Re: [SAGE] Computer Sciences degrees in IT

[Pat Wilson <paw@network.ucsd.edu>]

maddog@li.org writes:
>  On Sat, 2007-03-24 at 10:15 -0700, Michael T. Halligan wrote:
>  
>  > and fell into systems work through more interesting paths.
>  
>  This is the part that really puzzles me.....if they were "more
>  interesting paths", then why were these people systems administrators?
>  Were they unsuccessful at those "more interesting paths", or were they a
>  lot like the engineers at Digital, pulled away by the Sirens of computer
>  science?

Well, for me, it wasn't so much the siren call of computer science as it
was (a) filthy lucre (it's hard to get much of a job with a BA in Biology)
and (b) a fascination with making complex systems work.  I probably could
have just as easily become a car mechanic had I known anything about cars; 
it was clear from my CS Master's experience that the theoretical side of 
things just wasn't my bag, but I could figure out how operating systems 
that other people had written worked, and it was fun.

I still wonder about how good a (biological) scientist I might have been.

--paw