grad school / openbsd / editors

Daniel R . Kilbourne drk@voyager.net
Mon, 12 Mar 2001 11:30:29 -0500


I would agree that if one wants to do research and/or training, a degree is essential.

If you want to just join the workforce, however, certification is held in higher esteem by employers. Certification shows that you keep up-to-date on topics that are relevant to the employer. For instance, if you are a network engineer, a certification in BGP or OSPF from Cisco will be a heck of a lot more meaningful than a General Comp Sci degree from MSU. Degrees definitely have merit, as they show a level of dedication necessary to stick with something for 4 years (or much longer in some of our cases), but Certification will generally be more relevant to actual job skills needed. I think many employers also use a degree as a maturity factor, generally people with Degrees seem to be more focused.

Case in point, in the company I work for, we have 11 people that make up the systems/networking group (sytems design/engineering and network engineering/design). Of these, only 2 have degrees, and 3 others are pursuing them now (that I know of), (although one of those 3 is me who is getting my BS in Zoology/Neurobiology (: ). Now, the 2 guys that have the degrees (plus probably a few of the others), are in this for the career. I (man I hope the 'higher-ups' are not reading this) am in it for a job until I discover my career. I just basically fell into it, as did (I believe) many of the others in my group. 

Now, I do need to blather a little about certifications, though. I think most people think of A+ and other such one-day-wonder 'training course' as certification. To me, they certify that you can read a book and take a meaningless test (prepared for fallout from all A+ certified people). When I refer to Certification, I am talking such things as MCSE (yuk), CCIE, CCNA, SCSA, and so on. Official training and testing done by the people that invented/implemented the technology in question. 

Experiance also definitely plays a role, but I am sick of babbling, so I shall leave it at this....

Enjoy my incoherence...   :)



Keyes, Randall extolled:
> Sounds like fun.  I just wondered. 
> 
> I have a Bachelors in Education, but my Microsoft Certification and
> experience held more weight with my current employer than others with
> computer degrees.  EDS seemed to be the same way.  That's why I wondered
> what the experience of others was.
> 
> Randy Keyes 
> Network Services, JNL 
> randall.keyes@jnli.com
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Pfaff [mailto:pfaffben@msu.edu]
> Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 10:48 AM
> To: Keyes, Randall
> Cc: linux-user@egr.msu.edu
> Subject: Re: grad school / openbsd / editors
> 
> 
> "Keyes, Randall" <randall.keyes@jnli.com> writes:
> 
> > In all seriousness, I have found that vender certification (MCP, MCSE,
> > CCIE,..etc) seems to be more important the graduate degrees unless you are
> > moving toward management.  Have others found this also to be true?
> 
> I don't want to be just another programmer.  I want to do
> research.  A PhD is a necessity.

-- 
--------------------------------
Daniel R. Kilbourne
daniel.kilbourne@voyager.net
Network Engineering
CoreComm - Formerly Voyager.net
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