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))

[ryanx at indy.rr.com]

On Tue, Mar 15, 2005 at 08:30:02PM -0500, Fairlight said:

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

No ditto. But I'll vouch for your argument. 

> 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

A degree ain't what it used to be (pun intended). I had a degree in
hand and was bound for Hollywood to work with George Lucas, or so I
thought. As the tired old story goes, a million other people had the
same idea.

What a degree amounts to these days is that you have a person that was
by whatever means willing to stick to a goal for four years without
getting expelled and that they hopefully learned something during that time.
With the internet, hypertext, Google, and the ease of cheating, all indications of
competency have gone out the window.  

> A piece of paper is no measure of competence in most fields.  And in -our-

Someone once told me that I wouldn't get a job in this state (Indiana)
unless I had a recommendation by word-of-mouth. I've found that was
mostly true, and almost absolutely true in the software field. It
boils down to "who do you trust", certainly not a piece of paper.

> 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.

In the good old days where people had common values and could actually recite
the 10 Commandments within 15 seconds there existed a system of trust.
Without that common denominator, a writ of competence is as good as
junk mail.

-- 
Ryan
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