Well, regardless of your education, you've totally missed the mark. Unfortunately, people don't need a "degree" to babysit toddlers, much less have children. But that's another subject... However, a "degree" is required to teach, so scoffing at it the way you just did shows you truly have no respect for the occupation. But that's ok, because another stereotype applies here: The higher the degree, the more people to look down upon. Like it or not, people with just a "degree" are partly responsible for your advanced placement in society.
On a lighter note, congradulations on your Ph.D. That's a high goal that I will never achieve, and I have a lot of respect for people who make it that far.
Oh, and my intention wasn't to flame, just to show a side to the issue that most people don't seem to know. The one thing I hate worse than stupidity is ignorance...
Well I can speak from experience that becoming a teacher is no easy task. My wife was an "education major" as you like to call it, and the list of classes she had to take was quite impressive. She was taking classes on foreign cultures, philosophy, mid-to-high level math, literature, environmental studies, child development, etc... My classload of 6 CS courses was weak compared to her schedule. And that's just to get the BA degree.
Then it's off to at least another year to get the credential (though since we live in California it's currently not required, but for the sake of the argument, go with me...) That program involves supervised and unsupervised time in a classroom, preparing and presenting lessons, and dealing with whatever age-level class you're in while trying to teach children who, for the most part, just want to go out and play. I've known several people who went through the entire program only to wash out in the classroom. Imagine devoting years of your life to an unpopular, low-paid career only to find out you can't cut it. People become teachers because they want to. People become IT drones because of the pay.
How good are you at keeping the attention of a room full of 1st or 2nd grade kids? If you're like most readers here you're probably working in an office somewhere and dealing with people who, for the most part, know how to do their jobs at least minimally. You can communicate with them on the same level. And you spend most of your time in an 8-foot-square cubical interacting with a machine that will do whatever you tell it to do (unless you're running WinME). Not exactly a rough existence, eh? Now imagine yourself in a room with 30 PCs, each with a different OS/CPU/GUI, and someone has broken into each machine and is installing and removing programs and drivers at random while you're trying to share a printer to each machine. You can't just yank the network and power cords. Wanna come to work today?
I will admit that "liberal studies" is kind of a fall-back major, but becoming and being a teacher in this country is not easy. I come to work every day and have no fear that a co-worker will pull out a gun and shoot me. I get paid well for the work that I do, and I don't consider it to be difficult work. But in the end, the work I do is inconsequential compared to what teachers do. Sure, there are some teachers who just don't care anymore, but wouldn't you get burned out if you can droves of people shooting down your profession after you've given years of yourself to it?
When I introduce you to my wife, go ahead and speak very slowly and in short little words. I'll be smiling as she plows your little brain into the ground.
All that you've said is very true. I happen to work for a company that allows me to telecommute 1 day a week. I waited until I had been working here for over a year before I started asking my superiors what they thought of the idea. I also spent that time working very hard to prove my worth to the company. Since I'm a software developer for a small company, I tend to get assigned projects that don't require a lot of group interaction, though we do have occasional meetings.
Since I've been working at home, I've found that I do tend to get distracted much easier by various activities, but it's not always what you think. I'm married with 2 kids, so my house isn't exactly a "working environment" by any means. So when I'm not thinking about loading up Half-Life, I've got my daughter wanting me to read stories to her or play her computer games with her. I still tend to get more work done at home though, since I usually don't have our support people coming to me every 5 minutes with a problem they haven't bothered to troubleshoot themselves.
One benefit beyond the whole "I'm tired of sitting in a car for 2 hours a day" idea is that working at home also allows you the feeling of greater flexibility over what time you'll be working that day. Instead of 8 to 5 or 9 to 6, it might be 12 to 8. Maybe you'll work a few hours this morning, then go hit the computer stores during lunchtime for a few hours, then come back and finish the day. This doesn't always work well when something at the office blows up and your coworkers end up talking to your answering machine, and the cellphone argument is negated by the fact that you were supposed to be home that day anyway. It all depends on how your company works. The people I work with have varying schedules, so on my home days I don't have to be at my desk at a certain time. As long as the work gets done on time everyone stays happy.
Working from home CAN work. You need self-discipline and a decent home-office setup to make things work. VNC via SSH is a beautiful thing in this case, since you won't have to have a full backup of your workstation at home. You also need to remove distractions. Tell your family members to stay out of your room during the day. Build a machine at home with no games installed and use that for your "work" machine. Hook it to a proxy that rejects everything you shouldn't be doing (like posting on Slashdot). Not like I do any of these things, but you get the idea.
Slashdot Mirror
I pity the fool who got injected with a synthetic T-cell!
But at least it's one sure-fire way to turn your sysadmins into happy campers...
With all the people willing to shell out money to fight lawsuits over copyright violations, I'm sure we can raise $75,000 by 10pm Friday night.
Well, regardless of your education, you've totally missed the mark. Unfortunately, people don't need a "degree" to babysit toddlers, much less have children. But that's another subject... However, a "degree" is required to teach, so scoffing at it the way you just did shows you truly have no respect for the occupation. But that's ok, because another stereotype applies here: The higher the degree, the more people to look down upon. Like it or not, people with just a "degree" are partly responsible for your advanced placement in society.
On a lighter note, congradulations on your Ph.D. That's a high goal that I will never achieve, and I have a lot of respect for people who make it that far.
Oh, and my intention wasn't to flame, just to show a side to the issue that most people don't seem to know. The one thing I hate worse than stupidity is ignorance...
Well I can speak from experience that becoming a teacher is no easy task. My wife was an "education major" as you like to call it, and the list of classes she had to take was quite impressive. She was taking classes on foreign cultures, philosophy, mid-to-high level math, literature, environmental studies, child development, etc... My classload of 6 CS courses was weak compared to her schedule. And that's just to get the BA degree.
Then it's off to at least another year to get the credential (though since we live in California it's currently not required, but for the sake of the argument, go with me...) That program involves supervised and unsupervised time in a classroom, preparing and presenting lessons, and dealing with whatever age-level class you're in while trying to teach children who, for the most part, just want to go out and play. I've known several people who went through the entire program only to wash out in the classroom. Imagine devoting years of your life to an unpopular, low-paid career only to find out you can't cut it. People become teachers because they want to. People become IT drones because of the pay.
How good are you at keeping the attention of a room full of 1st or 2nd grade kids? If you're like most readers here you're probably working in an office somewhere and dealing with people who, for the most part, know how to do their jobs at least minimally. You can communicate with them on the same level. And you spend most of your time in an 8-foot-square cubical interacting with a machine that will do whatever you tell it to do (unless you're running WinME). Not exactly a rough existence, eh? Now imagine yourself in a room with 30 PCs, each with a different OS/CPU/GUI, and someone has broken into each machine and is installing and removing programs and drivers at random while you're trying to share a printer to each machine. You can't just yank the network and power cords. Wanna come to work today?
I will admit that "liberal studies" is kind of a fall-back major, but becoming and being a teacher in this country is not easy. I come to work every day and have no fear that a co-worker will pull out a gun and shoot me. I get paid well for the work that I do, and I don't consider it to be difficult work. But in the end, the work I do is inconsequential compared to what teachers do. Sure, there are some teachers who just don't care anymore, but wouldn't you get burned out if you can droves of people shooting down your profession after you've given years of yourself to it?
When I introduce you to my wife, go ahead and speak very slowly and in short little words. I'll be smiling as she plows your little brain into the ground.
All that you've said is very true. I happen to work for a company that allows me to telecommute 1 day a week. I waited until I had been working here for over a year before I started asking my superiors what they thought of the idea. I also spent that time working very hard to prove my worth to the company. Since I'm a software developer for a small company, I tend to get assigned projects that don't require a lot of group interaction, though we do have occasional meetings.
Since I've been working at home, I've found that I do tend to get distracted much easier by various activities, but it's not always what you think. I'm married with 2 kids, so my house isn't exactly a "working environment" by any means. So when I'm not thinking about loading up Half-Life, I've got my daughter wanting me to read stories to her or play her computer games with her. I still tend to get more work done at home though, since I usually don't have our support people coming to me every 5 minutes with a problem they haven't bothered to troubleshoot themselves.
One benefit beyond the whole "I'm tired of sitting in a car for 2 hours a day" idea is that working at home also allows you the feeling of greater flexibility over what time you'll be working that day. Instead of 8 to 5 or 9 to 6, it might be 12 to 8. Maybe you'll work a few hours this morning, then go hit the computer stores during lunchtime for a few hours, then come back and finish the day. This doesn't always work well when something at the office blows up and your coworkers end up talking to your answering machine, and the cellphone argument is negated by the fact that you were supposed to be home that day anyway. It all depends on how your company works. The people I work with have varying schedules, so on my home days I don't have to be at my desk at a certain time. As long as the work gets done on time everyone stays happy.
Working from home CAN work. You need self-discipline and a decent home-office setup to make things work. VNC via SSH is a beautiful thing in this case, since you won't have to have a full backup of your workstation at home. You also need to remove distractions. Tell your family members to stay out of your room during the day. Build a machine at home with no games installed and use that for your "work" machine. Hook it to a proxy that rejects everything you shouldn't be doing (like posting on Slashdot). Not like I do any of these things, but you get the idea.
Very true. I'm using a 486dx2-66 with 24MB ram as a firewall and it works beautifully.