[KLUG Members] Dropping CIS enrollments

[Dirk H Bartley]

I'll have to say I agree that college and certs are extremely different
in objective.  Different employers have differing perspectives as well
of the prospective employer possible qualifications.  Employers want
risk reduction.  They want someone else to put a seal of
adequacy/excellence on the future employee before they commit.  I'd say
the best thing is good references.  References the employer respects. 
Those references are most often people they trust but can be certs and
degrees.

I have a degree from WMU and feel that in no way shape or form did it
cater to the least common denominator.  It was a serious challenge.  My
degree was engineering and I will say that the material in the degree
and the pre-requisite knowledge to perform the engineering job I did
have for a few years were in different ballparks.  The material in
college tends to be more general and theoretical.  Certs test knowledge
in a field as currently practiced.  College tends to think a little more
long term.  If a college taught to a cert, the material would probably
be worthless by graduation.

I still believe that a degree is just to show that you have learned how
to learn in a related field and that the instructors have said so.

I look in the paper every week and the job situation in kazoo is not
good lately (read last 3 years).  I know most jobs are not found through
the paper but I think it is a indicator for the market.  Systems admins
support users.  The number of users in Michigan I think is just going
down the tubes.  Manufacturing jobs are flying to other locations.

Dirk

On Sat, 2004-08-21 at 21:46, Doc Rea wrote:
> Some replies below.
> 
> Adam Tauno WIlliams wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, 2004-08-20 at 15:31, econophil at charter.net wrote:
> > 
> <snip>
> 
> 
> > Smart students don't need to waste their time on the current level of
> > college courses which cater to the least-common-denominator /
> > under-achiever.  They just go for the certs.
> 
> I can't disagree with this more. College is way more than certs. If you 
> want to just be technical, sure go for the certs, but college can help 
> you learn more about other things as well. I won't get into the whole 
> philosophical argument here, but I just can't agree with the "smart 
> student" implied "dumb student" statement here. Once again, it depends 
> on what you want to do.