Bill wrote:
> Formal training is good. But hands-on experience is essential.
And there are varying levels of "formal training."
> A man with a head full of theory is generally at the mercy of a
> man with a head full of experience.
Depends on the training. Some training is more theory, and some
training is more "hands-on." And even in the "hands-on" training,
it may not be the training you need. It could also just be the
training to pass a test, instead of learning what you need for your
job. "Cram education" is not education/training, it's a study
course. It should only be used in addition to actual
knowledge-based education/training.
> Don't bemoan the lack of educational certification ... just
> go out and get it too.
My boss (who is Mark Mathews for those that know him), made a very
good statement when ELUG was first starting up (circle 1998) when
one user (coming from a vendor-related user group) insisted on a
focus of certification. His statement was essentially "I think
certifications are a fine way to difference yourself from other
technicians if you don't have a 4-year college degree."
But I agree, experience is the ultimate factor.
> I started at DOS 2.0 and greatly miss my WordStar 2000. For a couple of
> years I taught DOS applications ... and did hardware support for a fleet
> of aging 286's. At present, I run a pretty nice home network [ with a
> couple of "features" that still need to be ironed out :-)] and am enrolled
> in Henry Ford Community college (cis.hfcc.net) for programming courses
> and, towards the end of October, CISCO academy. The end result, two years
> down the road, should be CISCO cert., A+ cert. and an Associates in
> computer science.
Which is good. Some people do the whole theoretical engineering
'thang. Others go for the more practical technology avenue. Some
grab a few certs and that is fine. Education, be it engineering,
technology or product specific is great for differentiating yourself
and/or meeting a minimum job requirement.
But as the man says, experience speaks for itself.
-- TheBS
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org chat:thebs413 Engineer AbsoluteValue Systems, Inc. http://www.linux-wlan.org President SmithConcepts, Inc. http://www.SmithConcepts.com
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