Re: SAGE, certification, and you

[Andy Poling <andy@globalauctions.com>]

(Hey Bill - long time no see)

On Wed, 25 Feb 1998, Bill Bogstad wrote:
> 	Yes, a college degree is helpful for many jobs and is unlikely to hurt
> much in any job.  However, what degree?  In recent reporting in the news about
> the lack of skilled IT staff and the dearth of CS majors, one point which I've
> seen reported (albeit rarely) is that only about 25% of people working in IT
> have a CS degree.  Even if you expand to include EE, CE, and similar degrees,
> I'd guess that you wouldn't find much more then 50% of working professionals
> have degrees that are remotely connected with IT.

One thing to consider is that there are so many mgmt type positions in IT
these days that are filled with Business and MIS degreed people.  I think
that's a big problem with just about any "industry survey" - the respondents
are not necessarily representative.  Without getting into mgmt bashing, I
think they're more likely to take the time to fill out a survey.


> I suspect that in system
> administration the percentage of working professionals with non-IT related (or
> no) degrees is higher; just because of the way that many people end up in
> system administration.

Bingo.  It may be a "career track" of sorts these days, but it wasn't always
so.  Many people (myself included) kind of fell into it.  That doesn't say
anything about their knowledge or skills.  

A common mistake, and one I see being made here by some, is the belief that
a college degree actually tells you something about a person's knowledge or
skills.  More to the point, some people seem to believe that a college
degree (or other proof of completing some course of study) automatically
indicates that person possesses a certain level of knowledge and skills.  

That's simply not so.  All it means is that they spent time sitting in
classrooms (hopefully) listening as they were lectured at, and then
satisfactorily completed whatever test regimen was present.  Mind you, I'm
not trying to say that education is bad (I have a degree, though it's not in
CS) - simply that it's no quality guarantee.

Proof of education doesn't tell you what they know or what they can do - it
only tells you what they were supposedly told.  The absence of such proof
also doesn't mean they don't know something.  How do you compare 2-4 yrs of
classes with 10-20 years of on the job experience?  It's tough... definitely
an apples and oranges thing.

-Andy