From: Mark Woodward <markonlinux@...>
Date: 2007-12-11T19:55:00+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby certification

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 01:59:32 -0500
Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> wrote:


> I tend to agree, to some extent at least.  I'm surprised, though, that
> you didn't address the matter of how a CS degree is characterized
> here. Computer Science degrees are not supposed to indicate a basic
> ability to program -- computer science as a field is something else
> entirely.  It is as though everyone expects a CS degree to be the
> definitive programming certification.  Of course, because that's how
> it is treated in the job market, schools have started chasing that in
> how they structure their CS degree programs, with the end result that
> they end up being about as worthless as vendor-driven
> certifications.  Oh, sure, they make you *look* good, but they don't
> make you *actually* good, at least judging by the results I've seen.
> 
> It seems most CS degree programs are just (really long, really
> expensive) Java certification courses, these days.

OK, I'll bite ;-)
As someone who has just completed a degree I'm afraid I'll have to
agree with you Chad. I look back on what I've actually learnt over the
past 10 years (that right! 10. I've been doing it part time through
distance education as well as getting married, having 2 kids, 3 jobs, 2
states, 3 houses...) and if I had to summarize I'd say it taught me a
little about many things, but not a lot of anything in particular!

Interviewer: "What can you tell me about the OSI?"
Me: "Open Systems Interconnect, 7 layers, blah blah"
Interviewer: "Good"
Interviewer: "Have you ever administered a network before?"
Me: "ar.. no"
Interviewer: "mmm"

Interviewer: "What's OOP"
Me: "Object Oriented Programming, classes, instances, inheritance,
polymorphism... ramble, ramble, ramble"
Interviewer: "What projects have you worked on that involved OOP?"
Me: "um .. none"
Interviewer: "mmm"

Interviewer: "What languages have you used?"
Me: "Java/J2EE, Perl, PHP, javascript, C, C++, Ruby"
Interviewer: "That's good. How would you rate your level of expertise
in these languages"
Me: "um .. beginner in all of them"
Interviewer: "Is it time for coffee?"

(See a trend yet ;-))

Interviewer: "What Operating systems are you familar with?"
Me: "Windows 95/Me/2000/XP, Linux/Unix"
Interviewer: "Good, so what does 'make >& make.output &' do then?"
Me: "ar .. uses make ..."
Interviewer: "Ar .. so you know about 'make' then?"
Me: "well, I've heard of it" (Sinks into chair)
Interviewer: "mmm, go on.."
Me: "I'm not getting this job, am I?"
Interviewer: "um ... no!"


Uni teaches a lot of theory, but unless you're working in the industry
that's all it is.. theory! I'm actually working in IT now but I
wasn't for the first 8 years of the degree.

Now that I've finished, it's time to actually learn something beyond an
introductory level. I'm not saying the degree wasn't beneficial. It was.
But I would say there was a lot of 'fluff'. I do though find myself
thinking "oh, that's what the lecturer was trying to get across" at
times.

One thing I will say about the whole Cert/Uni thing though is it
depends on the person. Like somebody else said, you could sleep through
a course, barely pass the exam, and forget it the next day. Or you
could use it as a springboard to go further. Would I do another
Cert/degree? Nope! Hopefully I'll get to a point where I'll be of some
use to an open source project. I think that would definitely be the way
to go.

cheers,

-- 
Mark