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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?"

6 of 186 comments (clear)

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

    Works for me every time.

  2. Photoshop! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just make your own certificates, for free!

  3. Wrong question by michaelmalak · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are there any free or cheap alternatives to get certificates or other more convincing ways to prove your IT knowledge?

    Wrong question. What you really meant to ask:

    Are there any free or cheap alternatives to get clients?

    And the answer is: networking. It's free or cheap, but it's time-consuming and time-delayed.

    And I consider referrals to be a special case of networking. You said you already "did stuff". If what you did was just for yourself, then you need to do it for someone else. There are plenty of non-profits (or even mom & pop for-profits) who would love some free work.

  4. Re:med school gives you real knowledge by toruonu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used to teach a course in Grid/distributed computing in our local IT College, but after putting up with the stupidity of the students for two years I stopped. This was a side project where I wanted to give something back, not my main finance source, but I just couldn't cope with last year sysadmin/systems engineers struggling with linux command line. I mean that it was as bad as unpacking their tarballs exclusively with double clicking on it on the desktop. I did try in the second/third iteration to pre-empt it a bit by doing a few first weeks basic shell programming tutorials, but there was no foundation to build on and I didn't have the time to teach a whole seat if courses from scratch so I stopped the course although they still ask if I want to return every year.

    I've seen the same in other universities too, the people who are excellent were already before entering and have just hoend and extended the skills. Who enter blank rarely make out as anything useful...

  5. Re:first post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    did i get it?

    You did, but I'm still a bit dubious about your actual first post skills. Do you have a certificate or something to show for it?

  6. Goddammit, mods >:( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are there any free or cheap alternatives to get certificates or other more convincing ways to prove your IT knowledge?

    Wrong question. What you really meant to ask:

    Are there any free or cheap alternatives to get clients?

    The one time there is actually insightful comment on Slashdot, it's modded interesting.