Originally posted by PDXterra:
[ way way WAY off topic ]
Jersey/Samueul -
I'm not a network guy (I write software) but my experience in the tech industry has shown that a disproportionate number of the skilled engineers I've worked with have not had a college degree. There's just something about this industry that draws creative, hard-working people, degree or not. When it comes to hiring people I look at personality first, experience second, and then at some point I might glance at a candidate's education. It's really not that important, as our industry moves so fast that what you learned in college was obsolete the day you graduated. I suspect it is like that in a lot of fields, but in tech it's pretty obvious when someone is falling behind the curve. It seems that a lot of the grads I've worked with have a reluctance to learn new ideas or new languages. I don't have a degree, but if I did I'd understand where they are coming from. No one wants to spend 4 years and an assload of money only to find that in the real world you can compress that 4 years into about 1 year of hard work in this industry. I'm 28, I have no degree, I earn a great living and I co-own my own software company. Shit, it's not like I'm mowing lawns anymore, I worked my ass off to get here and I'm not taking it for granted!
[ / way way WAY off topic ]
When I started in this field, College didn't really offer anything on the network infrastructure side of things. College touched on it, but mostly all the course work was software related (programming languages, database, etc.). Certifications were where it was at for actual networking. For me it was Banyan Vines, Unix, and Novell Netware, which ultimately for me lead to Microsoft, Active Directory etc. I'm only now going back to finish, because my employer will pay for it, and it's something I never finished. I don't actually "need" a college degree, as I am well set in the field etc. Just finishing up unfinished business.
Previous Topic
Index
