Fwd: RE: OT: Degrees and Certifications

[Fairlight]

Yo, homey, in case you don' be listenin', Transpower done said:
> 
> Rather than Jay and John dueling, I thought it would be better for them
> (and us) to compare their academic and commercial achievements.  But
> John hasn't replied yet.

And I shouldn't expect him to--he's under no obligation.  The man -is-
brilliant though.  He's forgotten more than I'll likely ever learn.

> The problem with the non-degreed and the non-certified is that they
> don't know how much they don't know.  Do the following experiment:  go

It doesn't take a degree or certification to know how much you don't know.
It takes a degree of cognition and self-appraisal and honesty, as well as
analysis of the field of which you consider yourself a part.

> to your local university engineering library or math or physics library
> and attempt to read and understand the latest profressional journals.
> Without a college education you will be completely lost in the stacks.
> Ignorance is not bliss.

That's not actually true.  The truly motivated would have only marginal
trouble with getting the gist of an article.  Given decent reading
comprehension skills, context clues, a dictionary, and a technical
reference or three should let one get through most things except equations.

Unfortunately, they don't seem to emphasise reading comprehension like they
used to.

> In my career I've used every course I ever took, save for one:  Soil
> Mechanics.  Go figure.

Useful for civil engineering.  My wife's needed that more than she needed
thermodynamics.  Depends which branch of engineering you go into, and in
which area within that you choose to specialise.

mark->
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