continues to have a profound impact on our lives. The need is rising for technically competent individuals who can provide appropriate computer solutions. IT is an academic discipline that affects nearly every business and industry.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, computer and data processing services will add over 1.3 million jobs from 1996-2006, representing a 108 percent increase. These jobs will require employees with technical skills in areas such as multimedia, web design, programming and computer network systems. This increase in the number of these types of jobs is due primarily to technological advancements and the need for higher skilled workers. This is projected to be the fastest growing industry during this period.
The need for information technology workers in many industries has become apparent. An article in the September 22, 1998 issue of Occupations Outlook Quarterly magazine said opportunities abound in the field of information technology. The job market for computer-related skills is booming, and demand for computer professionals is projected to remain strong through the year 2006. According to the article, "A degree in computer science or a related technical field is perhaps the easiest ticket into the field."
Groups, such as the Information Technology Association of America ("ITAA") and the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Technology Policy, have issued reports that identify what they consider to be strong evidence of the Unites States' inability to keep up with the high demand for information technology workers. This "skills anemia" is a result of the technological success of today's economy. According to the January 19, 1998 edition of Computer Reseller News, "we have the ability to release new technology faster than we can build the skilled work force to implement and maintain the new products."
Firms need skilled computer professionals to maintain a competitive edge and cost-efficient operations. Yeah, right...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I used to work for a small computer training center. I got to teach people on worker's comp how to repair computers (fun when they were just there to collect the check and didn't care about the class).
Basically, they were told by their rehab people that our three-month class would get them a nice 40K a year job, and they usually got really pissed when they found out otherwise.
Speaking of the original dubious certification, a 8-year old just got certified as an MCSE.
I would wager that the schools who are not doing well and forced to close their doors are the same ones running the ad's that state there are a ton of IT jobs,and then take $18,000 from you to learn test questions. But places like Globalnet and the likes who ACTUALLY teach real world use still thrive. If you don't believe me feel free to contact them and ask why they have to turn away students because their class is full. So this is a good thing in my mind. Let the schools who charge obscene amounts of money to learn the test questions go bankrupt, because the ones who teach real world experience will always be here.
**It runs through my veins like radioactive rubber pants! Do not deny my veins!**
Oh... we don't need to balance the book.
A missing $3k doesn't hurt anyone.
Time for a career change then. Ooh, Hollywood Upstairs Medical School, looks promising...
I was required to attend one of these for Sun certification. The total cost was ~$30,000 (they used to call it a SunKey). Do you think anyone who has only a few hundred bucks at the end of the month after rent/food/etc will sign up for that? No.
These places depended on companies to send their people.
Now a days, it looks like most places get a backend rebate from the vendor of the products they send their people to get certified under. After all, if company XXX needs two SE's to sell a product from vendor YYY, vendor YYY will usually give a boatload of cash to cover the costs in sending their two SE's to training, since in the long term, company XXX will sell enough of the product to where vendor YYY will recoop all their money.
As much as I personally value education, the organizations in the education arena (from K to PhD) do a very poor job of justifying their existence (and high tuitions or high taxpayer subsidies). Common sense and aggregate data does certainly suggest that salary correlates with education, but nobody seems to be able to routinely show that a particular school leads to a particular boost in success (except for some highly debatable test score schemes in K-12 education).
What are students paying for when they get degree X from school Y? And what are they really getting?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
This is from an Air-Force perspective, so think what you will:
The military is based around taking people who know very little and teaching via tech schools. We do quite well. We can take someone with virtually no computer knowledge and turn them into a basic sysadmin in about 6 months. Within 2 years, the cream will rise and those are quite impressive. Of the rest, some will transfer to administrative (paperwork) jobs and be promoted. Others will get out and become a burden to AT&T or WorldCom. But the system DOES work.
The main difference between the military and the commercial world is that we actually care about our people. Where your company provides very little in the way of mentorship, I will nurture my people till they find their sweet spot. Some will learn from books I reccomend, others from college I allow them to attend during working hours. More still will need me to hold their hands and walk them through tasks until they catch on.
Most civilians see coworkers (you call them cow-orkers) as competition. That's why a lot of good sysadmins will never develop after their civilian tech schools.
You and your company may see on-the-job training as a waste. Well, you are missing out on a lot of good people. Instead of a college grad demanding $50k+, you could look to the sub-$20k market of tech-school grads. Give them some training. Promote those who deserve it, fire those who screw up.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Finally I'm starting to see some justice! I have 18 years experience but have been out of work due to all the outsourcing and dumping of jobs overseas for the last 10 months. Nothing has ticked me off more than seeing so called private schools like ECPI and others advertising in the paper for IT and Cert courses. They advertise like there is a shortage for jobs, that they cant fill them fast enough... when all they have done is dumped untrained memorizers on the market and created a glut of available personnel. And if a business or HR department doesn't know better, the fancy paper gets these really untrained workers the jobs at cheap salaries (because they have to pay those 30K college course fees) I wish they all would shut down and go back to just being Testing centers like back in the Drake days... or am I showing my age again.
After getting a real degree (Electronics) and many years later spending ony a couple of months in getting a CNE and 3 more months in getting a MSCP - thanks to a generous company willing to fund me - I can say that these quickie qualifications are interesting, but not worth the big bucks. The only reason I have them is because my company says they have so many certified people on the staff.
Semper ubi sub ubi
personally i would say ditch frontpage and learn php, but i am sure this will get takin as a troll post. Personally i would be afraid to admit that i even knew how to use frontpage if i did. vi is better.
In my experience the better tech people are the ones that grew up playing with the stuff as a hobby, not the ones who heard that there are money/jobs available in the field and then sign up at a tech school. I'm not going to cry for the tech schools. Go get a CS degree instead.
We're a start up anticipating developing a product and being bought out by Cisco, Microsoft, HP or someone else with deep pockets. We offer your choice of stock options by the roll: White Cloud or Charmin.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The downward spiral of recent years, beyond anyone's direct control: 1) The economy going to hell 2) The resulting layoffs 3) People with years of experience competing for entry level jobs 4) A lack of entry level jobs (why hire someone fresh out of school when you can hire a former sysadmin for Dell tech support?) 5) Companies not paying nearly enough as they used to for tech positions This is not the schools' fault. A previous poster used the term 'dubious certs,' and this is completely accurate. The problem however is not the curriculum, it is the way the students study. When I attended a comp training school a couple years ago, I cannot tell you how many students used mcsebraindumps.com and other sites where they can get test questions. The percentage was huge. As a result, these people just memorized answers and did not know how to apply anything they learned (if they did at all) to real world situations. When they got out into the real world, they broke more than they fixed. As a result, companies now view these certifications with a skeptical eye. Sure, you passed the test - but what do you really know? Prove to me you can make it - but how do you get the shot if a sysadmin with ten years of experience wants that tech support job too? Answer: you don't. These schools have tried to hide this and have been largely successful, but the truth is finally coming out.
Passion for the work doesn't come out of a crackerjack box. An MCSE or any "Certification" from a vendor, is just a manufacturers way of saying you have digested their propaganda. If you are looking to get rich quick while only working a few hours a week try No money down real estate.
It should come as no surprise that the people who went for these courses are now getting burned. The schools were unscrupulous but then again so were the majority of their students. Both parties were trying to sell sows ears as silk purses.
I am both self-taught and self-employed, and I have never once had a client ask me about my college degree (I don't have one, by choice), certifications, grades, diplomas, or anything else related.
When I managed a computer store and someone came in who was A+ certified, it was almost a strike against them. I found repeatedly that the technicians that were self-taught were far better at maintaining their skills in a rapidly changing environment.
I place zero value in any of these certifications.
I really do believe that certain certifications have a little bit of value as I've known many incompetent people in the IT fields who would've not been able to pass even the A+ or Network+ tests.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
It also has very good advice for becoming an accomplished programmer.
"Are you happy with your job? Think there's better? THERE IS (cue music). Become a certified network engineer or software developer at MADSKILLZ. Technology jobs are still paying well - our graduates make as much as $100,000 per year! Student loans available, call now and we'll throw in a comlimentary scale model Porsche - just like the one you'll be driving after you become a certified network engineer or software developer at MADSKILLZ!"
Why is anyone surprised that companies that advertise get rich quick schemes like this are going under? Dear trial lawyers - better sue quick because the IT certificate industry is going to die.
-- $G
It was interesting to watch as other post secondary institutes and even other departments at our institute jumped on the IT bandwagon. When I left the program in 2001, our institute was graduating close to 500 IT grads/year, not to mention the local University and College graduating an equal amount. Then there were the private schools were pumping out MSCEs and CNEs and now Cisco engineers.
The fact is that the market is saturated and the gravy train is over. Our school is hurting because we receive funding from the provincial government based on graduate's employment placement rate (for example: 93% employed after 6 months in their field of study). For the first time in 10 years, I've noticed that the placement rate description has changed from 6 months to 1 year and they've dropped the reference to "field of study" from the statistics. The IT programs are really hurting for enrollment also. People are wising up to the fact that it is difficult to get a job in IT with just a piece of paper.
The BSCS and Phd. CS guys that I've worked with always seemed like they were trained for research instead of getting the product shipped.
As it should be. The mistake was hiring scientists when engineers were wanted.
A doctorate is a research degree. By definition.
You don't hire an architect to hammer nails, and if he applies you have to realize he's going to need training as a carpenter.
KFG
The post talking about knowing frontpage and wanting an 80k a year salary, or the totally serious reply wanting to help.
I find the idea of private tech schools to be abhorant and I find it equally abhorant that our federal (Canadian) government so willingly supports them. Federal job creation schemes will pay up to 2/3 of a $20,000.00 tuition plan for a student to attend a private school, because their programs are typically only nine months long. The bean counter feds see this as meaning the students will get into the job force quickly, but they fail to see that the student does NOT get a job. The same federal department will not pay one cent for a person to attend a 3 year program at an accredited institution (where the tuition is typically less than for a private school, for the full 3 year program!), where the student takes longer to get into the job force, but is pretty well guaranteed a job. This makes me want to scream.
I have a 3 year technology diploma, but a few years ago I was unemployed for several months, and entered a private school for some "upgrading". What a farce. Basically these schools guarantee that if you pay the tuition, and attend the correct number of classes, you WILL get a "technology" diploma. They DO NOT guarantee certification, etc. If you are smart enough, and can hold enough useless data in your brain for long enough, they can even forcefeed some students enough facts to pass those hilarious "certification" multiple choice "exams" private industry uses. Not meaning to belittle them, but I was in class with people who, just a few weeks ago, were hair dressers, taxi/truck drivers, waiters, secretarties, etc. These people were assured (and they beleived), that in just 9 short months they would magically become computer "specialists", and they could compete with me for jobs. That's pretty amazing, when you realize that I had a 3 year technology program, 2 years of university, and over 20 years of work experience under my belt. Because of these outright lies and misrepresentations, I for one am happy to see most of the private "technical" schools disappear.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but certs mean little nowadays. People on the NANOG list, SF lists, IPSlists they all argue this. Companies who hire strictly on certs should be ashamed of themselves. Now I'm not saying all cert holders are stupid, hell many know their stuff inside out, but studying for an exam is not equivalent to knowing your stuff.
How many people have come across someone on a mailing list asking for help for typical stuff all the while their attachment has their proudly pimped status written on it... CCNA, CCDP, CISSP. I've seen them all, and I've seen one too many times big corporations with clueless rejects administrating their networks:
I don't mean to pick on this one person, I know too many times I see the same stuff over and over, and wonder how the hell could companies hire clueless people. I remember I worked for a company who if you sent a resume in with your newly acquired MSCE cert staus you met Mr. Shredder. I also remember meeting three people who supposedly had CCNA's only to find out they were forgeries and the company I was working for never checked them. So again, from my perspective certs mean you have the capability to read and grasp something, but admining something at 4:00am is a different story altogether.MoFscker
Unless you are at a shit school, a CS Major should have a damn good idea how a computer works. What university did this person come from? Your second comment on the person with the Masters in CIS screams bullshit also unless this person came out of a diploma mill.
Seriously, however, the phrase "caveat emptor" should apply to spending money on training just as much as anyone else. I mean, just take a look at this priceless quote: "Most students go into these schools with the perception that the schools are going to watch out for their best interests," said Mary Jayne Fay." If that's true, then "most students" are utter dumbasses. Never assume that anyone else is ever going to watch out for your best interests. (And that includes bureaucrats with an interesting in scarfing up more taxpayer dollars for imposing more regulations. Like, say, Mary Jayne Fay...) That's your job, and no one else can do it for you. I don't assume that my landlord, my credit union, my grocer, or even Apple Computer are looking out for "my best interests." Why should trade schools be any different?
I don't think any of these students were forced to take out loans at gunpoint, or to sign the contracts for classes. They guessed that they would be able to make enough money to make the investment worthwhile. They guessed wrong. It happens. Deal with it and move on.
If any of these schools made did anything illegal then they should be prosecuted and as much money recovered and refunded as possible. If they didn't do anything illegal, it's just like signing a bad contract with any other service provider. Bankruptcies happen.
The solution is smarter and wiser students, not more regulation.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
a few months of computer training could lead to a fabulous job
Yes, in your new fabulous job you'll be king among hamburger flippers.
"I know TCP/IP, routing, and Checkpoint Firewalls."
"Fill that ketchup you big mouth bitch."
This doesn't surprise me. I've always called the "internet bust" a necessary weeding out of the unqualified. Schools like these represented the mentality of the time. "If you can spell JAVA, then you're a coder." Too many unqualified people entered the field due to the enormous amout of money being thrown at "cool" ideas. Of course, the programmers weren't the ones making the decisions it was the managers. And where did the managers come from -- usually friends of friends, or some sort of family relationship. A lot of these people took the quick route with these schools without the discipline required to remain sharp. It's the ability to learn and adapt to the new technologies that makes the greats great. Now the issue is that there are qualified people looking for jobs, but there are sooooo many people with the 1-2 years of experience flooding the hiring managers with resumes. Needle in haystack? Hopefully this "weeding out" will continue as new jobs are created and the pretenders are revealed. The qualified people will hopefully be the one's getting the jobs. Unfortunately this will take time. Until then, good luck!
Here is another wonderful example: A kid finishes a university, does not really learn anything except to kiss ass, starts working for a major company, works there as tech support, decides it's not enough money, goes to another company and after a couple of months of 'programming' moves into more senior position by presenting other people ideas as his own. The kid never stops to do that because it seems to work really great for him, the salary grows, so do the lies and brown-nosing. The kid with only 2 months of programming and 2 years of 'architecture' moves into management positions by playing golf with the 'right' people. The others who work their asses of watch the kid zoom by them even though literally everyone knows how he is doing that, only management does not care, they like flattery and lies and backstubbing. Well, the kid is still there.
I would never want to work anywhere around such people but there seems to be an abundance of those.
You can't handle the truth.
Most of those scools were scams. My work paid for me to continue to stay on top of my certs. I would get stuck in these classrooms sometimes filled with truckdrivers, highschool dropouts, etc, all sold on the idea of getting rich quick with an mcse. Some didnt even have a home computer!!! But for $7,000 they could get a job making $70,000. Dumb people may deserve to lose their money, but these scamming training places also deserve to go bankrupt.
These firms are run by people that have already made thier money, at significant taxpayer expense, and are now looking for another path to mooch of the corporate welfare system. The actual closing of the schools is insignificant, as the damage is already done.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
there was class action suite against CDI here in Canada, where I went to school. Those suckers deserve it to. $14000 for a waste of a year.
Now, it seems all these schools have produced are unemployed people with student loans and dubious certifications. --- Who spend all their free time posting on /.
..."Learn to Drive Eighteen-Wheelers!" commercials on radio and daytime TV soon. And I say, thank God.
Some of the "Become a highly-paid MCSE!" commercials I've heard lately expressly mention that "no computer experience is necessary." It makes me shudder to think that some people may actually believe they can go from having zero computer experience to being an MCSE pulling down $80K in the time it takes to complete some boot camp.
Furthermore, if someone in this day and age has no computer experience, then they're clearly not interested in technology-- and IME, technology is not something you can be good at working with if it doesn't really interest you.
~Philly
Just last week I had to purchase a new computer case, because I essentially disabled the old, HUGE tower case that came with my Pentium 90. A quick jaunt on the web revealed that my local CompUSA had some OK cases for about $30. I walk in, and ask one of the only two sales people around where their computer cases were. I get a blank stare and a question, "Cases? What do you mean?". Someone working with her asked me, "Oh, do you mean like the chassis?" I think, "yeah, if that's what gets me the case I'm looking for."
After finding the case, during checkout the checker couldn't get the radio tag disabled for the alarm at the door. She called the doorman over, and he took the case, ran it through another of those "disabling" thingies, and told me all was well. I was on my way.
My friend goes to the same store a day later and asked a question about heat sinks. He got blank stares from four different people until finally, their "tech guy" (the guy in the white lab coat) knew what he was talking about- but still couldn't answer his question. As he walked out the door, he struck up a conversation with the doorman about the fan that he'd purchased. Turns out, the guy at the door probably knew far more about this stuff than anyone on the floor. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if the people on the floor were the ones with the certificates (or just an ability to BS real well) while the guy at the door just had a passion for the technology. Talk about a complete HR screwup.
My local unemployment office offered to send me to tech school. I went through twelve-weeks of "Online Sex and Pornography Engineering" (OSPE) certification, consisting of six-weeks of web training and six-weeks of sex ed (BTW - if you do this and a dude asks you to study with him, DON'T! 'nuff said). It only cost the taxpayers $26,000 and I got to keep my student-edition lube/body fluid-proof laptop at the end - plus, *I* graduated Summa Cum Solo. Still looking for work but I do not feel stressed anymore - not at all.
Most of these certifications are useless in the real world. In most cases, if you can write a check, you can get a certification. I have a friend who got strait A's with honors at Heald College. When he graduated, not only was he unable to find a job, but he got fired from an unpaid internship. All his "training" as a computer tech was completely useless. He fried, not one, but two motherboards during his first attempt to build a computer after graduating.
Maybe I should open my own school in my garage and print certifications out on my bubblejet.
I know plenty of idiots..err. MCSEs.
No, my boss was the blind guy who prefered not to see all of this, but he was ok (I don't work there anymore, partially due to people like that kid.)
You can't handle the truth.
I don't plan on trying to get certified - like I need more crap to do, but I would love to know if I can take down a MCE and make him cry, beyond emailing him a bitmap.
When I owned a large web development firm I was approached by a number of schools/institutes about guest lecturing (which was their way getting in the door to pitch hiring their students).
I agreed to talk at one course just to check out the quality of the students. SCARY!
What I wanted to say to them:
You have absolutely no skill, and have no hope of getting a job. This 'school' is just scamming you for cash. Ever wonder how you could pass the intro class with such shit work? Well if you didn't pass then you would be back to pay for another course.
Just so you know, I work for one. We do more than just hand out certifications at random (although they do do that as well).
We teach Dental Assitants, LPNs, Nursing Assistants, Fluid Power, Electronics, Automotive, etc, etc, etc.
The school I work for has been around since the early 70's and seems to be doing quite well. In fact, these students (LPNs, Electricians, and Fluid Power students especialy) make twice as much as I do with a two year degree from a "closing tech school" than I did from a major four-year university...
Wow... all these posts and nobody mentions the many fine public community colleges!
Quality of courses and instructors varies widely--and with open admissions, I suppose many students may lack aptitude. But you have reasonable tuition rates, stability, and accountability. Not to mention accreditation.
I just started teaching Visual Basic programming (yeah, I know, I know...) at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland. I feel a place like CCC is a pretty good alternative to for-profit private tech schools, although as a liberal-arts snob myself I am glad I attended a very competitive four-year private college.
As with anything else, there are good and bad community colleges. But I'm surprised nobody mentioned them as an option.
Well, Im currently over halfway done with the Multimedia Design 10-month course @ Chubb in downtown Chicago, and lemme tell ya, it's not what it was cracked up to be. Being a 10-year veteran of the IT indutry in the admin/HD supervisor areas, plus having my own business for a few years, Id found that the IT picture was pretty frigging crappy, and I decided it was time for achnage, expand my horizons/skills, etc. Some of the things wrong @ Chubb for starters:
1. They lay it on hard about how good the school is, and give you the entire rosy outlook syndrome. This is to be expected to an extent, and they DO have over 30 years of experience behind them, albeit quite a bit is more in the medical field. However, all the goodness they talk about is more talk than reality.
2. Originally, I had signed up for the course at their suburban Villa Park campus in IL which was supposed to start in late July. that was canceled due to lack of students. The rep I had then tried to push me into their Network Security course instead, which I did not wish to take. I had to fight and finally do the work on my own to find out if the downtown campus was offering the class and get my paperwork transferred there.
3. Teachers have been mostly a grab bag so far. In our first term, our IT Ethics teacher quit halfway through the course and our main instructor took over and we didnt do too much in that course from that point forward. Our second term, we had a transsexual (not that there is anything wrong with that) teaching our Technical Writing class (a subject I was very interested in) and he/she didnt "teach" the class at all. That is just the tip of the iceberg with this instructor, but I wont go further into details. Sad thing is, I learned nothing more about Tech Writing than before Id started that class.
4. They will get as many bodies into the school and hang on to them for as long as possible, no matter the grades a particular student receives, all in the name of the almighty dollar. The "entrance tests" are a freaking joke, and Ive even heard tell of ppl getting free passes on tests because they didnt feel comfortable in their success in passing them. If you fail a course, you get to "make it up" somehow the following term, or they will bump up your grade so you can pass.
5. Open book tests for the most part. Seriously, how are you supposed to actually gauge what has been learned if for the most part, you can just go look up the correct answer?
6. Staff/Adminstration in general. Ive heard about reps actually going to homeless shelters to sign up students. The previous school director (a truer snake oiler Ive never seen) promised everything and gave nothing. Our education director is leaving in two weeks for a better job. We've had three different financial aid people since we started in September and all but the last one really screwed students up (including myself).
7. Stupid courses. Here is the class outlay for my track: Mind you, we are also using Powerbooks for this course.
1st Term
*Web Concepts
*Art Concepts
*IT Ethics
*Comments: The concepts classes Ive no problem with. You need to start somewhere with a good foundation. The IT Ethics class was OK, but 50 hours on it? We would have been better off spending half the allotted time in Mac OSX training, instead of myself and the teacher taking care of student questions and how-tos.
2nd Term
*Adobe Photoshop
*Adobe Illustrator
*Technical Writing
*Comments: All of these were good clas choices, except for the aforementioned isue with the instructor not really teaching said class.
3rd Term
*Flash
*HTML/Dreamweaver
*Project Management
*Comments: No qualms here so far.
4th Term
*Quark
*Career Planning/Resume Writing
*Director
*Comments: As someone already mentioned, 50 hours of career planning? Give me a break!
8. Students. Given the gamut you will run in terms of knowledge/quality of the student base, you know you will be starting from a "clean slate"
"Certificates", on the other hand, are largely crap that serve only to identify people who do broad/shallow test-taking well and can afford to pay the fees. "Certified" people may or may not also be competent, but the certificate tells me little about their skills.
Crispin
"Not only that, to the truly outstanding techies a "certification" is a badge of downright dishonor."
Dishonor until they get the boot from their job. Time and time again we see 'ask slashdot' questions to the effect of; "I'm losing my job to outsourcing. What do I do now?". I'd like a real answer for this from all the people slagging certs.
I work as a low level admin making what most decent techs would consider an insult. All I have behind me today is 6 years of experience with one company. If we'd go belly up tomorrow I doubt I'd be able to find a job any better than any of these "MCSE millhouse" graduates. Now laugh at the tech school graduate but my options are either certifications (which are fast, cheap and normally easy) or going to a college and hope to squeeze out an associates degree in 3 years part time so I can also maintain my 50 hour a week job.
Laugh all you want but certs are pretty appealing. I can do it on my own time and walk away with something that says I know a bit of something. My other alternative would be to show up on an employers doorstep and beg to get any kind of job to prove myself, which would leave me where I'm at now. As for all of you who are saying you'd rather hire a real geek with some experience... remember me, I'm sure one day my number will be up and I'll be asking for a job. Until then don't overlook people who really can't afford 4 years of college.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
So some may transition. the cs programs were a travesty imho... I went through a university CS program (30 hours of coursework) on top of my other degrees (non technical english/gender studies) and got a job doing developer tech support on proprietary software. Got out of that after I realized that a good portion of the engineers were idiots (this was 2001)-- I was dealing with small and large consulting companies. A lot of the people coming out of any CS programs and in the work force didnt seem that bright or that dedicated to doing a good job. My next job for two years involved programming customization->application dev->product dev. All in all, the people that did a good job were worth the money...some of them had MAs and PhDs...few quality people didn't...there was only one very good engineer that was self taught, and he did our JSF-like implementation. I'm an average to above average developer, not a superstar, but I recognize quality, and all in all, I think the majority of CS programs and the little certificate programs produced a labor force that just wasnt well educated or well prepared. And mgmt of software development and engagements seemed just as questionable. very little quality control and very little preparation for the real business world/processes hurt confidence in software development and investment on both the mgmt and engineering side. Anyway, im rambling, but while there certainly was a lot of money involved in choosing to outsource, I must say that one of the big problems in the US was the cost + the lack of quality. and these schools certainly didnt help on the quality side.
All your preview button are belong to Hello Kitty.
I earned my tech stripes supporting windows 95, and got a computer and networking AA by the middle of 99 (This included an MCSE and A+) My practical tech experience got me more than the schooling, but I was one of the sharper tools in the technical shed, compared to both schoolmates and coworkers. Still, with years of tech support, QA testing, and practical networking support (NT/2000, Unix, and 9x support, I still have a hell of a time getting interviews for a work-a-day job. I get a fair amount of freelance work, mainly because I am a damn good tech that gets the job done for my customers. Over 2/3 the people I worked with on tech support can't do what I can. I am supporting the folks that need a good tech but can't afford a full time tech. I would love to find a job doing support, but I have a low curry tolerance. I know personally that over 50 people I know lost their jobs to India. I will not buy any Netgear hardware due to their moving tech support to india. That and living in Oregon, the worst state for unemployment in the country, it's a small wonder I can find work to keep busy at all. 4 years ago, it was not like this at all. The only chance for real money is to upgrade, and specialize. I have gone to small business apps, and audio processing software/hardware.
"There's no problem that the proper application of high explosives can't solve" Cpl Miller www.mindlayer.com
Hey, has anyone out there had luck getting a good job after getting a degree at ACCIS (American College of Computer and Information Science?) That is, a good job doing computer work, and not working in a meth lab? Their courses look good, and the cost seems reasonable, but I'd like to know if making a "will work for food" sign is a better career move.
Those of us who teach ourselves will rule again!!
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Tassach (137772) wrote : "There are some good tech schools and some bad ones. I went through AF programmer tech school in '89, and it was, IMHO, pretty much a waste of time. IIRC the 12 week course consisted of: 2 weeks intro to basic computing concepts (basically the OSI network model), 3 weeks of pseudocode, 4 weeks of Cobol, 2 weeks of assembly, and 1 week of ADA. As far as I can tell, the purpose of this "training" was to weed out the people who couldn't understand the basics like looping and control structures. My real training happened once I got to my permanent duty station, where I was fortunate enough to work with some *brilliant* people who taught me how to develop good software. (Thanks Capt. Block!) "
So, where are the bad and where are the good schools? anyone?
I have a few of these certs because my boss wanted our department to get them for the marketing value. Now a few years later the company has to fork over more money and we have to waste time retaking tests because our certs are about to expire!? What did I unlearn that stuff or something? I am glad my degrees don't expire and force me to go back to college.
On a second note, whats up with this testing method where people can use braindumps, troytech, and the like to get the questions? How 'bout following a real educational model like the ACT or SAT where tests are given periodically through the year and old test are published with answers for student review. The answer is this is just a money making game with no serious attempt at educational value.
I went to ITT tech... I feel like I'm finaly in control of my life, and my paren't couldn't be prouder.
Most training that I go to is paid for my my employer. A two or three day course costs $2,000.00 and more. This is simply out of reach for most people.
Then if you consider that technology changes so quickly that this investment is depreciates significantly in just a few years it becomes obvious why providing this kind of training is a risky business. Too few students.
I don't know what the cost is to provide the training but it isn't cheap. They provide the building, computers, and software and all of the Mountain Dew you can drink.
This is another area where Linux may be cheaper if they don't have to spend an arm and leg for licenses. Although the Linux courses seem to be every bit as pricey right now.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
You're not freakin' kidding. Far too many people "get into computers" because they heard you can supposedly make a ton of money in it. A couple of examples for you--
I had a Intro to C++ professor who had horrendous handwriting, so what he wrote kinda looked like the following:
ofstream din;
din.open("ci\\data\\datafile.dat");
So of course, someone who shouldn't have been in the class raised his hand and asked, "Is that an "i" after the "c"?
It was all I could do not to turn around and scream "Hello!!! Have you never seen a command prompt before in your life? Is there any way it be an "i"? It's a colon . There's no way it could be anything but a colon. You need to drop the class."
Later, when we learned about user defined functions, here's what was on the board(more or less):
int myFunction(int x){
x +=5;
return x;
}
So (I'm pretty sure it was the same guy) raised his hand and asked, "Is this a void?" Hello!!! Is "void" spelled "int"? Do void functions return a value? AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!
It's kind of embarassing to confess to this, but I attended one of those technical colleges for a few weeks before I got sick with mononucleosis and had to drop after the first class finished. Sure, it set me back financially when I had to repay part of the student loans I had gotten (thankfully they were federal loans because the school was accredited), but I'm glad it happened. That, of course, was back before the whole dot com bubble burst, and had I stayed there, I most likely would have trouble finding a job today.
Instead, I'm about to graduate from a real college with two non-related degrees. I recently landed a job doing web design and system administration precisely because I have some real world experience with PHP and MYSQL. That, and I've been practically living on the computer since my family got a PC Jr. many years ago. Oh, the days of hacking my Bard's Tale character stats with a hex editor!
Anyway, the point I want to bring up here is this: I was up against graduates of that same technical school and my employer isn't impressed with them. Why? All their resumes look the same, they have no real-world experience, and almost without exception, the reason why they went to that school to get a computer "degree" was because they heard you could make a good living doing it.
Bottom line, there are decent-paying tech jobs for those who have it in their blood and know what they are doing. Also, because the stupid US government projected such unrealistic salary and job growth in the field that the market is saturated with idiots (and "schools" for them) whose credentials suck and are only in it for the money.
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
Yes, I taught a class last semester at UNOmaha. Tuition and fees for the three hour class were around $600 I think for local Nebraska residents.
Recommend the PHP Cookbook from O'Reilly as a good text. It has more hands-on recipes than theory, which is what you'll want when learning PHP. Left all of the slides up in pdf format, so have at it!
http://www.phpconsulting.com/training.php
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
...that there was an advertisement for the Univerisity of Pheonix in an article talking about crappy tech schools?
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
They are nothing but a money making mill. You get the occasional good teacher and the rest are total retard who read directly from a technical book. Even the decent teachers can't help if they are forced to teach the wrong way. It's basically a haven for burnt out IT people to go lounge and bullshit. I went there as well in the mid 1990's. What a joke. Their Network Engineer and Data Communications degree consisted of learning outdated OS's like Netware 3.12. These people were actually teaching how to fdisk and install Dos the first TWO weeks. This was pre Win2k mind you but still we barely got any NT 4.0. It was months and months of installing old Irrelevant OS's. I never studied once for a test and had like a 95% average. Even worse they'd let people into the course who couldn't operate a basic desktop PC. By the end of the course they were out of $10,000 and STILL didn't understand Fdisk and installing DOS. The teachers of course just pushed them right along. What you think they're going to refuse people and not take their money?
Your spot on about Job placement as well. Ie, your better off at monster.com. Also the required resume building classes are the kind of thing you learn in High School for Pete's sake.
To boot it costs like 10 grand like I mentioned. What a monumental waste of money that school was. Maybe its improved since then. Maybe they finally have qualified staff teaching things you'll actually need to know. In my first two weeks as real jr. network admin I learned more than I did in 4 months at that craphole.
Sorry to rant so much but Chubb Institute was a real waste of my time and money. If your considering going there make sure and talk to people who graduated at least 6 months ago from Chubb. If you talk to someone who just finished Chubb or is still going there they might still be delusional enough to think that they actually learned something, are sure to find a job, and lastly and worst of all are actually now qualified for real work.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
With all these places going bust will all their equipment end up on Ebay? This may be a good time to start looking for some new toys.
The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison
Oh yeah, I never use either test strategy to evaluate simple recall. Too many people get through simply by memorizing. I always try to have students demonstrate how much they have actually learned. This means applying to new situations. I have failed students that have simply passed in "old" work that we covered in class because they could not apply it. Now who wants to enroll...?
Everyone point at stare at the sucker [ME]...i did one of these tech schools... A.S. Degree in 18 months... then as if that wasn't bad enough, I turned around and did a second A.S. by adding another 6 months of classes...
/sigh gonna go make out a check to pay this months student loan payment now...
Despite all my certs and the fact that I actually know what I am doing, the job market isn't responding so well.
So i'm stuck in a help-desk position for the last 3 years now...
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
in 1978 (totally NOT .COM) my mother landed a job on Wallstreet. Big deal right? well, concidering that she was a romance language major at Princeton, she ended up getting a job for Niciminh (spelling) because she could type. yes. that's right, type.
what is the point of this story? Well, a 4-year degree from an IV League (while often said Ivy league, it actually referes to the fact their football teams play together. usually poorly). She was hired as an administrative assistant to the executive VP and ended up in highlevel managment her self securing international deals in Tunisia because she could speak french.
My point is that just because you get a degree in one thing doesn't mean you'll use it. You might as well get the broad education but pick up some skills on the fly. You can work the system better from the inside.
Personally, I skiped being a 3rd-generation legacy at Princeton (ick) to go to a small liberal arts school near Richmond, VA (about an hour away from home). I quit after this last term. I tried to get a job, but couldn't.
I just got a job today by using personal networking and luck. I am also ending up at ECPI for getting a business degree. I'll get a few tech certs for no apparant reason. I know they are useless. My GF still has 2 years in uni. I'll likely take some economics classes at W&M or CNU after my time at ECPI is over.
My goal is to move back to Ireland and become Finance Minister under a Fine Gael government. A far cry from programming. hell, i quit a cool job for the DOE to go be an english major and now look where I am.
the point is that boxing yourself in by being a "tech" is a bad idea. be everything and anything. I'll be 20 in a stone's throw. I'm running out of time to get my act together. I've learned my lesson before it's even over.
Being out of work, I am very tempted to start isolating these morons, and sending off some mail to their company explaining how they have a moron working for them (and I would be a better choice). Hmm.. I have some time on my hands right now...
I've been reading this entire thread, and while the subject of bad tech schools IS a problem, it is not the entire problem.
Even a bad tech school can turn out a good graduate. What makes a good graduate is their commitment and their continuing research and interest in their areas of study (and exploring peripheral related subjects that they are not taught).
The education doesn't end at graduation.
If a student thinks he can make big bucks by attending a few classes and getting by on just passable grades and be done with it (companies will be knocking themselves over to hire them-- ha!) then that student is due for a very painful reality check. Commitment to exploring an ever-changing technology, and a real love of the subject will eventually show (and show UP as 'experience' on the resume) and then the investment in the students education will pay off.
Gamer-only experience applicants need not apply.
So go ahead and mod me down as 'preachy'. The best techies ARE self taught; the tech schools just help them on their way. It is the truth. Deal with it.
Every person I know with a cisco certification is a god with the switches and can't do much else. It's the same for every M$ cert I know. They fumble with unix boxes. Even when asked to perform other tasks, they are just too narrowly locked-in.
Versus the college students and seasoned veterans I have seen, they seem to be much more mobile jumping topics to topics.
This is just my observation having been in and out of multiple companies now. It seems real consistent considering I am not do any official surveys or anything.
see subject line.
Go here, click this, check that box, reboot, login, open "My Computer", delete this file, reboot, go start menu-->programs-->start server. Now you're certified.
Never mind that you don't know what you did.
What a lot of geeks don't understand is that the tech economy as a whole has matured. Remember in school when you learned how to create an optimization tree for the first time and wondered why you had to sit through that crap?
Well, what makes you think that someone is going to pay you to rewrite software that has already been packaged in a neat little box in each flavor of the business world?
Suppose I create a portal intranet to tie in my HR and financials. I now have at my fingertips the ability to pull up an employee's file, view their performance history, view my budget, and give them a raise. Suddenly, the spares in the HR and Accounting departments aren't needed anymore. If I buy this functionality from a vendor, then I don't even need a full time IT staff. I can hire a consultant to install and configure the software for me and a kid off the street to support it.
The tech economy isn't about tech anymore. It's about applying utilizing technology to streamline business practices. Streamlining business practices is also about cutting costs, which means cutting dead weight, which means cutting techies and a bunch of other people loose.
Certifications are useless in most instances. The exceptions are (1) when the HR department screens resumes, (2) when you have two people with equivalent accomplishments and experience except the certs, and (3)when you're a fresh college grad who is certified in something that takes a lot of work to get.
I wouldn't hire a consultant to be a project manager if all he's done is post production support no matter how many project management certifications he holds. Certification means that you have knowledge, not that you can apply it.
I've been annoyed by certs for years. I recall my last position, IT Director of a defense contractor.
.... shit I have no excuse. Ohh well.
A few resume buffs included:
9 years on the job experience, in senior management.
Master's in CS from the U of A, GPA 3.76 (too much beer?)
Primary languages: C/C++, VB (ick), Java, Cobol, ASM, Perl (LOVE Perl! *smooch*)... and, of course, every geek knows HTML/DHTML, JavaSCRIPT, Basic (ehhh), and a multitude of worthless languages that you learned because
4 total MRP/ERP conversions, blah blah. An impressive resume for the area I lived in, to say the least.
During my interview, they (CEO and COO) asked if I was MCSE certified. I flat out laughed. At the time I thought it would cost me the job. Though, it eventually came out that the CEO was MCSE certified.
To say the CEO was computer illiterate would be the understatement of the year. Yet, this man was MCSE certified -- I'm not specifically sure, even now, why he asked if I was.
Though, I would also like to point out that what we see today as certifications are _NOT_ what certifications were 15 years ago.
Microsoft (or so I primarily attribute) is greatly responsible for the influx of worthless certs in my opinion.
I suspect MS's intention was to flood the job market with "Windows only" workers - who only knew how to resolve the problems with Windows that Microsoft wanted them to. An example, is again, the MCSE - where you learn mostly how to resolve/workaround/[rarely]fix "_KNOWN_" problems with various versions of Windows.
Years and years ago, there were no Computer Science degree's available from any college - you went to tech school and got certified for the various skills that you felt would help advance your career.
An example would be my Father, whom has dozens of certifications related to technology -- all of which were not available at any college during his time. He, instead, obtained a degree in Physics.
On his way to N.A.S.A, the program was cancelled -- and so he sought to continue his way through technology. To do that, he could only get certified.
He then spent the next 30 years of his life working on Mainframes -- technology and information now in short demand - even in the IT field. And when they are available - companies want someone with a degree in CS -- something that was not available in his time. He has been out of work longer then any of you could imagine. 100% of the jobs he has applied for have been filled by H1-B visa workers from India. He started tracking them about 3 years ago - to see who was getting the jobs.
Though, I must admit -- he deserves no pitty. He makes roughly 8 times more then I, simply as an investor. He says he wants to work for the 'sense of accomplishment and comradory' that he once had. Some of the things he had done for IT in general are fascinating to hear about.
His fatal flaw, though, is he just doesn't 'get' personal computing. In his world -- there is no such thing as graphics. Something I can understand, greadly, as I feel that any GUI confuses a simple world. To work through the command line is a beautiful thing. It's a shame so many distort that by using a GUI in situations where it shouldn't.
Okay, just ranting here I suppose.
Regardless, certs now deserve to be recognized as trash. Most of them are. It's a shame, too. I think this was largely inflicted by the influx of morons armed with Microsoft certifications that are as ignorant to the inner-workings of the technology they supported as the users who sought them for advice and service. A far cry from what things were many years ago -- and certainly something that should be exposed for what it truly is.
Interesting points.
My career isn't over yet, so who knows, but I may be a corrolary argument. I think having your eyes opened from a good diverse university experience can prepare you for business, even if your path was CS.
I've got a CS degree.
I've been in the field for approximately 8 years. I've worked up to management level, but am still in a technical role - primarily acting as a generalist, helping develop corporate IT strategies and providing coordination and communication both to director-level management above me and technologists below me.
Until a few years ago I looked at things much the way you describe - focused on the mechanics of software creation. Don't get me wrong - there's a huge share of business-focused people whose idea of work is 5 hours of talking about their kids, 30 minutes of coffee breaks, an hour of lunch, and 90 minutes of focused work. However, if you find some good development or corporate leaders, they demonstrate quite quickly how naive it is to be focused on the mechanics of software creation.
There's a heck of a lot more to focus on and weight appropriately if you want to successfully run a business. Managing to a P&L or the amount of dynamics an organization can cope with is significantly harder than choosing among several technical alternatives to find the one with the most merit - in a lot of cases that choice with the most merit may be impossible for the business to take on.
A part of me will always crave the "look back and see how much grass you've cut" qualitative nature of software creation, but there are significantly more challenging problems in leading IT, and they often require more in the way of personal devotion to achieve a solution.
You forgot to include "certified", "engineer", and "customer-driven". Other than that, good work!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
You have Unix-ish stuff in Omaha? Nice. I recently moved to Norfolk, NE, and I'm fairly sure I'm the only professional Unix admin in the city. :-/
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Are those that cross fields, venturing into new areas. Since you mentioned Linguistics and Comptuers, and those are two of the areas I'm studing I figured I'd chime in:
Right now there is quite a bit of research being done on computers and language. We want to make them speak it, listen to it, but above all, to understand it. This is a difficult problem, more difficult than most people think. I'll ignore the speaking and hearing part and just talk about the understanding:
To understand a language, a computer must not just have a bunch of symbols in memory that make up the words, it needs to be able to perform operations on those such as to derive what it meant. Well that invloved three fields right there, CS, linguistics and philsohpy. The CS of course is the actual implementation of the algorithms. But what algorithms to implement?
Well that's where linguistics come in. You need to analyze natural language and figure out how it actually works. Try and write rules that dictate what is and is not a correct utterence, how different parts of speech are usedm etc. Also you need to produce a database of words, meanings, parts of speech and so on. A lot of this has been done.
So what about the philosophy? Well the thing is, current popular linguistic theory doesn't work right for language as humans use it. It describes literal, direct speech only. Well humans aren't like that, most of our meanings are at least aprtially context dependant and not entirely direct and literal. So language philosophers are working on trying to develop empirically testable theories for how humans actually communicate, and how the process the different kinds of communication with ease. The field is called Pragmatics.
But this adds yet another part to the study. It's all well and good that we come up with a nice theory that everything fits in, but does that have anything to do with reality? Do humans ACTUALLY process language in such a way and does it really adiquately describe communications? So we turn to psychological tests to try and verify or falsify theories of language. Only through emperical testing of actual humans can we figure out how this works.
Those theories then need to be studied in the context of the actual spoken language and have rules developed, and those rules then need to be implemented as algorithms in a computer.
And that's just the beginning.
Thing is, this ISN'T an insignificant field. All the big computer companies like MS and IBM would LOVE to be able to produce a computer that people could speak to naturally and it would do what they wanted. Then there are people like the NSA that are highly interested in have a computer that can analyze the content of intercepted communication and do a real good translation and breakdown of it.
It's a field where there is quite a bit of money to be made, and a whole lot of work that needs to be done. However, what it really needs is people that aren't just one trick dogs, that have studied some in ALL of those fields (and others) to be able to work on designing and coordinating experiements and statical analysis of language to try and actually get a working system off the ground. Not just someone who knows code and nothing but code.
As a side note, I'm not studying this to go in it, just because I think it's a neat interdiciplinary degree to get. I'm a computer support guy by profession.
I guess depends on the area of study. Going to
Yale or Harvard may be a good thing if you intend
to do law and/or go to politics. Business schools
like Warton (sp?) help your resume too. OTOH in
my field (physics) going Ivy is only justified if
the guy you want to work for as a grad student is
working there. Basically, in areas where social
networking is everything a top school with leading
profs matters, but as soon as skill or ability
matters then choosing a school becomes more akin to
choosing a reference book.
I'm totally in agreement about these tech school wasting people's time and money with overblown promises about "high paying computer jobs with your certification!". But equally as bad, IMHO, are the tendencies towards hiring candidates based primarily on past "military service". Not that I'm "military bashing", because there are plenty of good reasons someone might want to join up.... but I've also personally witnessed my share of I.T. workers who could "talk the talk" but not "walk the walk" at all, and the only obvious reason they were hired to begin with was their claim of "having previous computer experience in the military".
These same individuals were typically able to out-earn the salaries of their peers (who generally did a better job!), either through raises or by job hopping, despite showing little interest in taking their I.T. career more seriously.
I'm not convinced that military education in any technical field lends itself that well to skills in the private sector. Unfortunately, the "buddy buddy" system is a powerful thing, and management that served in the military is pretty likely to prefer candidates with a similar background. Furthermore, the military generally turns out folks who speak well, dress neatly when they need to, and can generally "ass kiss" at a top-notch level. So I'm thinking that if you want a good paying I.T. job without really putting in the years of real experience, some military service trumps industry certs.!
When I went to Cal Poly, the snotty people from Harvey Mudd and Caltech were saying the same thing about Cal Poly -- that "state university" people weren't smart enough to be genuine engineers, so they shouldn't give out real engineering degrees at state universities! Cal Poly graduates were only supposed to be capable of assembly line drudgery at aerospace firms, or technical sales jobs -- the "Indian programmers" of their day! "Real" engineering was done by people from Caltech or MIT.
But then getting into the best schools got a lot harder. People started to think better of state school grads, and looking down on technical schools like DeVry. But lo and behold, DeVry now offers 4 year engineering degrees, and is fully accredited. What is this world coming to?
I know an airplane mechanic who started tech school with the same idea. About half-way through he switched to nursing. I'm not sure what scares me more: That he was working on airplanes or that he will be working on people with basically the same skill set. That would be f'ing great if you went to the hospital and needed a new set of turbine blades installed.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
"I have been working on computers/electronics/ etc since the mid-80's; when the dot-com bubble was bursting,"
you mean of course, when it had just started really bubbling...
-pyrrho
Generally, people with the aptitude and attitude to be successful in IT don't choose tech schools -- they choose a university with a genuine 4-year technical degree, or they get a computer and teach themselves real programming (not HTML creation with Frontpage). The tech schools then get left mostly with people who could do neither.
Of course, the weak curricula doesn't help them either. But it's the quality of the people they attract that is the deciding factor.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
I attended High Tech Institute for a third of a complete session to obtain one of their 'Associate of Arts Certificates' and ended up leaving the school after speaking with their Dean.
When I was attending, I ended up teaching half of the people in the class instead of learning anything useful, and when I got to the Novell course, I was severely dismayed.
The Teacher was not even CERTIFIED in Novell, in fact, he admitted to not having touched Novell much before he started teaching the course. The school claimed to be a Novell certified school, but I doubt that counts as a certified teacher.
Halfway through the six week course the teacher finally came in saying "LOOK! I got my Novell Cert!"
I talked to the dean and found out some nice information that made me feel like a complete asshole for having bothered attending the school.
Graduates of the school with no extra certification were making 30,000$/year starting roughly, students with no certification and who have not graduated were making about 28,000$/year starting... people who DID NOT graduate from the school and simply had certifications they obtained on their own were making 33-35,000$/year starting wages... And people who both graduated from the school and had extra certification? they only made about 1-2,000$ a year more...
Sooooooooooooooo why would I want to keep going to that school and learn absolutely nothing interesting for only an extra 20,000$ of student loans? They weren't even going to cover Windows XP even though it had been out for well over a year at the time. I feel as though I was severely ripped off and I should not have to pay the loans back. The equipment they had at the school and the quality of their network was complete crap, especially for the amount of money that was being poured into the school. I found myself surrounded by highschool dropouts and old farts in their midlife crisis.
The idea of going to a tech school like this made more sense to me than going to a 4 year college for computers, considering the turnaround time of technology these days. By the time I would get out of the 4 year course of college my education would be useless and outdated.
So I gave up on computers as a career... Considering that the only things I've done with my entire life since age 5 were computers and music, it makes choosing a new career a bit challenging...
It's a fine and dandy thing these fucking used car dealership quality scams are finally shutting down their doors.
I'm sure that the Bryman Medical Institute is just as much of a quality school as High Tech Institute, as it's the same company.
I'm not the only one who had issues with the school. A friend of mine who was attending was almost finished with his Mechanical Drafting courses. They were about to cut the Mechanical Drafting courses from the school completely, and I believe his class was the last one. Instead of giving them a challenging final exam that utilized all of the skills of Mechanical drafting, they tossed the class into a standard drafting class and had them draw houses. My friends was no hack, he had experience in drafting before, and was _DAMN_ good at it. He finished his final in an hour because anyone and their mother can draw straight lines and make a house in a drafting program... Not everyone can draw a complete part-by-part remote control car design with intricate gears and such...
So... If anyone wants to join me with a huge pile of explosives, let's go driving around the country blowing up some shitty ass schools!
[)(]subliminal labs[)(]
I propose a new Shashdot rule:
You can't bash any Cert. or Degree until you've earned it. Otherwise it's just sour grapes. Let those who've taken the time and effort to improve themselves decide its value.
I know that we're about to be overwhelmed with claims that:
1.) Certs are useless.
2.) Tech schools are useless
3.) BS degrees are useless
4.) Experience is GOD (and you can't get any)
and we'll hear stories like:
1.) I knew an MCSE who couldn't find the power switch on my server.
2.) My friend graduated from a Tech school and earned his CCIE and he can't even read.
3.) I never graduated from elementary school and I'm the most productive employee in my company's IT department.
Well isn't that special (and meaningless)
There are good and bad everything. Schools and certs are no different (except that they are harder to outsource).
I do contend that now IS the time to get into IT. If schools are closing, and no one wants to go into Tech then we're on our way to an eventual shortage. Shortage equals Opportunity.
Why is this news?
This is to be expected after a well known bubble bursts. The bubble was projected to burst for several years before it did. Unluckily, while people lost money betting on companies with no real underlying value, other people lost money betting on an education from a poorly accreditated learning instution. Even someone with a well above average talent can get deeply screwed from this type of path.
Here is an idea, continue this thread by pointing out some great places to get an education that won't lead one wrong if one has the talent... help steer those who are trying to make a higher-education decision today!
Axigrav
I have an interesting view on things since I do computer support for a research university (University of Arizona). I'm full-time staff, but also have been taking classes and am about to get an undergrad degree not at all related to computers. My technical skills are all self and on the job learning. And I do have a couple certs.
I am wary of university degrees as well as certs because I see two big thing that happen with alarming frequency:
1) Assembly-line grads. These are people that go to school to get a job. Period. They generally do quite well in class and they totally devote themselves to school. But notice I say school, not their education. They learn what they need to learn to graduate. They do not learn how to think on their own, and do not learn what they are doing MEANS.
Like CS grads that don't undersand how microprocessors or operating systems work. So you can write code, great, but do you know what your code DOES? How does it get translated? What is it ACTUALLY causing the system to do?
These people I find become the stereotypical "code monkey". They can write code well, but lack the ability to solve unique or complex problems, or solve them with a hack if at all. They also tend to be bound to only languages they've learned, and can't pick up new ones quickly since they understand only the language, not the language as a means to program an imperitive device.
2) Ivory-tower, out-of-touch, academics. These are the people I support. It amazes me how clueless and out of touch some of these professors are. They know lots of theory but little application, and often are stumped because the tech world changes so fast. They also tend to get walled in and can think only about their narrow field, and can't apply their knowledge to anything, even if it is very similar and they should be able to understand it.
Now this certianly isn't ALL grads and professors, there are a great many quality ones, but this is MANY of them. There are plenty of people who's BS is just a bunch of BS. They have minimal real abilities.
So what does this have to do with certs? Well, they, like degrees, can be representitive or not representitive of someone's skills and knowledge. Ya, if someone has no practical experience and just crams a book to get a cert, you're going to get a person with a head full of useless facts that they can't apply to anything. However if someone who works doing something gets a cert, it is a confirmation of their knowledge, and also in the process probably helps them round it out.
My CCNA was quite valuable to me because it forced me to learn about IPX and some WAN technologies. I had plenty of experience with routing and switching on quite a large LAN, plenty with IOS and so on. However all I knew about WANs was the basic link types. I could tell you the bandwidth about a given link but little more. Of IPX, I knew even less. The CCNA forced me to learn how frame relay worked, how IPX was routed, and take the time to go and set some up in the process of learning. All in all, it made me round out network knowledge in ways I otherwise wouldn't have. CCNP study is now doing the same thing to a much greater degree.
So certs, like degrees, are what you make of them. If you take them as a confirmation of skills and a leaning experience, they will help you. You'll learn thing and you might not otherwise in your chosen field. If you just take them as a series of tests to be passed, you'll come out with little in the way of real knowledge or skills.
I think both certs and degrees are things to look for. They give you indications of areas that a person ought to be knowledgable and skilled in. For example if you are looking for a network guy, the Cisco certs are a good thing to watch for. Do the necessiarly mean they are good? No, but that is something you then test for both by looking at job experience and with questions.
My favourite way is to pick something they ought to REALLY understand, based on their alleged skill set and question
Neither is funnier -- The insanity humor of the one cancels out the pity humor of the other. :)
... and yes, the job outlook is bleak for us techies as far as I can see. Gone are the days my 90K+ (after bonuses) salary.
I think most people here are bitter and miss the point of the certification. I'm a grunt worker like you guys with 13 years of network management & engineering experience, no degree, and just got my certs a year ago when I was unemployed. The offers just rolled in after I got these certs. I think the lesson here is that certs help the management of the company that is doing the hiring make a decision in the hiring process. For example, let's say company A has an IT director who needs to fill a system admin position. However, the IT director must tell the HR director the qualifications of the position. The busy IT director will quickly give some specific responsibilities of the position and will also state it would be nice if the applicant was "MCSE Certified". Fair? Maybe not. Reality? You betcha - happens every few seconds.
i guess this would depend on who you know and who you blow :)
But, screw FP and learn php & mysql. Anyone with C programming experience should pick it easily.
I just read through the entire length of responses. I'm wondering what it really takes to be a "techie". Yes, I have a love for computers and I am currently a junior undergrad attempting to receive a CS degree. I love architechture and "building" my own computers (if that means buying parts and a case and screwing it together). But then again, is the fact that I'm here trying to "learn" what it takes to become a techie nullify any chance I truly have. Is a techie someone that doesn't need to "learn" how to become a techie, but just has it in their blood? My brother is a sysadmin for lockheed martin and I guess I've always looked up to him. He loved computers since he was 13 and never had to "worry" about becoming a true techie, he always had it in him. I, on the other hand, always feel inferior to him and therefore sometimes doubt my abilities and end up asking him for help on issues. Is this an inextricable condition that I will always hold inside of me, disabling me from becoming the true "fearless" techie that I wish to be. I am anxious to hear thoughts from some of you. Thanks.
I think your just trolling looking for high scores myself.
Business is politics! This is especially true the higher you climb up the career ladder. Professionals will run into it and others higher up will face even greater problems. Executives, for instance, are almost always hired due to some political factor. Corporations will pass this off as "interpersonal skills" but it is nothing more than 'keeping your mouth shut and not criticizing your superiors'. There is nothing worse than criticizing someone higher up, even if your argument is technically sound.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
I have over $500 a month debt service on $120,000 worth of law school debt alone. Good luck trying to find a job as a lawyer nowadays.
Had you found a job as a lawyer, you would have been able to repay this debt with ease. Do you expect us to weep over your greed-motivated yet evidently poor career decision?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Taco bell sometimes, walmart no... I don't understand what your point is.
I think you're assuming that he took a path in law to get rich. Perhaps he wanted to help the poor? Or the sick? Or the elderly? Or abused children? BTW, I do agree with your signature. There's just too much Indian bashing going on here. It's petty, ignorant, and uneducated. But then again, what can you expect from a bunch of people with no college degrees.
Try miltary tech schools, especially Air Force and Navy schools. There is no faking it when your ass could get seriously dead from not knowing what your doing. My employer looks for military experience on every resume. Military tech training is hands down the best around, because it combines book knowledge with practical experience. And a couple of years actually doing the job real world for peanuts. Ex-mlitary people also have more discipline then civvies and understanding paperwork bullshit better. Hire former enlisted, is a corporate motto. Civilian tech schools are worthless. College teaches engineering and how to build the next one, but frankly college boys are lousy technicians. Engineers are the worst, they all want to redesign the damn thing and not fix it. Military tech schools are the only ones worth having.
Mostly I am just so glad to read so many comments that stick true to my heart. I go to a small community college, Mott College, in Flint, Michigan. This is the worst program that I can imagine for a networking degree. Course work includes an 8 week "Intro to Unix" that is mostly the ED editor. The accounting department requires the only Linux class, so half the class dosn't understand point and click in Windows, much less anything about Linux. This is real bad for thoes of us in the Networking progam that want to try to learn somthing. All my higher level classes are Windows based, and basically you follow along with a text book step by step to make things work. Some of the assignments are pretty lame, for example, do a trace route and write your results on the paper. While I am typing c:\tracert www.google.com > tracert.txt and cuting and pasting the results into the assignmet sheet (a Word doc that I was reading in Open Office) I see other students furiousally writing the results on a piece of paper.
I am currently in a Windows 2000 server class. The assignment now is to set up and configure a DHCP server. This is done in a lab. None of the students could get theirs to work properly. The teacher was like, "well its configured properly, I don't know why it dosn't work". When I did mine, and it didnt work, I looked at how the network was set up. The server and the client were connected to a hub that was connected to a switch that held the schools LAN. Of course it didn't work, there was already a working DHCP server on the LAN. Once I disconnected the hub from the switch my DHCP server fired right up. I added a USB/10-100 NIC to my server and connected that to the schools LAN. My server has Internet connectivity, but my client can not ping the 2nd NIC in the server. I've been trying for days to make this work, I guess I just don't know how to properly phrase my Google search. My NT 4 MCSE teacher is convinced that the schools firewall is the reason my client can not ping the 2nd NIC on my server. If anyone can help me I'd greatly appriciate it.
Jander@chartermi.net
Anyways, going through all this, one of the other students was doing somthing and I told him he had to change the seting in the BIOS. His response, "Whats a BIOS" I am thinking to myself, you are in an avanced networking class and you don't know what a BIOS is?
I have learned a lot in my classes, but not because of my classes. It is because I love what I am doing and I am willing to read and learn.
Sad, because I have spent 3 years and a lot of money earning this worthless Associates Degree.
Thank you for letting me vent.
He had passed the 4 (?) core exams for the win2k mcse. A jobs program had put him through a boot camp. When he got to me, I asked him to bring up the control panel.
Deer in headlights.
Ok. Hit the start button and go to control panel.
More bambi.
O.k....lower left corner. Left-click...
I am not making this up. It's possible the guy went into cranial vapor lock under pressure, but even in brainlock you should be able to find the control panel. Or at least the start button.
Nice guy, good attitude, might be some aptitude, but the thought that he was going to get hired as an admin somewhere after his internship was weird.
Whew! Good thing Mcflipper and Walmart cashier doesn't require training.
Empirical evidence suggests otherwise.
KFG
c:\somedirectory\subdirectory>
That's a command prompt. Notice that it includes the path. Notice that the character immediately following the "c" will always be a ":". Not to put too fine a line on it, if you've ever seen a command prompt, you know that it includes the path (unless you specifically tell it not to). Therefore, if my classmate had ever seen a command prompt, he would have realized there was no way it could be an "i". c:\> d:\> Always of the form driveletter colon backslash.
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
If you've put in your 10 years, it probably doesn't take much more than 3 days with a book to learn a new language.
It's all pretty much the same methods, just different expression.
paintball
Oh, those Indians. Well, I don't have a problem with them either. It's the greed-motivated executives who fuck over their loyal employees and ship all the call-center jobs overseas that I have a problem with - regardless of what tribe they belong to.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
And anyway, it's entirely plausible for there to be some sort of obscure filesystem where ci\data\datafile.dat is a valid address. He might have known about c:\foo\bar.ext but how could he know that he wouldn't find himself in a world where strange new paths would assault him.
Also, sometimes people amuse themselves by correcting teachers but would rather cover their ass by saying it in the form of a question.
Mr. Coward was refering to how DOS/Windows OSes are "severely retarded" for having drive letters.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
I worked at New Horizons selling MCSE's and CIW's, and everything else. The only people that learned anything already knew computers before they got there and just came to get some letters behind their name. They learned on their own. the only good teachers that I've seen were actually trained by Microsoft and only taught their courses. Otherwise, from what I've seen, the books will not teach you what you need without practical experience. We warned people about this.
I personally would never go to a Tech School like New Horizons. They will steal your money and you will not get the value for your education. I worked for them, I know what they are like. I competed against the others. They are all the same no matter what line of crap that they try to feed you.
My father teaches there and in the local community college. He tells that the community college is head and shoulders above UoP.
Also lame are ITT and some other similar institutions whose focus is on retraining. As someone who taught there noticed, the only thing they do relatively well is finding jobs to graduates using their contacts in the industry (it was said about 3 years ago).
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
I've had a few Russian History courses in not a very reputable college.
;-).
;-).
But it was in Russia
Seriously, I agree. You need to be not a CODER, but a HUMAN. This is to some extent my complaint against geeks who are obsessed with computers/games/TV.
There is much more to life, and I'm glad to have my interests "divercified" as far from computers, as to politics and nature, driving and writing, psychology and spirituality, martial arts and qigong, travel and women
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
"Uh, huh. And the "do it for the love" got into it because they heard you can make practically nothing in it."
I'm not into the industry because it makes any money...
Been using and enjoying learning about computers since the 5th grade...
Its not because theres big money in the field, but rather, this is the only thing I'M GOOD AT.
While its a travesty to see such conclusions as "product == useless people" being made, its also a pointed fact that education, as a science, is incomplete.
Due to its massive industrialization, the subject of systems of education is wraught with examples of abject failure.
The most important thing to remember is that the only person who ever learns anything is you. Everyone else teaches.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Like, for instance, FAT? It's just a relative path. Perfectly legal. Outside the Windows world, we God-fearing folk try to use them all the time, to keep things portable.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
I see WashU bantered about on Slashdot all the time. As my former Uni, I wonder how many people went there, and how they feel about the education they got.
The year that I applied, they were ranked third in the U.S. and dropped slightly the years I actually attended, but their ranking seems to have fallen to the mid-thirties.
Is engineering at WashU going down the tubes?
Put identity in the browser.
Oh wait... Did I mention I come from a broken home in the hood and my father used to beat me.
Ok, that's cool. All I was saying is that not everyone with an MCSE is worthless. Maybe some of them are, maybe even most of them are. But to not hire someone solely because they have an MCSE is ignorant. If you disagree, then just say so.
And yeah, maybe I misread you. Ok, sorry. What made you think that I was wanting sympathy though? I didn't say "Man, everything is so hard for me", or anything like that. I said, "Yeah, just don't be so harsh. I happen to be doing fine." So I don't understand where you're coming from I guess.
And the Mexican thing. It wasn't "apples & oranges", it was exactly what I said it was. Equally asinine to judge someone by the fact that they have a certificate, as it would be to judge them by their race. The MCSE's you've met might be jackasses, ok. But to judge them all that way is prejudice. Plain & simple.
I don't know. I think for the most part I agree with you really. I don't like people who think they know everything because they have some certs. I agree with that. I just don't like the elitist attitude. That's all.
A year ago, a customer asked us to come up with a concept for a high quality education project (in Asia). At that time I wrote these lines:
/. story. Maybe I should become an analyst.
"Having analyzed various offers for computer security related courses in
individual educational institutes, both state controlled and privately run,
we have come to the conclusion that the requirements for an education in
this field cannot be met by any of these institutes for a number of reasons.
Specifically, these institutes are prone to the following, grave
disadvantages:
They have to cover a wide range of course contents for competitive reasons and can rarely concentrate on specialized subjects
They do not have the personal connections to important experts in the field of computer security
They cannot keep up with the stormy pace of technical developments
They cannot afford to hire experts for budgetary reasons
They do not offer a comprehensive, long-term strategy for their courses
They cannot afford to act independent of industry affiliations and thus
have to reduce course contents to vendor specific knowledge transfer
They cannot afford to set up a technical environment specific to a course's needs
They do not assist students with additional staff to offer continuous assistance in their learning progress
As a result, students attending a generic educational institution with any
of these shortcomings will never be in a position to gain an in-depth view
into highly sophisticated and complex systems and will therefore only be of
limited use in a field that requires experts trained with motivation, skill
and in-depth knowledge."
I had a nice deja vu reading the
The local tech-schools have been pumping kids out like water for years.. even while the tech-job market has been drying up.. Just to collect more money.. They get their money before you graduate, they could care less what happens afterwards.
Personally, I think they are being irresponsible by telling these impressionable kids ' we will get you a job ', and should be liable to some extent for damages...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
THe example taken is a legitimate question of sombody that is clearly getting to grips with the vagueries of Solaris in particular and UNIX in general.
This person is not claimin he is a guru or that he is a super duper certified Batman.
If that is the best example you could come with, it clearly show things are not as you make them appear to be.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... for a Computer Scientist to be wasting time opening commodity hardware.
It is not like they are going to improve computational algorhitms by looking at some RAM chips.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I never opened my first computer until 2 years after graduating, just out of natural curiosity, but I could have lived happily ever after without doing so.
By then I had improved algorithms to search hughe databases with data stored on magnetic tape, been working in a research Institute building their infrastructure, connecting them to the Internet, and had installed and configured full datacentres all around my country with cutting edge technology.
Your worldview seems pretty narrow to me, a view in which is you don't waste time opening computers you are not worthy of doing real computing work.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
And what's wrong with shipping those jobs overseas? For some reason, people in America think people in other countries are second-class people. Those people have just as much right to be employed as you, no matter what country they reside in.
Which the sig-owner knows damned well. He's probably one of the people "in the club" who benefits from offshoring (for now) who know that if you complain about offshoring, it's easy to "shut you down" by saying "Racist!".
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
I will 2nd that... of course, I also managed to get a decent education before I dropped out due to lack of funding... :)
> What matters is that you show up to work on time and work for eight hours.
Let's have a poll here: how many people on this forum have an eight-hour work day? Anybody? Anybody at all?
"Real Education" comes from experience. You can't buy it (even from the hallowed halls of academia).
True Story:
I work for a big fat fortune 500 company. Every summer, we get interns from local colleges. Most of them have, or are finishing up master's degrees in IT or comp sci. Most of them are absolutely worthless (at least at first). A few of them will talk your ear off about compiler design or some interesting theory about parsers, etc. While this is all well and good for 'around the water cooler' conversations, when it comes to carrying out real tasks (ie. the mail server is throwing errors, go check it out) they don't know what to do.
Someone with ANY experience, or at least some technical training (like an MCSA or MCSE or whatever) would at least know where the event log is and be able to make an educated guess as to what's going on.
Then, of course, that is the whole point of internships, to get these folks the experience they need to actually be able to do something productive. (and it gives us first crack at offering them a job)
Someone with an MCSE and zero experience is no better (or worse) off than someone with a Master's and zero experience.
Maybe yes, but I wouldn't say that he is least harmful in management. He is least harmful when he is fired. That's all I can say. On the other hand as an architect he was very harmful, I wasn't on the same project with the guy, but I had to mitigate some of his design decision since the company would have lost over 80 grand a year on some of his dumb ass solutions. But I was too expensive to keep further :)
One more interesting thing, once a guy like that gets into power, he becomes even more dangerous because he starts bringing in people just like he, and it does not matter that these people are shit and cannot compete with the other possible hires for the same job, these shitty people have someone like that kid taking them in, and the management is also ok with it, what can they do, right? The kid seems to play the game so well.
One thing for sure: the problem IS the management, because they ARE that kid as well. I am so tired of stupidity but apparently intellect and ethics have little to nothing to do with survival skills, otherwise people like that would have been history by now.
You can't handle the truth.
Oh, really, you think so? In over 9 years of working in IT, you know what I have realized? Ignorance is bliss. They are literally everywhere. I worked on projects for over 10 different companies (no I did not move place to place every year, I was working in IT shops that did solutions.) This shit is happenning everywhere. It was very evident in any medium to large size companies, even in two small ones, it still was applicable. So many anecdotes I suppose.
You can't handle the truth.
Would it not be better to learn 'manager' skills than 'tech' skills, since no one fires a manager.
;)
You can just fire others and keep your self there.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Bullshit. It is, as you well know, quite possible to discuss the "problem" of outsourcing without having the discussion descend into a fest of Indian-bashing, yet that is rarely what happens on this site. Most of the posts on these topics are disgusting in their blatant xenophobia and racism.
No, it's called capitalism and it is motivated by profit. Suck it up buttercup. Don't like it? Vote for leaders who put people before the profit motive and enact some kind of social democracy.
Just keep in mind that in many locations, the use of the term "Engineer" when referring to one's self is regulated.
In the United States, for example, each state has certification known as "Professional Engineer". Generally, the requirements are:
1. A four year BS degree accredited by ABET as an engineering degree (NOT an ABET accredited CS program).
2. Passing a preliminary exam known as the "Fundamentals of Engineering" exam.
3. A variable amount of years working under an already licensed Professional Engineer. (depending on education level and the state itself)
4. Passing a final "Professional Engineer" exam.
If you call yourself an "Engineer" and are not licensed, you may be opening yourself up to certain liabilities.
For example, under Texas law (Title 6, subtitle A, Chapter 1001, Subchapter A):
1001.301
(b) A person may not, unless the person holds a license issued under this chapter, directly or indirectly use or cause to be used as a professional, business, or commercial identification, title, name, representation, claim, asset, or means of advantage or benefit any of, or a variation or abbreviation of, the following terms:
(1) "engineer";
(2) "professional engineer";
(3) "licensed engineer";
(4) "registered engineer";
(5) "registered professional engineer";
(6) "licensed professional engineer"; or
(7) "engineered."
It provides for penalties as well -- up to $3000 per day -- but that penalty is relatively small. The key is in the civil liability incurred in illegally advertising yourself as an "engineer" to your clientelle.
Various states have various laws regarding the use of the term "engineer", so your usage may or may not be legal. Just keep in mind that you're skating on thin ice ANY TIME you refer to yourself as ANY kind of engineer if you aren't a licensed public engineer in the USA.
Other countries generally have similar laws, ESPECIALLY if they British or former British colonies (UK, Canada, Australia, etc).
My story is an interesting one. Basically I have been using/breaking/fixing/learning and loving machines since I was 11. I took rudimentary computer logic classes at that age to(basic)(got thrown out for some reason or another...)Anyway, I was pretty much a fuk-up from 13 to 18 in regards to not taking school seriously(raves, skateboarding,girls,(ILLICIT_ACTIVITY_HERE),etc and not really learning or, rather, expanding my horizons academically. At 18, girlfriend gone, raves suck, still skating, life is bleek. Tried going to school for english, I did pretty well and decided to re-hash my interest in computers past Street Fighter 2. Start going to Katharine Gibbs School for programming. I got in with a GED I JUST GOT(gotta love me)and started classes. Turns out I LOVE PROGRAMMING and do pretty well(top 2 in my class) shit gets deeper... It came to the point(very quickly) that the work was watered down to suit the instructors lack of real teaching skill or initiative. There are at least 5-6 classes on the curriculum which I was made to buy books for and never took the course for. Teachers would not show up for class and randomly quit in between quarters(whoa)on some,"Yeah, well...do you guys know any SQL/JAVA/C++,etc.". Long story short. I was put in the position where I had to GO THE EXTRA MILE MYSELF because if you want to learn, you will. I studied C++ for 6 months before I even went to the class, any job I could(can) get even WORKING with a computer I will take. My resume probly sux, but I don't know many peeps who can physically install and configure a T1 line from start to finish and then do the SQL/ACCESS Admin thing all by themselves with an asshole boss clocking me... (but I still know those who can even do FAR more than that...;)If you love this isht, you will ALWAYS go far in some regard. I want to get paid to but somethings are more important than money/ or the next asshole boss/ to know how to learn is the most essential and priceless of the above mentioned.:D F**k EM ALL!
much better.
oops.
-pyrrho
I was wrong.
I apologize to all semicolins everywhere.
-pyrrho
why the hell would a MCSE need ot care what HTML or COBOL is?
I don't, all I want them to do is to maintain the Windows boxes, which is a task for which they are perfectly qualified and I am admittedly not.
There is truth to the impression of many MSCEs see operating systems as little more than product, and being uninterested in computing as anything other than a paycheck, but I can hardly blame them for that (even though this is what my comment was intended to illustrate).
I've been using Linux (and occasionally BSD) for seven years now, but do not work with it for a living (I am working to change that). If a MSCE cert is what gets someone into the field, then they've made the correct choice. However, it would be nice to see people who demonstrate actual interest in the subject landing a job once in a while, instead of the folk who have attended the correct indocternation program.
Read, L
Rather than get modded up for the implied opinion that I do not hold, I'd like to clarify my statement a bit.
I have met more MSCEs who know nothing about markup or programming languages, many more than I've met among *nix users.
And I do not consider the training they recieve in thier MSCE class to be "education". But it is training, and it is good training. These guys know more about configuring and maintaining Windows than I ever want to know. They are perfect for the job of installing and maintaining a Microsoft based network that depends on Microsoft-only software (plus BackupExec). Thier training is not intended to be education, it is intended to train them to pass the test, and to prepare them to service the products of a single company (plus BackupExec).
The majority of *nix technicians and users I meet, either have been education in computing, programming, and operating system design, or have given themselves that education through computer use and self directed education. There is a difference in the cultures that are propagated in the different communities. One is focused on loyalty to a certain product, the business end of selling product and services, and obedience to a centralized "official" authority, with all other considerations being secondary. The other is focused on operating system design, choosing from a wide variety of possible solutions, and the "authority" of "best practices" as determined by ad-hoc (self appointed) committee and responsible consensus.
In the United States, the business culture is much more familiar with the former of the two ideals, and is therefore more trusting of those who subscribe to it, even when the solutions it offers are inappropriate for the businesses requirements.
I do get upset when the consultants do not understand why the default filepermissions are inapropriate for a server that has a large number of inexpirienced users accessing the system. I do get upset when they do not understand why we would want to run AdAware on every machine, just as we do the anti-virus software. And I do get upset when they claim to not trust software that does not originate at one of a small group of companies that do not themselves have all that great a record for security or reliability.
But I do want these guys solving all but the most obvious Windows problems that arise.
But I also wish that we weren't using Windows on the network at work, and I do wish my employer would realize that there is nothing that we do there that does require windows and can't be done just as easily, more reliably, and with better security if we were using another OS.
Read, L
This is no Christmas Miracle. Cheap training to obtain easy, high-paying jobs has been a work fantasy forever. It used to be truck driving school. Frank Zappa said, "So I tore the cover off a book of matches..."
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
This whole thread is utterly futile. For one thing.. look at the scope of the test. The MSCE is designed, optimally, for people already working in the field. First -Go to any book store and pick up any book (I have a preference for Exam Cram) and it will tell you who the test is aimed for. You'll see that the optimum candidate is someone that has at least a couple of years of experience in the field. Next - there's the age old distinction between theory and application. I don't care who you are and in what field you practice.. if you're a psychologist or a surgeon that has had nothing but theory (book learning..etc) I'm not going to want you either in my head nor rooting round in my carcass. Ohm and by the by there IS a lot to be said about actually liking what your doing.. as a previous poster pointed out. Next - how much of this argument is really centered round the fact that jobs are being outsourced (which they are) and less to do with the adequacy of the certs. Let's face it all... the employers out there are getting pickier. Just having a cert wont cut it because it's only theory... not application .. not job experience. People out there are getting picker because there's simply less demand, so please leave all this elitistic "MSCE isn't worth anything" talk of of it. It's not very useful at all.
If you have another major (which is likely considering that you are reading this), try IP law - there are many firms in the DC area that hire IP lawyers. Of course, you have to be at the toward the head of your class to be hired, but that is true in any field.
My sister-in-law's ex-lawyer took a job with an Insurance firm - there is good (not great) paying work there.
Alternatively, consider working in the court systems in a place like Camden, NJ where I come from. The pay isn't great, but a house only costs $15,000.
I always tell my friends that if I had any real job skills I wouldn't be doing I.T. work, because it's all smoke and mirrors. Mildly amusing, but most get my point. Hell, I really do it because I like it and I'm good at it. Now, where's that big-ass fat paycheck I'm supposed to get?
I went to a private college during the dotcom boom. The boom ended just before I graduated so I missed out on it. As I was saying, the school I went to I found great. It was a different approach in that you were assigned readings and you'd practise that with your own installation of the OS you were on at the time. If you didnt understand something, then you would go ask your instructor about it. This required a certain amount of discipline of course but nonetheless it worked out for me. And my favourite thing about it is that you never took any BS courses. It cost me about the same then going to a public college but I spent less time in school then I needed to. The only reason why these public colleges and universities have lower tuition is because the government pays for some of it. The government wants you to get a well rounded education. fuck that. I dont need another year or more of high school. Reminds me of this saying. "I'm the jack of all trades, master of none." Having a degree in a field of study is a useful thing. But when you have to take courses that have nothing to do with that field of study just to get that degree, then you start to wonder why its set like this.
My Gawd WTF...