Re: University Reccomendations

On 04/25/2012 03:48 PM, Nathan Hamiel wrote:
>> I've read all the replies to this so far and I feel there's an angle that
>> hasn't been covered yet:  Just go and learn this stuff on your own!
>>   There's LOADS of *free* course materials online (Stanford, MIT, etc) that
>> cover whatever you could possibly want to learn.
>>
> The problem here is there is no proof. The knowledge you gain from those
> free courses are useful, but not encompassing of what you would get from an
> entire degree program. That's why those universities make those classes
> freely available. Taking some online classes from MIT and having a degree
> from MIT are to TOTALLY different things. Not to mention you miss out on
> all of the soft skills, communication skills, and other useful pieces of
> information you pick up along the way. A degree is much more than technical
> knowledge alone. A degree says to an employer that you started something
> and finished it. Which is saying quite a bit.
The problem here is that there is no proof.  There's *so many* 
completely useless individuals with college degrees that the degree 
itself proves absolutely nothing.  The knowledge you gain from some 
school's courses *could* be useful, but not encompassing what you'd get 
from actual experience.  That's why having publicly-visible code on a 
site like Github is so much better as a competence indicator.  Not to 
mention that while you're slaving away on coursework for four years 
you'll miss out on all the real-world experience you could have received 
in the same amount of time.  An app or an open source project says to an 
employer that you started something *real* and finished it.  Which is 
saying quite a bit.

>> If your concern is that employers won't consider you without a piece of
>> paper (degree), forget about it!  Experience is far more important.  I
>> don't have a degree and it has never caused me trouble in my (12+ year) IT
>> career.
>
> Honestly this model is dead. It's all well and good for people who have
> been in the workforce for quite a while, but what about future students?
> They can't get experience because they can't get hired. You can't come
> straight out of high school and get a job in technology. It just doesn't
> happen anymore. This isn't the 90's ;) What company do you know that offers
> on the job training? Those programs got cut back when the big drop
> happened. I mean, is it even possible to get an AOL tech support job
> anymore? Comcast? I'm guessing if so, the number of positions have fallen
> drastically. Our society has become much more technology savvy rendering
> much less need for positions like that which honestly did help people break
> in to technology careers in the past.
The model that is dead is the "degree == competence" model.  Tuition 
costs just keep going up and the truth is that it is a bubble and it 
will burst.  Just like the housing bubble and all the bubbles that came 
before it.  The less a degree is worth in the real world the less likely 
people are to seek it and indeed, this process has already begun.  
Enrollment of men in colleges and universities is dropping (apparently 
degrees are more valuable to women).

I'm also going to call, "Citation Needed" for your statement that you 
can't get a job in technology straight out of high school.  Also, if 
this truly is an untenable situation it has more to do with employers 
not understanding their own needs in terms of what skills are required 
to get any given job done.  Alternatively, it is because IT itself has 
made so many jobs just plain unnecessary.

Now I'm going to rant about businesses RIDICULOUS stances on job 
skills:  You're right that no one offers training anymore.  Let me break 
down the problem:

1) All over the news you see employers complaining that they can't find 
enough "qualified candidates" for the IT-job-of-the-moment.  Let's focus 
on a real hot one right now:  Hadoop.  No one can find *anyone* with 
Hadoop experience!
2) Ask one of said companies how many employees they're currently 
training in Hadoop and you'll get a single answer:  None!  Training?  
What training?
3) A logical conclusion one can make from this is that said companies 
problem of finding employees with Hadoop experience is self-inflicted, 
unsustainable idiocy.

Now tell me which college I can attend to *get experience* with Hadoop?  
Oh wait, colleges and universities don't do that!  But what about 
classes that might feature Hadoop?  Good luck with that!

There's something else I'd like to bring up.  I call it the "layoff 
formula":

1) Given that IT changes at an incredibly rapid pace.
2) Given that your employer is not training you in new technologies as 
they enter the marketplace.
3) You will eventually find yourself out of a job with none of the 
skills employers are looking for *unless* you are constantly teaching 
*yourself* new tech.

So to put it another way:  If your employer isn't training you to use 
new technologies they consider you disposable *and* they're only going 
to make the "lack of qualified candidates" problem worse for themselves.

>
> There seems to be a decline in the quality of high school student nowadays
> as well. They aren't learning the skills necessary for the workplace.
> Community colleges and universities offer an environment where they can
> work on projects and work with other groups of students. Then some of them
> even have internship programs as well to get them some seat time working in
> technology. I don't think the importance of this can be overstated.

High schools haven't changed.  They're still teaching kids the same 
stuff they always have...  And that right there is the problem.  They 
haven't evolved.  So while the "real world" of business has progressed, 
requiring loads and loads of new, specialized skills high schools are 
still focusing their attention on math and reading.  The big difference 
is that having decent reading and basic math skills (and maybe some 
basic worldly knowledge) used to be all that was necessary for most jobs.

>
> In addition technology has also become much more specialized. In the past
> we were all generalists to a certain extent. Admins or developers roughly.
> Now it's not enough to understand the core concepts they also want product
> or framework specific knowledge too. "Oh it's fine that you understand
> firewalling, but if you don't have CheckPoint experience we can't hire
> you". "Oh you write Java, have you ever done any Spring development? Nope,
> sorry then we need a Spring Guru". The number of products and frameworks
> has grown exponentially from the small amount that was around when many of
> us started our technology careers. It's not the same market, we adapted to
> the environment and through that we picked stuff up along the way. New
> students do not have that luxury.
No argument from me on this one.  In fact, I think your statement here 
points out precisely why employers offering job training is so much more 
important than it used to be.  It is also why a college degree has 
become less and less useful.  If all you want is specialists, the 
generalist nature of a college degree is meaningless!
>> Certifications also help but only certain ones are "worth it".  What is
>> "worth it" changes all the time so don't waste your time with things like
>> A+ or Microsoft certs (unless you really want to be an underpaid Windows or
>> Exchange admin =).  CISSP and RHCE really do carry a lot of weight with
>> recruiters/HR folks.
>>
> Certifications are great, but one of the ones you mentioned
> CISSP requires 4 years of verified work experience in the security field.
> That's hard to get if you can't get a job, or as I mentioned previously are
> just out of high school.
>
>
>> All that matters is that you get through to the technical interview where
>> anyone who even remotely seems like they could do the job will appear like
>> an angel of mercy compared to what typically gets through the HR
>> department's resume filter:
>
> Getting through that filter can be impossible if the requirements are 4
> year degree required. Let's not forget, HR people have no hooks in to
> technology. All they do is translate the requirements and publish them.
> It's not always so easy to get past them. In the future there are going to
> be more and more of these gates particularly because of the specific
> technology focus.
Nearly every job these days lists, "Four-year degree *or equivalent work 
experience*."  Not only that but none of that stuff even gets verified 
until you're actually in the final phases of the hiring process (as in, 
"You're hired!  We just need to do the paperwork...").

The HR filters *are* tough to get past but the trick is having all the 
necessary keywords.  I'd be surprised if the HR filters even looked at 
education at all.
>
> Just to sum up, unless you have a hookup somewhere the only place for
> students to go after high school for most jobs of the future is some form
> of college, university, or tech school. If I were in Vegas I would have no
> problem going all in on that statement ;)
>
If you've already published an app to an App Market and/or published 
useful open source code to Github you're *way* ahead of everyone else.  
Not only that but you're hireable!  Last I checked "Age" wasn't on most 
resumes or job listings.  If you get past the HR filters the hiring 
manager/team will start examining your experience and code (if 
available).  If they like what they see you're 90% of the way to getting 
the job.  Like I said, most of the people that get past HR are useless 
so anyone with public code that *actually works* (LOL, I have so many 
stories) will be the one that gets hired.

-- 
"Those who choose proprietary software will pay for their decision!"


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