CAUGHT

Wow, where to start. I would think that the level of expertise required for the position would pretty much dictate how much "school learning" is applicable to qualifying the individual.

I have an electrical engineering background; worked in accounting and office management most of my career (in between raising kids); encountered a non-dos environment (windows) in '94 and became hooked on PC applications. I've even dabbled in a little Linux, but haven't had time to dabble lately.

Five years ago I began managing a network, core processor and financial platform without ever having looked at a network before. I read, read, read.....network on list serves such as this one....and ask questions. I'm the only IT person and admittedly having the electrical background was beneficial - I think in terms of schematics for network configuration.

So after all this rambling, my point is: the individual drives the competence, not necessarily the academia. The ability to perform the task, gain more knowledge through doing, be supportive and enhance the department's efficiencies are assets to the organization.

have already attained that level of success, why are you so concerned about others? Why does it bother you that others could do the same (maybe better, maybe not quite as good) without the formal training.

Let it go..worry about about yourself and your advancement. Again, what makes the difference? Either you are qualified or you're not.

BTW..you have a LONG way to go to top the longest thread in TR. You'll have to bring up evolution or abortion to do that.

No need - "me noggin is sound as a pound"

All I have done is sparked a debate...

The only one?s, who think being schooled is better than self taught, are the ignorant and those who went to school, though hard to tell one from the other.

This I believe is in an effort to justify the expense of having gone to school.

I currently make 6 figures annually, not a day in class, just 21 yrs in the business.

I consistently run into degreed IT professionals that believe the only solution for a corrupted OS is to get out the restore cd, and this is only the beginning, of theory
versus real world application.

So keep hunting for your dream job, my degreed friend, after all, we need you intellectuals in the field to keep us from dummying down the industry.

hahahahaha

I'm 100% self-taught and have a fairly successful IT career - including a VERY profitable side business. unles those who are "trained" those of us who are self-taught typically have more OTJ training and experience than those who go to school for it. When you go to school, you are forced to think on your feet when something happens. You're not exposed to the corporate nightmares that IT guys like me experience over and over.

Why should I hire you coming out of school over some guy who's been busting his ass for 5 years in the workforce?

I've been hired because the people I've worked with and for were happy with my skills. Why wouldn't someone hire me if I have the skills and experience to do the job.

Sounds to me you r are bitter because you have a tech degree in hand but can't find a job.

You?ve brought up a couple of interesting points, the first being a degree in something other than computer science and the second being music. Some of the best programmers that I have ever worked with didn?t have degrees in computer science. In fact, one of the best had a bachelors degree in biology which is a major leap. I also remember hearing somewhere that musical skills and programming go hand and hand.

Perhaps being a good developer relies more upon the way that one looks upon the world than the type of education one has. Perhaps if someone is relentless in finding the answers themselves, rather than have it handed to them along with a piece of paper, they will be more able to answer other questions.

He is self taught (like myself) and built his first computer at the age of 12 and has done some amazing things since then. He has an A.A. but decided he would stop there because he was tired of school. He works for a company that grossly under pays him and has been a devoted employee for over 2 years and has gotten a whoppin' .75 cent an hour raise in that time frame. He makes $11.00 an hour as a systems analyst, they provide no health insurance and no sick time...just vacation time which you must take or lose each year.

Since he started there, he has totally automated the company. They used to have to spend ten of thousands of dollars sending people to other states to set up computers in their new stores but now all they do is send a computer with directions on how to connect the cables and when they connect everything and turn it on, a CD boots and loads a script (that he wrote) that "calls back" to the company. He has standarized everything and has written programs, scripts and batch files that make their main computers work more efficiently.

He has been submitting applications for new positions everywhere and has gotten no response. So he called some of the businesses and found that even though they didn't say that the applicants needed a B.S. they preferred it to experience and since he has experience but only a non-specific Associates degree, it just what they wanted.

So, he has decided to go back to school at the age or 23 because he just can't get noticed even though he is very smart and talented when it comes to technology (and I am not just saying that because I am his mother!)

I hire people with and without degrees. I have hired some wonderful people with great skills and I have hired (and fired) some losers who were really good at job interviews and that had degrees.

I think that there are more things to consider when filling a job. Just because a person has a B.S. doesn't make them able to do a job, complete a task, be a devoted employee and play well with others.

Spuddy_m verified that in his reply to my post. I really think that TR should make a retraction because in my opinion that is the about the same as sensationalized headlines in some of the newspapers and other publications. It is definitely a possibility that they did not intend for it sound like that but it did and I think it would behoove them to rectify it. The title was very demeaning.

Now, I don't usually complain about anything the TR folks do but I really think they made a mistake on this one.

Thanks for your clarification as well. :)

In my opinion, if you don't have a clue about IT related areas, you shouldn't be hiring IT staff. Or, you should at least be consulting with someone who does have a clue.

I also feel that a 'body that controls' IT related staffing would be a terrible mistake. IT isn't like being a doctor or a lawyer. It is very broad and varied. The best IT staff is a mix of field experience, perserverance, quest for answers, and willingness to experiment (and sometimes fail). I don't necessarily want those qualities in my doctors, thus I want a 'body that controls' them.

So, let me ask you this. Do you want a Doctor or lawyer fresh out of school with no experience working for you? I don't. The difference is that those professions require not only an education but also a period of working under others in the same profession before being "certified".

Back to us in I/T. Do you want to put in four or more years in college and then PAY someone to work for them for another two to four years until you are certified to work in I/T? I'm sure employers would go for that one. You get to pay them to work for them until someone decides you put in your time and you can finally get paid to work. And if you don't cut it, then all of your education is for naught...you're out of here forever!

Even with the schooling and residencies, we can all name examples of doctors that were totally worthless as physicians. Give me an old country doc with years of experience any day, especially in an emergency.

Ego issues.

I'm not sure what this thread proves. You can turn nearly any situation into a us vs. them. I'm just wondering WHY. What does it prove? Absolutely nothing.

after my name where. Mon Key

Was a wasted joke as no one noticed. :(

Yes, IT should be a professional occupation with entry requirements / regulatory body.

However, let us look back at Doctors and Lawyers. These professions were in place, practiced for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, before we came up with an entry requirement. And at least a hundred years before we came up with a regulatory body. And that is after we have some specialties defined in the professions.

Doctors and Lawyers are a bit easier to deal with, as must people knows what doctors and lawyers do to them personally, and the risk of not having the right person to do the job. You can also know a disasterous result very quickly, just like plumbing and carpentry. That is usually not the case with IT jobs. Most people cannot figure out the difference between a well installed Windows and a poorly installed one. And the consequences takes at least a few weeks to show up.

When the IT profession have that kind of history and public knowledge, we will have the entry requirements and regulatory body. If we rush these, it will be a bigger mess than we have now.

However, employers hiring people can become knowledgeable about IT. They can figure out who is good and who is bad, if they learn.

When I don't know the person I am interviewing, education and work experience do tell me whether I want to spend time interviewing the person. I will then examine carefully what the person actually did, how he did it, in what kind of management environment, and how much did he actually do. I will also ask a few, very few, important technical questions to see what depth of knowledge the person has in the area I am interested in. I have hired a few good self taught persons that way, and I have seen a lot of bad applicants with very impressive education background.

The best person I have interviewed for IT job requiring a degree in CS was an undergrad in Philosophy. He's got self taught computer skill to fit into the job I was hiring for. I didn't hire him because I feel he is over qualified, and can get a much better job in some other capacity.

One may forget the plight of small companies with their tiny networks. Many owners are self taught themselves. And it is advantagous for them to hire a self taught network guys, likewise it is advantageous to be hired as one as well.... LONG LIVE SELF TAUGHTS..!

PS: The way some lawyers and doctors practice, you may as well have hired a preacher or a witch doctor instead...

read my first post again. It does not refer to anybody as idiots, belittle anybody or say that somebody self tought is any less worthy (in fact it commends them).

It is some of the responses to my question that have, at times, been a little harsh. Well I can be just as harsh when dealt such a hand.

All I wanted to know was did people THINK the cert is NEEDED or not and should the CERT be the baseline.

From some of the responses it seems like people would rather wipe parts of their anatomy with the cert.

Anyway - cert aside (soiled now) - I have this holy grail of experience yet people keep questioning this, my mind, logic & reasoning. I can prove my mind is capable - it has been tested over and over without failure. Can these people also PROVE such a fact?

Not only that a persons life is not hanging in the balance like it might possibly be when it comes to surgery or the difference between a life sentence and or the death penalty. It is a computer for christ sakes, not life or death. The other thing is how many mechanics are schooled (vocational schooled) when they start out, but you still entrust your your baby to them don't you? And a majority of Mechanics started in their backyard. It kind of reminds of an anecdote were I worked as Die maker helper. We had an old experienced Tool and Die maker that at that time was about 70 years old. We had a problem with a series die (were the part being made is shuffled from tool station to another tool station by hand) and could not get the part it was to produce to be accepted by the auto company. The Die leader (the 70 year old) kept telling the owner (a Mechanical Engineer by degree and designer of the job by the way) that the material we were using was just at the limits of being able to be made in a progressive die configuration. Owner kept insisting that the station idea was the only way to go. This went on for many weeks (about 8 weeks), with the sample parts being rejected by the auto company. Finally in frustration he told the die leader to go ahead and convert to a progressive die. We took the sections we had already, configured them in a progressive die configuration in about 3 weeks time. When the owner took the sample parts to the auto maker, they ok'ed them for us to run off the parts. What this is coming down to the engineer versus years of experience and experience won over degree.

What the original commentary is confusing is the fact that they probably lost out to a person that was not papered (a degree), when he felt he should have gotten the position because he was papered.

Another anecdote; I worked with a fellow that had a D.Ed. (he is a very good friend). He is a fairly decent programmer (by the way self taught) but really does not how to use programming logic well (to say the least to this day can not and does not know how to use "NOT"). Had the audacity to call me a "cowboy" programmer at best. Needles to say I am a combination of self taught, degreed and vocational schooled for Unit Record Equipment (I received a diploma for the voc school before I even got my high school diploma and I was 16 years old at that time). Needles to say in my humble opinion I program better then the "Doctor"! I even program ANSI BASIC in structured format by the liberal use of gosub and returns, pretty much like CoBOL. I can use OS's, it takes me about a week to learn an unfamiliar OS and in six months I will know it inside and out. There are advantages to being a combination of self taught and schooled.

Though formal education isn't the most important qualification by a long shot, many hiring managers and HR people think it is. As such, it can be difficult to get a job sometimes without a degree, even if you're the best fit for the job.

Plus, y'know, an enthusiastic, clear-thinking, talented person can get something from a college education, even if most college educated people aren't enthusiastic, clear-thinking, or talented.

I'm considering pursuing a degree in cognitive science, not because it would magically make me a better worker, but because I'm interested in the field.

What you did is step on your d**k.

Your ludicrous attack on tjsanko was misconceived. He pointed out that someone whose field of study was philosophy is one of the best in the industry. Your approach to letting people work in IT if they qualify by some paper standard would have kept him out of IT. Good job.

It would also keep out a lot of other innovators, while granting a free pass to idiots like Booch.

Are you cluing in to the point yet?

I have and ever since that day...

I have long been espousing Booch's "virtues".

I have been married to the same woman for the last 22 1/2 years. 23 years ago on the 15th we met. That is a bigger accomplishment than all the Degrees in the world...

Having a good marriage and family is more important than this discussion. See Ya later, I gotta take my wifey roller skating.

Lively was it not?

My opinions were and still are 100% valid. I have the right to express any opinion just as you have the right to disagree. It is however not within your rights to question my personal character.

I am slightly ashamed to be connected by profession (thankfully) to some of the particents within this forum. I hope that such people do not live out their daily existence with such hatred towards others who differ in opinion.

Thanks also for the insights. They will go down well when I get around to using them.

Prosper in your jobs, for I have the answers I was looking for?have you?

- Caveo Contabesco Operis Vita -

This isn't the first time that the same person has started a thread about exactly the same thing.

I don't know what his particular hang up is but it's beginning to get boring now after the same responses as last time. :)

Col ]:)

I hadn't recalled this particular person- only could see that (s)he has had an account for some time.

I have seen some wonderful rationale for continuing to successfully do "business as usual". If anything, this thread has made me more not less wary of paper-trained individuals.

That is how one trains a dog to not urinate on the carpet, isn't it? :)

Sorry- had to go there...

Construction & Accounting have been around since the Pyramid. How long has IT been in this world ?

During the pyramid era, people have already define some standard way of constructing building. IT is just beginning. In fact IT is one of the most dynamic field compared to engineering and accountancy.

HAL noted that this individual had done this once before. Interesting as he refused to reply to posts that challenged his so-called intellect and went instead for those he could flame and those he could incite.

I am ashamed to admit that he sucked me in too. I believed that this was an honest question being posed by an honest individual- with bad grammar and poor communication skills.

I truly don't care how many "points" he has garnered- the discussions that I read tells me that the point system is in deep dark do-do anyway. And frankly I don't care how long he has been a member. This effort- in his own words- was a trolling effort to find out what he could steal from the intellect of honest folk.

While I have enjoyed the intellectual exercise, unless this individual has managed to pervert TR, he has done nothing but put fodder out there for the more intellegent to weigh in on.

I have to wonder what it will buy you, troll boy...

I guess you're talking about people with high school diplomas as opposed to a college degree?

I'm not so sure which way to come down. I think I learned some valuable skills getting my computer science degree, but I've seen people without that credential have more success than me and make more money. So are they better off? Are they better than me? I dunno. I think it's 6 of one, half-dozen of the other. I think self-taught is an apt description for them, but they have some skills I don't. I may have skills that they don't. Both of us are valuable to some extent.

I consider myself self-trained in large part. I tend to not take technical courses through private firms. The programming courses at the local community college are like grammar school to me now. I prefer to sit down with a good technical book, try out some new techniques in a project that I make up, and develop my knowledge that way. I have the degree, but after that, I'm self-taught. I've never worked in a software team where the team members were unhappy with my skill level or dedication to getting the job done. I think those are the qualities that count, no matter how you get them.

When I first register for my Degree early this year, I did not have a clue why the management keep asking me to continue my Degree. Even most people with Degree said that Degree is nothing.

Jdclyde, you give me answer to it.
"Another reason degrees are seen as so important is the upper management spent a lot of time and money on degrees, and to turn around and say degrees are not important is too much of a slap in the face for them."

But one thing for sure, in class you will learn the Technology, sometimes the old Technology. When you work, you will learn the Technology and the IT Solution. But what more important is the IT Solution, not the technology. Do we have to change Operating System (OS) in a server using state-of-the-art OS if the real problem is the code inside the application ?

My brother does not have any kind of certification or Degree in computer or IT. He even failed when taking the HP/UX examination. And yet, he had develop his own Linux firewall and sell it for a government contract in my country with 6 figures (in MYR). He also had done a lot of system integration with a lot of government projects, be it from his previous company or by himself.

When he worked with his previous company, his boss awarded him with some percentage of the company shared, so that he would not quit. In fact the company now is already a public-listed company.

Now, he is running his own company. His income ? I don't know but I do know sometimes he got cheque in 6 figures (in MYR) from for his projects with the government.

BTW, $$$ 6 figures that I mentioned is in Malaysian Ringgit. Usually in our country, a Degree in Computer or IT would get a monthly income of not more than MYR5,000. Even in his previous company, my brother get a monthly income of not less than MYR7,000, which is equivalent to somebody with Master in Computer.

So, any arguments ?

Only a real money maker would compare doctors and IT people.
Self Trained has several big advantage compared to educated...they take a great interrest in what they do and there knowlegede is much weider..they solve problems faster and they are most offen lower paid.
Educated has no knowledede about things they have not read about and they think they know everything.

I would at any time hire a self trained before I hire a educated.

Can make spinoff the mind. :D :) ;)

Special if you bring in account some different languages and contractions of words ... :0

But if it was meant to be ...

:x
Rob

I can read apotheon's message because I have aptheon as a contact, but when I look at the entire thread on the topic, I cannot see the posting anywhere.

Did we run out of room for the discussion?

I can read apotheon's message because I have aptheon as a contact, but when I look at the entire thread on the topic, I cannot see the posting anywhere.

Did we run out of room for the discussion?

I?ve been working in IT now for almost ten years. I never had any formal schooling and everything I?ve learned has been on the job or playing around at home.

In my previous position I was an Assistant Manager and had to hire people to fill PC Tech positions. Personally I?ve found that having a degree and not having one makes no difference. Most Collages and Tech Collages teach theory and terminology. Don?t get me wrong these are good things to learn but in my opinion there is nothing like real world experience. I remember one guy that I hired. He was right out of a two year Tech Collage with a brand new two year degree. This guy had tons of book knowledge but had zero common sense and troubleshooting skills. Needless to say we had to let him go after a few months because he just didn?t get it. I still say the real world is where you are going to learn from, not a class room. Also most classes at Collages are a year to two years behind the current Tech. What good does it for me to learn about an OS or Application that is out of date? Granted some principles carry over but most tech just goes away.

Give me an employee that has a good head there shoulders and two years of real world experience and I?d bet that person would out perform a person straight out of school with a two year degree.

our educational system. I have noticed in schools a move towards memorizing instead of teaching students how to learn. When I was in school we didn't get answers to questions, instead we were given more questions and showed how to find our own answers. It was learning how to search out answers, how to find the right questions to ask.

As both an IT professional and a college level teacher, I brought real world into my classrooms. Students were never given answers, they were asked more questions to help them discover the answers for themselves. I can't say how many times I heard students complain about my NOT answering (that is giving them the answers) their questions.

By the end of a semester though, they felt like they really learned something and I still hear from some of them - even years later. I don't teach anymore, because I wanted to learn and re-emerse myself in IT. I want to help our profession overcome some of the communication and cultural gaps that cause our IT projects to fail. I know that is a lot, but I think IT has a lot to offer, if applied as the tool that it is to business.

Using my name simply tells me that you respect my superior yet un-degreed mind over your own. Although why you think it is better to be known as a one breasted cancer survivor is beyond me- there really are things you can't fake!

If I thought you were sad before, my opinion of you has managed to sink.

This has got to go down as one of the lamest efforts ever- my peers know me and my reputation- as well as my superior grammar. They won't be fooled and you have simply managed to make yourself look foolish.

Go away troll, or I shall replace you with a very small shell script!

Edited for typo. Don't want to be mistaken for troll-boy!

what is your point of copying the ID of another member?

Do you hope people will mistake you for someone smarter than yourself?

Do you hope some people might like you if they don't realize it is you?

Why would you intentionally want to be mistaken like this?

Makes us wonder about you and your intentions.

Troll?

In every profession, there are two kinds of professionals. A professional that "gets it" and all the rest.

There are a greater majority of people in IT who are self taught that "get it" and can usually run rings around the rest. The self-taught have an advantage, they have a genuine interest in whatever they are doing. The Wannabes don't. Would I hire an IT professional strait from College, well, maybe if I had five(5) years to train them.

The only exception in this case, is/are programmers. Computer Science is one of those avenues that requires some base foundation to get started. Sure you can learn a programming language, but colleges and universities provide a gradual step by step approach from learning Basic, to Fortran, to data structures, to C to building a compiler. This process is difficult to learn on your own. I?m not saying it?s impossible but not likely. You can be a functional programmer but never understand the foundation of how it works.

As for a lawyer and doctor, what in the world does that have to do with IT?? As I stated earlier, every profession has the ?Gets It? people. All the rest ?Get Sued?.

-H

IS Manager for the past 15 years

The individual who thought trolling was fun has now completely removed his initial post and changed his name yet again. I haven't read through the thread to determine if he is now removing ALL of his content, but I would not be surprised.

Dr. Jones? I think not.

The sex change must have gone horribly wrong, so instead of turning into a woman, It is now DR. Jones. What a pathetic excuse of a poster.

Time for TR to pull the discussion.

This troll had my ID most of the day. I exposed that in a variety of places, including here. He had my name for awhile but not my ribbon.

I think that he will reappear. I think he already has- a post from "Messaging Guy" gives me this impression. I truly dislike spammers. You would think that they would have something better to do.

I, like JD, think that this thread should go to Silicon H3ll. I will miss all of the good input but think that this has all been bourne of a spammer.

I'm not feeling good about any of this. Did I say or do anything to incite it?

But the same person started effectively the same thread and sounded as bitter as s/he still does.

Back then it sounded as if they missed out on a job because there was some [b]Self Taught[/b] person who fitted the position better or had more experience.

I just take it as this person has done a degree in CS and expects the [b]Big Bucks[/b] without the need to do the [b]Hard Yards[/b] to gain the proper knowledge.

Actually when I was at Uni it was quite common as quite a lot of the Students who did Under Grad Degrees in the Engineering fields thought that they had a God Given Right to a job and [b]Knew It All[/b] when actually that [b]Piece of Paper only gave them the right to go out and start to learn their TRADE![/b]

It's something that a lot of those who worship schooling fail to see as [b]Important[/b] though I consider it as the most important thing that they can take away from any Higher Education facility.

Many years ago when I was more helpful I used to be a guest speaker at the Local Uni and we had Mech Engineering Students come out and visit our design and production facility where I had to get my hands dirty. On one particular day I was in overalls deep in a transmission when these students walked in with their Professor and one asked quite loudly why some thing was the way that it was so without thinking I just answered the question. The student an Under Grad who had not then finished the course had to put me down as a [b]Fitter Who Knew Nothing so I should be ignored![/b] the next week I was giving a talk about something related to Mech Engineering and it's the only time that I've allowed myself to be introduced by my correct title it was priceless to see the look of horror on this students face when he realised that he had [b]Put Down[/b] the considered [b]Expert[/b] in the field that he wanted to go into. :^0

He thought that he could walk around in a [b]White Lab Coat[/b] and never need to get his hands dirty. It was inconceivable to him that it might be necessary to get his hands dirty at some stage when the fitters had a problem that they couldn't fix easily with one of his designs. :D

The very last thing that I said at every one of these Lectures was that the [b]Piece of Paper[/b] that they got when they finished their courses was only good to allow them to go out into the world and start to learn their trade. But then I wasn't the [b]Typical Mech Engineering Student[/b] either as I skipped most of the lectures and spent most of my time hanging out with the fitters who taught me a lot more than the Professors ever did there. This all came about because at the beginning of the course we had to do a drawing of a assembly [i]Open and In Line for Assembly[/i] and while you could actually draw the parts to the specs it was impossible to assemble them so I changed the drawing so it was possible to actually assemble and was marked down for this and when I insisted that it was perfectly easy to draw but it was impossible to assemble the professor in charge [b]Insisted that it wasn't a Engineering Problem but Actually a Fitting Problem.[/b] I learnt quite a lot from that one and decided that the Fitters where the ones to learn from and not the so called Professors who knew very little about the [b]Real World.[/b]

Col ]:)

Many years ago I was Offended by a Undergrad in Mech Engineering and when I gave a Lecture a week latter I was very condescending in that class. Only time I've ever allowed myself to be addressed by my proper title outside of the Legal System. :)

But I taught him not to take things by appearances as they might not always be as he saw them. That Dirty Fitter covered in Transmission Oil was the same person who about 1 week latter walked into a lecture to give a talk on [b]Real World[/b] implementations of what it was that they where supposed to be learning. :^0

Col ]:)

Nobody is to blame for a troll being a troll, except the troll. He's responsible for his own behavior: his transgressions are his fault, and his alone. Nothing either of you did justifies his asinine actions, and both of you said what you did only in response to some monumental blunders from him.

Dismiss him as the gnat he is. He's not worth your angst.

I could not link it to the @##%&*$ that we are discussing.

I am not one to ban a peer. I just don't thisnk this twit is a peer. Just a sh!thead.

I try to not take it personally. Really. Right now it is hard. I will deal with it.

The original post is edited and vanished in to thin air.

Rob

ps I could edit the sub-thread again that got all my nice mailings to the count of 4. :)

[i]edited to add the ps[/i]