Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

CompTIA Reneges, Reconsiders on Lifetime Certifications

Posted by kdawson on from the had-our-fingers-crossed dept.

garg0yle writes "Recently, it was reported that IT certification house CompTIA had changed their A+, Network+, and Security+ certifications — rather than being 'for life,' there would now be a recertification requirement through continuing-education credits (and an accompanying fee). Needless to say, this made a lot of people very unhappy, and today it was announced that CompTIA has reversed their decision. Basically, any certification obtained before 2011 will still be 'for life.'" Ars notes the coincidence that CompTIA contacted them about the change of heart an hour after Ars's story about CompTIA's initial switcheroo went live.

47 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. CompTIA by Lord+Ender · · Score: 5, Insightful

    CompTIA certs are the community college diplomas of the IT certification industry. Who cares, unless you're going for an internship or level-1 helpdesk position?

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    1. Re:CompTIA by johnlcallaway · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree. I had to take the CompTIA Linux certification several years ago to teach a class and thought it was odd that there was no re-certification requirement. I passed it the first try without too much studying, just taking the sample test and finding out where I needed to brush up. I didn't have to pay for it, so I really didn't think too much about it, it was just one of those things I had to do to make a little extra spending money.

      After I took it I found out that an NT guy with zero Linux experience passed it simply by studying for it.

      CompTIA certs only impress people who don't know anything, and are helpful to get you through the HR screening by pasting it on your resume.

      --
      I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
    2. Re:CompTIA by TheRealFixer · · Score: 3, Informative

      CompTIA certs only impress people who don't know anything, and are helpful to get you through the HR screening by pasting it on your resume.

      That accurately describes most college IT degrees, actually.

    3. Re:CompTIA by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 4, Insightful

      CompTIA certs only impress people who don't know anything, and are helpful to get you through the HR screening by pasting it on your resume. That accurately describes most college IT degrees, actually.

      That accurately describes most college degrees, most of the time they are necessary to get past HR screening, but tell you nothing about the qualifications of the individual in question.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    4. Re:CompTIA by hduff · · Score: 5, Funny

      And what good is an MBA?

      You avoid standing with the Liberal Arts undegrads in the unemployment line, i.e. you get your own special Hell.

      --
      "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
    5. Re:CompTIA by Lord+Ender · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In pursuit of my engineering degree, I learned useful things I would not have "discovered" on my own. I understand how things work under the hood. I also learned finance and communication skills.

      A diploma from a real college means something.

      (oh and I got to build robots!)

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    6. Re:CompTIA by Jaysyn · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Don't you mean accountants & PhDs in Economics?

      Maybe you are right, but I don't work in banking. The MBAs I know are mostly small to medium business owners.

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
    7. Re:CompTIA by L3370 · · Score: 2, Informative

      possibly because they were looking for someone that can lend extra hand, not necessarily someone with experience?

      Decent salary or not, I'd venture the say you were one of the more economical candidates too. People with years of experience demand to be compensated for that experience, whether they deserve it or not.

    8. Re:CompTIA by causality · · Score: 4, Insightful

      CompTIA certs only impress people who don't know anything, and are helpful to get you through the HR screening by pasting it on your resume. That accurately describes most college IT degrees, actually.

      That accurately describes most college degrees, most of the time they are necessary to get past HR screening, but tell you nothing about the qualifications of the individual in question.

      College is about having goals, meeting deadlines, and dealing well (i.e. obediently) with authority figures, your willingness to allow them to determine the use of your time, your ability to follow their detailed instructions, and your willingness to be a cog in a large institution. Those are the qualifications employers find desirable. They likely know that in this industry, a degree does not necessarily indicate skill or ability and that many of the most skilled developers and technicians never went to college. What they do know is that it demonstrates you are willing and able to jump through hoops of the sort that they find useful.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    9. Re:CompTIA by jank1887 · · Score: 3, Informative

      As an engineering major, I'll assume that I fit in to the exception to your 'most' qualifier.

    10. Re:CompTIA by dcollins · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is such horseshit. I found my time in college to be uniformly exciting and mind-expanding. I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational. It's like the whole "mentor/student" concept has a been a hideous gaffe for what, 4000 years?

      --
      We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
    11. Re:CompTIA by oldhack · · Score: 2, Funny

      And getting laid. Oh, sorry, wrong room.

      --
      Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
    12. Re:CompTIA by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you are looking to the academic world to teach you about the business world, you are already two steps behind.

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    13. Re:CompTIA by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You are only partially right and the GP post is indeed very insightful. For most people, myself included, there were always the few very enticing intellectual "carrots" to offset the very many "sticks" in the academic environment. For every exciting subject, where I had a lot of fun and where I could indeed participate in a mentor/student dynamics with excellent professors, there were at least 5 "jump-through-the-hoops-and-keep-your-mouth-shut", compulsory, no opt-out, (and frankly utterly pointless) subjects. I hear that some colleges of 1960s era (the generation before mine) were far more fun and far less "follow the authority figure or else" places. But serf-mindset-indoctrination was well advanced (and rapidly expanding) in the place I went to by the time I enrolled. I hear it was not an isolated situation and the whole world of academia has been steadily evolving towards efficient manufacture of corporate serfs, complete with egregious advances in the indoctrination into "intellectual property" regimes and the concept of (publicly funded) corporate ownership of all research and student ideas.

    14. Re:CompTIA by Korin43 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe you haven't been in college recently? My school's CS degree is incredibly boring because they want to make sure that any idiot can pass. There are two intro level classes taught in Java. By the end of the second one, you still use the ArrayList class for everything and the most "difficult" thing you do is write your own merge sort (the final assignment). For my current class apparently we're supposed to write a binary tree and a hash table at some point. In the next class (which I'm also in), we do similar things, but finally in C++. The only way I've been able to survive is by having speed contests with other students, but we've had to email teachers to change assignment specs to even let us do that (most assignments specifically say to use an ArrayList).

      And don't get me started on the classes that supposedly teach us math..

    15. Re:CompTIA by Darkinspiration · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Theyre also under a code of conduct that render them responsible for any plan or technical document that they sign. They could be sued for any damage and/or death resulting from theyre spec.

    16. Re:CompTIA by infinite9 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is such horseshit. I found my time in college to be uniformly exciting and mind-expanding. I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational. It's like the whole "mentor/student" concept has a been a hideous gaffe for what, 4000 years?

      My university experience matches yours. My work experience matches the GP.

      --
      Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
    17. Re:CompTIA by causality · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is such horseshit.

      Without altering its meaning, this can be rephrased as, "my perspective is different from yours, therefore yours is horseshit." How nice, you've elected yourself the arbiter of validity on a matter of opinion.

      I found my time in college to be uniformly exciting and mind-expanding. I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational.

      I'm fond of the way Samuel Clemens summed it up: "I never allowed my schooling to interfere with my education." If you are able to pursue knowledge and understanding for its own sake, on your own when no one is looking, because it enriches your life, you have found a much purer guiding principle than appeasing a professor, making a grade, or obtaining a job. If you cannot do these things or cannot do them effectively outside of an institution and hierarchical authority structure, then what sort of student are you? If you can and are doing these things on your own and take personal responsibility for your own education, knowing that no one has your interests at heart quite like you do, then the only thing left to prove to any employer is that you are not too much of a wolf, that you can also play the sheep who can follow orders.

      It's like the whole "mentor/student" concept has a been a hideous gaffe for what, 4000 years?

      A decent mentor will teach you what he knows and will probably enjoy feeling like someone is dependent on their guidance. It's a common way of feeling self-important. A great mentor will show you that you are capable of teaching yourself and will equip you to be your own mentor.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    18. Re:CompTIA by Machtyn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Either you were lucky or you didn't notice the hoops you had to jump through. I've been to two different colleges (Jr. College and a University) and, while I've appreciate the advisors, they were mostly unhelpful in getting me to the correct classes. That was a frustrating hoop I had to jump through. I had to deal with classes at odd times of the day, whether I enjoyed it is immaterial. I had to deal with inane professors that would rather be in their office designing whatever theory they were working on. Or student-teachers that were either hard to understand (foreign) or couldn't teach (expound information to students, give assignments that made sense).

      Can you truly say that you enjoyed every single class you took? Probably, like me and most of us, there were some classes that were terrific and some that were obnoxious. I learned a lot at my JC, then got a lot of professional experience, and then learned a lot of Maths at the Uni. The other stuff, because of experience, I already knew (though some of those were quite enjoyable).

    19. Re:CompTIA by Hork_Monkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Want to know how I know you never even started an MBA program?

      Really. Try it. You'll learn loads, believe it or not.

      Just because you're smart doesn't mean that learning the formal fundamentals in a couple of business oriented areas won't make you smarter.

      As for being able to think intelligently, you either are able to or you're not. But, by having a larger pool of stock knowledge you can think intelligently in more areas.

    20. Re:CompTIA by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 2, Interesting

      My time is college was wonderful and educational and completely irrelevant to anything I have done since. The one job I had related to my degree, they could have taught someone out of high school to do with at most two more days of training over what they gave me. Most of my other jobs required that I have a Bachelor's Degree to get them, but nothing I learned in college was related to the job in any way.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
  2. They probably ought to decertify me, actually by cptnapalm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I got my A+ about a decade ago. Tech bubble burst and I couldn't get a job doing A+ work around here. Then I didn't own a computer for a few years and I haven't done anything with Windows in years at this point. They probably ought to de-certify me, quite frankly. On the other hand, I'm not applying for any A+ jobs anymore, so I suppose the question, in my case, is moot.

    1. Re:They probably ought to decertify me, actually by fm6 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The very concept of a lifetime certification is lame. I used to be something of an expert on Unix system administration — there's even a widely book on the subject that acknowledges me as a source. But that was almost 30 years ago, I haven't kept up with the topic (especially networking), and even newbie Linux geeks know more about it than I do.

      If I applied for a Unix or Linux sysadmin job, they'd ask me a few key questions and then laugh me out of the office. Any smart employer (which is, admittedly, not all of them) would do that. Which makes a "certification" good for little more than making them take a second look at your resume. Or for landing a job at some incompetently run company that deserves what they get.

    2. Re:They probably ought to decertify me, actually by Deosyne · · Score: 2, Insightful

      For most certs, I would agree, but the A+ is a joke. Actually, that's not fair; the A+ is a capability exam, like if you can pass the A+ then I'd be willing to interview you for an IT position as help desk or something else entry-level. Passing the A+ shows that you have the ability and the willingness to learn things about tech. I'd still expect you to have the skills that I put in the ad for the position, but personal experience and practice may be perfectly suitable.

      More advanced positions, on the other hand, are gonna need something a little more robust, like recent work experience and a positive phone interview, before I'll even get off of my ass and head down to the lobby to say hello. In those cases, I would definitely consider the age of the cert if one were listed on the resume.

  3. Non-renewing certs are worthless by Spittoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the certifying authority doesn't require renewals, or some sort of ongoing training in order to stay certified, then the hiring managers will/should start requiring it. "When did you get your certification? What have you done since then to maintain your current knowledge of the field?" IT isn't like Ancient Literature. What you know today will likely be obsolete tomorrow, and any body that wants to certify qualifications in such a changing environment needs to take that into account. Sounds like they wanted to realize that, but people who just wanted a meaningless cert on their CV wouldn't let them do it.

    1. Re:Non-renewing certs are worthless by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Informative

      While I agree, the Comptia certs are typically looked on as entry level certifications. They're a starting board before moving down more useful certification tracks, the best of which do require continuing education. Turning the Comptia certs into a renewing structure seems rather silly. Who would bother renewing them in the midst of the constant cycle of the more advanced certification. Let's look at the initial move by Comptia for what it really is... a grab for money. Comptia should leave the A + Net+ and Sec + alone and push advanced follow up tracks that DO require renewal and continuing education. It'd be a lot easier to earn professional respect for newer specialized certs meeting those conditions than to change the community view (whether good or bad) of the + certs. After all, "certifications" are more often about perspective and appearance than actual education.

      More importantly, skills that aren't used don't just rust, they rot. Even if you pass your Microsoft exams, if you're not doing it every day you'll simply forget things.

      This is one of the reasons why I think certs don't quite work the way industry wants them to -- you can get the cert and it doesn't mean you know what you're doing and it doesn't mean you retain anything a few years later. But doing like Cisco and making you retake the same frickin' exam after your previous cert expires is not the right answer. I find the exams arbitrary and stupid right from the start. The studying part is useful but the exams themselves, ugh. You can study out of Microsoft's own books and be blindsided on the exams.

      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  4. Re:wow ... by spun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You have to jump through far more arbitrary hoops for a degree, even a measly four year. That's what employers want to see. Not particular skills, but arbitrary hoop-jumping ability.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  5. Renewing would be hard by inthealpine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The first thing you do to prepare for a CompTIA test is forget everything you know about computers. Memorize vague and even incorrect answers. Sit in front of a 10 year old CRT that you can feel and see humming. Pass the test. Get a paper certification in the mail a month later and throw it in the safe next to other certs and college degrees... I don't think I would like doing the CompTIA's over again, so I won't.

    --
    "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash"
  6. that would be so much bullshit by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Funny

    Certs already have a natural shelf life. Stuff like A+ and Security+ get you in the industry's door. Microsoft certs naturally expire as new products come out. You don't have to say MCSE NT is expired, employers will ask you for your MCSE 2008. And of course you'll try to explain to them that there's no MCSE anymore, it's an MCITP and they'll say "Yeah, well you go and get your MCSE 2008 and get back to us."

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  7. In other words by natehoy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They have taken this policy change and turned it into an advertisement.

    "If you act THIS YEAR, your certification will be good FOR LIFE! Act NOW!"

    They can imply that certifications earned this year will have more value than certifications earned after 1 Jan 2011, because the ones earned this year never expire. Neither cert will be worth bupkus a year after it's granted, but one that never expires probably feels more valuable than one that does, even if the actual knowledge really does expire.

    --
    "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  8. wow by majortom1981 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Here in NY the degrees acan include the cisco cert classes. So, besides learning the tech you learn business skills and other things that you don't learn in a cert course.

  9. Experience by SirBigSpur · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have always considered experience more important than CompTIA certs. Not to take away from the ability to get these certifications but I found the 3 years of IT experience in internships I had accumulated before graduating with my BS in CIS to be a more valuable asset.

  10. My 1337 386 skillz are still valid! by Tmack · · Score: 4, Funny
    W00! this means my A+ from 1995 is still good! Im gona make mad $$ since I know how to boot DOS and unplug keyboards and monitors... I even know how to install a 386sx and 30pin simms!

    (not really, Im lame cause I never got my A+, just a job as a sysadmin)

    --
    Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
    1. Re:My 1337 386 skillz are still valid! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Just pulled out my A+ card dated 4/7/98.
      Still valid.
      And yes the test I took was on DOS/Win 3.1.

      (In 1998 they still didn't have the Windows 95 test available).

  11. Re:wow ... by Jurily · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It takes longer and costs more.

  12. Re:Where's your Evidence? by Lord+Ender · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Certifications which mean something tend to vary by specialization. Cisco certifications mean something if you work in networking. GIAC or ISC2 certifications mean something if you work in security.

    CompTIA certifications don't command respect anywhere, except maybe to differentiate yourself from the other entry-level candidates with no experience. After your first job, mentioning your CompTIA cert is like talking about where you went to middle school. Who cares?

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  13. The new meaning of "Lifetime Certification" by idontgno · · Score: 2, Funny

    It used to be that CompTIA's cert never needed renewal.

    Then someone realized that a "lifetime" technology certification is as valuable as 25-year-old bread, CompTIA changed to say you'd need re-certification periodically.

    But, of course, that didn't fly with the armies of A+ drones who paid good money for their "lifetime" certification.

    CompTIA's new position is, once again, the A+ is good for "lifetime". However, they're sticking to the position that technology moves too fast for an old cert to be still good.

    The compromise position? Once enough time and progress has elapsed since your cert was issued, CompTIA's elite certification ninja team assassinates you. Your cert was, therefore, good for your "lifetime".

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  14. Microsoft had this same problem by ErichTheRed · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Being a Windows systems guy, I've kept my Microsoft certifications current over the years. (Say what you will...it gets you past the first resume filter if you ever find yourself in need of a job.) Back when the NT 4.0 certifications were rolling over into the Win2K versions, Microsoft introduced the concept of an expiring cert. Personally, I think part of this was due to the fact that Microsoft significantly increased the difficulty level of the Win2K exams to reduce piracy and try to revalue the credential.

    People who had the NT 4.0 certifications freaked, saying that Microsoft had no right to invalidate their credentials. Microsoft reversed the decision, and made the certifications last as long as support for the product did. They still stop offering exams for new people, but people who have the cert keep it.

    Does this matter? In my mind, no way. I can think of only one place NT 4.0 skills might be valuable today, and it involves embedded systems with no typical Windows user interface. (The New York subway system uses NT 4 for their fare collection machines.) Most places aren't using it for the general file-and-print server work that the certification was aimed at.

    I think it's just the perception of value. Even in 2010, there are a lot of people paying certification mills...I mean, training schools...many thousands of dollars for certification classes so they can "break into the lucrative field of IT." Community colleges regularly integrate the A+, Microsoft and Cisco cert classes into their degree programs. Some of those thousands of dollars are still being paid for long after the cert is achieved. People just don't want to feel they're holding worthless paper. In reality though, things change way too fast to declare that someone is "certified for life" on PC hardware. I find that if I take a couple months to focus on some piece of software, I turn around and hardware platforms have completely changed while I wasn't looking. Imagine an A+ cert holder from 1995 put in front of a quad-core machine with SAS drives, a huge video card that's basically a mini-computer, and other interfaces that didn't even exist in 1995.

    1. Re:Microsoft had this same problem by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think it's just the perception of value. Even in 2010, there are a lot of people paying certification mills...I mean, training schools...many thousands of dollars for certification classes so they can "break into the lucrative field of IT." Community colleges regularly integrate the A+, Microsoft and Cisco cert classes into their degree programs. Some of those thousands of dollars are still being paid for long after the cert is achieved. People just don't want to feel they're holding worthless paper. In reality though, things change way too fast to declare that someone is "certified for life" on PC hardware. I find that if I take a couple months to focus on some piece of software, I turn around and hardware platforms have completely changed while I wasn't looking. Imagine an A+ cert holder from 1995 put in front of a quad-core machine with SAS drives, a huge video card that's basically a mini-computer, and other interfaces that didn't even exist in 1995.

      A doctor takes continuing education credits to keep up with the field but this doesn't mean his undergraduate degree expires. For anyone doing IT, the A+ knowledge will be kept current by being in the field. And for specific newer tech, there are certs to get up to speed on that. The VMware stuff is getting really hot right now, for example. A previous employer paid for A+. The class itself was a very thorough review of the PC from soup to nuts. It would help bring a young amateur up to speed in the field. I'd been doing this for years so it was really just a very thorough review for me. I think the best part about the class is it lets people see if they'd really enjoy the IT field. If you hated the class, you'd really hate doing this for a living. Learning that is worth the price of admission. :)

      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  15. Re:Where's your Evidence? by spun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, I don't give a great God damn how useful my certs are on my job. I already know I can do my job. I don't need a cert to prove that to myself. I thought the whole point of certs was to help get a foot in the door.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  16. A+ by DarkofPeace · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well looking at many entry level job positions, many still require A+ certification. I agree that if you want a job higher up the tech food chain, A+ is worthless, but then again, thats not what its designed for.

  17. Re:Where's your Evidence? by bdmorgan · · Score: 2, Funny

    Thanks to braindumps people can just memorize the questions so you'll have MCSEs wondering why DHCP isn't working and they forgot to authorize the server.

    Thanks, man. I've been fighting with this DHCP issue for, like, three weeks now.

  18. re: CompTIA certs. (Worthless?) by King_TJ · · Score: 2

    I got my A+ a long time ago, because I was out of work and looking for another I.T. job, and figured "Why not? It's not real expensive to get compared to most of the certs. out there, and it's something else to put on my resume to show I'm still trying to keep up with things." As I recall, I was a little surprised it asked so many questions that related to old/obsolete computer systems. (EG. It had questions about which IRQ and I/O address was the default for COM1 and COM2. With anything resembling a "modern" version of Windows, this is pretty irrelevant -- but was critical to know if you were configuring MS-DOS based terminal packages and non "plug and play" internal modem cards.)

    Given that, I'm not sure there's a necessity to make people get "re-certified" on a A+? The most significant feature of the cert. may well be that it forces people to learn a little bit of "historically relevant" computer knowledge. There are times, as a tech or support person, you'll run into that stuff -- and most self-taught computer people who started learning in the "post MS-DOS" era might not know anything about it otherwise.

    I believe even CompTIA used to say that the A+ was to show "equivalency to a PC technician with 6 months of work experience". So nobody is supposed to really be *impressed" that you have it. It's simply an entry-level cert. that proves you're not just a clueless n00b who wants to fix computers because you thought your Playstation or XBox was a lot of fun, and "computers can't be much different than that!".

    As far as it "getting you a job" specifically? It depends. A lot of support places require you have the A+ as a prerequisite. (I think Dell did/does, for example, if you want to do on-site service for them?)

  19. Re:Nice Ad hom by elnyka · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which just about proves my point in it's entirety.

    "not to be a dick..."

    TY

    I always get a laugh at how crazy and defensive you get when you're obviously and irrefutably wrong and shown so,like you were here.

    He does have a point man. You are insulting his skills by calling his "computer G.E.D" and by ridiculing his justified defensiveness.

    He is still not shown to be wrong in any manner that could be construed as obvious or irrefutable. His question remains unanswered: where is the evidence? I personally and professionally do not think CompTIA certs are necessarily a joke, nor that people who possess them have no significant skills whatsoever.

    I have a B.S. in Computer Science, pursued a MS up to my thesis, and currently pursuing a MS in Comp.Eng. I have 15 years of software development experience, both on the commercial and defense sectors, ranging from SysAdmin to programmer to soft. engineer, from developing back-end e-commerce sites to implementations of network protocols to grad research. That certainly gives me a proven insight when assessing the value proposition of certain types of certificates.

    Is one CompTia cert a joke? Depends on the individual. Likewise I can say based on professional experience that a B.S. degree (or even a M.S. degree) can be a joke at the hands of a mediocre individual.

    On the other hand, when you meet a technician that has been working on the field for years and has a stack of certs like the ones some e-start wannabes like to laugh at, chances are that person knows his shit inside out (as opposed to many compsci dilettantes who have no clue how little they know.)

    If there is objective and measurable evidence that indeed we can unequivocally generalize and dismiss people with these type of certs (read "objective and measurable evidence" not feel-good dick-waging), then let's hear it. On another note, I do not see what the problem is with certs having an expiration date. In a technology field, certs should be hold for re-examination and renewal (or they should be versioned like the java certs.)

  20. Re:wow ... by yurtinus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, that's not entirely it. Employers (typically) want good people, but you can't tell a whole lot about somebody from a resume. You need to get down to interviews to start really figuring somebody out. When an employer has stacks of resumes for a single position, they need to have a means of narrowing it down for interviews. Unfortunately this means some fairly arbitrary decisions and baselines. Tons of good folks are going to be tossed aside in the first pass. Just like knowing somebody on the inside-- those "hoops" are a foot in the door, a basic indication of knowledge. Nothing more.

    --
    +1 Disagree
  21. College by benjamindees · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't even imagine what kind of personality it takes to have never found a single college class be educational.

    Oh boy, I'll tell you exactly the type. It's the person who fucks up and attends a yokel school on full scholarship instead of signing away his soul borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to the ivy league, due to his family members being complete horses' asses unable to engage in any type of long-range planning whatsoever and unwilling to contribute to any kind of worthwhile education.

    It's the person who spends every class surrounded by jocks and precious minorities with the IQ's of eggplants, interrupting class every five minutes to ask some dumb question. It's the person told by every one of his classmates that they are "just there for the piece of paper." It's the person who watches fraternities completely game the system by stealing copies of tests so that other members can memorize the questions and correct answers. It's the person taught by neo-con idiot professors whose only goal in life is to build the biggest guns possible for stealing natural resources from evil foreigners, and who spend more class time justifying this goal than actually teaching anything approaching enlightened subject matter.

    Classes were certainly not uniformly bad, but the bad outweighed the good: architecture professors who didn't understand basic physics, logic professors who couldn't correctly decipher complex syllogisms, philosophy professors whose views on morality would make mobsters cringe. I have literally learned more from Slashdot than I did from college. The few good professors usually only lasted a few years, at most. The ones who remained were either brow-beaten or completely loopy due to the ridiculous bullshit they had to put up with just to do their jobs well.

    I will be completely unsurprised when the higher education scam is the last card to fall in America's implosion of wasteful stupidity, after the mortgage, commercial real estate and personal credit debacles. Then again, I will be equally unsurprised if it never actually gets that far, due to the complete incompetence of our educational system being so well-hidden, near-universally-revered and unassailable, deep within the structure of America's faux economy.

    --
    "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
  22. My take on University life by jonaskoelker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Let me relate my university experience. I'm not 100% sure about US tertiary education terminology, maybe a Danish university is what you call College?

    College is about having goals

    Yes. My goals. Learning (about) Computer Science in order to become a better programmer. Getting straight A's on my exams. Learning the material.

    meeting deadlines

    Or asking kindly and slightly embarrassed for an extension, sometimes. You know, negotiate with the people who are dependent on your work (either for grading it or for linking with your code). Or, sometimes, yeah, just meet the damn deadline.

    and dealing well (i.e. obediently) with authority figures

    You're quiet in class out of respect for your classmates' desire to learn. You hand in your hand-ins on time out of respect for your TA. You follow the rules about which and how many courses you must take, but the constraints on your choices are well-aligned with your own learning goals.

    Then again, I'm not shy about asking for clarification or "I think you missed the special case where [...]", or "You wrote X; I think you mean Y?". Your lecturer ain't perfect, and I'm not a perfect TA. I welcome corrections, as I sense my lecturers do.

    your willingness to allow them to determine the use of your time

    You choose your major and minor, and have a large degree of freedom in choosing courses once you got the requirements for a bachelor satisfied.

    Similarly, you can choose to not work for Google/Sun/SAS if you don't like them. Or you can move around on the job market. And you choose whether to apply for the Marketing VP or the Software Development position.

    Even when you work for the University, as a TA, the TA-to-courses allocation is done in a way that tries to optimize social utility. And intra-course time slot allocation is done by negotiation. You don't choose completely freely, but the authority in question tries to give everybody what they want (to the best of its ability).

    your ability to follow their detailed instructions

    "Solve problems 1 through 7 on the course web page, and 16.2 through 16.5 in $BOOK". Detailed? Instruction? I take that as a suggestion to help you learn. No TA I've encountered really gave a $MAKELOVE about whether you learned, although they were willing to help if you wanted to. You're free to solve fewer exercises, or more, and if you ask questions beyond the curriculum, most TAs and professors are willing and even eager to have a fruitful discussion with you.

    and your willingness to be a cog in a large institution.

    In the University, the institution is there to serve you. You don't make it run, you consume its output (the output really being the process).

    Yes, there are resource constraints. The courses start aligned at semester boundaries. Some courses are only held every other semester/year/period due to too low attendance if it was held more often. So what?

    Maybe US Colleges are very different from Danish universities?

    I think the most important thing you learn besides your subject matter (i.e. the math, programming, anthropology or whatever) is to plan and organize your own learning efforts. If you learn that. I'm on my 6th year (phd student) and I'm just beginning to need to think about what I can do besides showing up for lectures and exercise sessions in order to learn the subject matter.

    You don't take advanced degrees in assembly line manufacturing. I see how the qualities you claim College teaches students might be useful there. I think the qualities I've observed are more useful in knowledge work.

    But to be fair: fitting into a large organization and agreeing to use you time on what others suggest is useful if you work at a large company. Then again, you're free to seek employment at Google where you get to spend 20% of your work hours rather (more) freely. I think they see individual entrepreneurial spirit as a useful thing.