OT: Degrees and Certifications (was: Re: OT: RE: John's being a PITA, again. Ignore, everyone. (Re: Two for the road, Report from Clerk & Nonstandard Subtotals))

[Fairlight]

With neither thought nor caution, Jay Ashworth blurted:
> On Tue, Mar 15, 2005 at 11:22:22AM -0500, Transpower wrote:
> > 
> > For the rest of us on this list, could the two of you (John and Jay) 
> > post your college degrees, systems engineering certifications, and 
> > commercial publications.  This ought to be fun...
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Ronald W. Satz, Ph.D., MCSE+I
> > SCO Authorized and Microsoft Certified Systems Engineering
> > Commercial and Custom Software Manufacturing Since 1976
> 
> Coming from someone who vaunts SCO and Microsoft.  :-)

You noticed that as well?

> I have no certifications, no college degree...

Ditto here.

> and 20 years of continuous, commercial, in-the-trenches, from-the-
> ground-up programming, systems, and network administration experience
> for live paying customers.

I've got 13 -- 10 of them solo.  

Those degrees and certifications are as good as useless unless you're in a
licensed field that requires stringent re-certification periodically.  I'd
wager that 50% or more of graduating students couldn't pass more than 70%
of the exams upon which their degree is based if forced to take them again
right before getting the degree.  And that's probably being generous as to
how many would do how well--both numbers are probably elevated.  Our
educational system emphasises rote memorisation, not learning the why's and
wherefore's and teaching you how to extrapolate.  It's a difference between
being taught and being educated.  And it's a disparate difference.

As for certifications, it proves two things:  1) you knew the answers they
wanted to hear on the exam the day it was given, and 2) you had money
burning a hole in your pocket, and weren't bright enough to spend it
elsewhere (or to tell the boss that it would be a waste of money).  Unless
I actually have some reason to get to know the person (or knew them already
and they simply got the certification because some idiot pointy-headed
manager mandated it), the -first- thing I do when I see someone "flaunting"
their certifications is write them off as "likely useless".  Actually, the
people that are -forced- to get them don't flaunt them publicly--they just
silently have them.  It's the people that list 3-20 certifications in their
.sig file that you have to worry about.  I've seen people with a bevvy of
certifications that can't code or admin their way out of a wet paper bag.
The sad thing is that pointy-heads tend to be impressed by all those
letters, and then get stuck with a lemon a good percentage of the time.

I'll take someone completely devoid of 'official' credentials that knows
what they're actually doing, thanks.  Usually someone with a bachelor's
degree in MIS or who has some meaningless certification -is- the person
that screwed up a system I'm brought in to fix, but -not- the person who
can fix it (which ends up being me--with no diploma, no certifications, but
a cartload of experience).

A piece of paper is no measure of competence in most fields.  And in -our-
field, those certifications suffer the same fate as most hardware--it's
almost obsolete by the time you get it, and it probably wasn't worth what
you paid for it in the first place.

I personally find the suggestion that such credentials could shed any light
on any discussion related to computing to be a faulty premise.  Someone's
either talented and bright enough to be good (or at least competent enough
not to be dangerous), or they're not.  But a piece of paper (or lack
thereof) won't tell you that with any accuracy.

mark->
-- 
          *****   Fairlight Consulting's Software Solutions   *****
OneGate Universal CGI Gateway:                  http://onegate.fairlite.com/
FairPay PayPal Integration Kit:                 http://fairpay.fairlite.com/
RawQuery B2B HTTP[S] Client & CGI Debugger:     http://rawquery.fairlite.com/
Lightmail Mail Sending Agent:                   http://lightmail.fairlite.com/