Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ask Slashdot: How To Prove IT Knowledge Without Expensive Certificates?

Posted by timothy on from the use-these-stickers-and-sparkle dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I'm starting my Ph.D in psychology this year and plan to finance this period with IT freelance work, mostly building websites with Drupal and setting up Linux networks, servers, etc.. Now I have a little problem: Since I never studied ICT nor followed a course that resulted in a certificate, I can only prove my knowledge by actually doing stuff or showing what I've done so far. Unfortunately that isn't always sufficient to convince potential customers. So I was wondering what other slashdotters do. Are there any free or cheap alternatives to get certificates or other more convincing ways to prove your IT knowledge?"

2 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Show em your previous work. by siddesu · · Score: 5, Informative

    Works for me every time.

  2. Re:med school gives you real knowledge by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Informative

    "I would call this misleading. It think the quality of the people they accept to some of the schools is lackluster, but if you're a good student (i.e. one who is willing to question and go beyond the actual coursework), you can get quite a lot out of those types of schools."

    I think this reply is misleading. It misses the boat in at least two ways:

    First, the quality of the people they accept is completely irrelevant. The quality of the people they graduate is the only thing that matters.

    But as for the second point: actually, most of them -- if you want to be honest -- are low-quality schools. They are primarily designed to milk the students for as much government money as they can, then dump them out the door.

    Don't blame the students for this... the schools' advertising, promises, and application procedures are outright predatory.