I've been loosely following the BSDCert list for a while. I'm very interested. But, you know how it is, occupied by life's demands. Just catching up on things now. I see a lot of good ideas circulating. And, thought I'd toss out some of my own ideas and experiences trying to bring BSD and linux into the local college curriculum, and now pursuing industry standard certifications.
They're two different ball parks. Just a quick history: I attended the Borough of Manhattan Community College. And am now pursuing Cisco certs through New Horizons. At BMCC we had / sort of have 1 and only 1 course offered involving "Unix" of any flavor, CIS440 Introduction to Unix. Until I took up the cause, no one in the college could remember the last time the course was actually taught. The no-longer-existant C programming course was listed as a prerequisite. It had long since been abandoned ever since (or shortly after) C++ hit the sceene, which was listed as a seperate course. I don't know the specific time frame, but I'm pretty sure C++ has been around for a good long while, no? As a member of the Student Government of BMCC, sitting on the curriculum committee, and being a BSD and linux user / budding admin for a while now, I took up the cause to have the course reinstituted. It was. And it has run on and off since then provided there is sufficient enrollment each semester to warrant it, which is complicated slightly by the fact that it's still not publicized or available through the regular registration channels. It has continuted though, if not by virtue of our curriculum, then at least by the love of the technology and the freedom inherent in "Open" software, systems and standards. Aside from the troubles inherent to a community college catering to the poor, over crowed and underprivilaged, the question of suitable curriculum and course design is a challenge in itself. The nature of our situation demands flexibility. Student "pre-qualifications" may range from basic competency in english, basic to next to no programming skills, typing abiility around 10-20wpm with 40-60% accuracy and no prior exposure to linux or BSD before. Or, up to your typical native english speaker whose become competent if not fluent in more than one programming language, can keep up typing at 50-100wpm with 75-95% accuracy and has started browsing the kernel source for fun. (I don't want or mean to sterotype non-english speakers as incompetent. That is hardly the case. The professor himself is a non-native english speaker, and does a marvellous job. I'm just presenting ranges for the basic skills of which the language of instuction must be one.) And, we get one course to give it a go for each of them. So, we do what we have to do. We shoot from the hip and try to hit the widest audience we can. Students team up roughly according to the level they're starting from and work on projects suitable to their level while everyone is required to exhibit a minimum level of understanding of unix history, system internals, networking tools and competency within a typical unix shell. I'm no longer at BMCC, though I like to stay in touch, and I'm glad to hear the CIS440 course is running again this semester. Mean while, I'm tring to transition from college back into the work force. Looking for even an entry level systems or network admin position. And every opening I see requires experience or certifications. But, besides small time consulting, I've never actually been "employed" by a company in the field, and have no certifications (yet). It seems most the work out there is Microsoft related and everyone and their mother has Microsoft certifications. Yet, I've met MCSEs who know less about Windows than I do. And I'm just not interested in those certifications or that direction in the slightest. My interest is in Open Source programming, operating systems and networking. So... "Welcome to New Horizons" and it's ICND time, preping for my first Cisco certs. Proprietary still, yes I know. But a fellow I've come to hold in high regard in these matters recommends Cisco certs as "the only certifications in the industry that arn't entirely laughable." And, I felt I needed to round out my networking knowlege a bit. And, wow! Am I glad I did. This is the way education ought to be! 12 hours a day of cramming through new material, cycling information and drilling it. New information, drill it, new information, drill it. Again, and agan and again. I love it, but (haha) the whole time I can't help but think, "Umm, ok, besides the proprietary protocols, I'm fairly confident there's nothing here that's not just as doable with any Linux or a BSD." Perhaps most significantly, it's got me thinking a lot more about embedded systems and business oriented solutions. And, so it got me to thinking about my favorite tutorial author, Dru =D and the BSDCert project she'd brought up at the BSDCon in NYC in 2005. The ideas are clicking away and sort of falling into place as I write this, so bear with me. And please excuse me if I'm just being trivial in saying whatever's already been said. The problem with defining a thorough and comprehensive BSD curriculum is that we'd be endevoring to create courses of instruction that span the history, theory, design, implementation and applicaton of computation, programming, operating systems, networks, internetworking (and just about any conceivable method of electronic communications). And, not just covering what has been, but staying abreast of continuing development, bugs, vulnerabilities and ever new emerging technology. Thats a pretty tall order. Reads more like a doctorate in Computer Science than a Certification System. In my experience (limited though it is) the main difference between the academic approach and the Certification approach is the focus on Business-Centric Applications of the technology in question. So, while I'm in favor of a full fledged open standard curriculum spanning the gamut that is "BSD"; where our reputation would be won (or lost) is in that more narrowly defined branch of "Business-Centric Solutions with BSD." History becomes auxiliary: Brief mentions. Good for impressing colleagues and coworkers. No direct technological business value. However, there IS marketing value here. Theory and Theoretical Design are upper echelon topics: Select mentions until higher levels. No *immediate* business value. But, important investments in R&D for the leaders of tomorrow. This is where all the hard work and long roads eventually lead. Contingent upon creativity and inspiration. Can stike anyone, anywhere, anytime. Indulgence in pure math and science have been known to help. Can you make Certs for this kind of thing? I'm not sure. I kind of doubt it. Definitely an academic curriculum though. Applied Theory and Practical Design on the other hand are the main occupation of our "working" engineers: They have to translate business needs into specifications, select appropriate architectures, protocols and frameworks. And properly command the implementation. Sometimes even work with the EEs and upper design and theory guys and gals to pursue modifications or addons to existing architectures, protocols and frameworks if the business needs cannot be met by existing systems. They map the need to the solution. And sometimes have to pave the road themselves. Prerequisites get steep. Highly experienced and/or educated persons required. Implementation and Application are the bread and butter of the industry! Systems Administrators Network Administrators Programmers The guys and gals who weave the magic, guard the doors and hold the keys. Without scouring the list I think I can safely presume most commentary and suggestions have addressed this level of the industry. So, I'll save it for later after I find more time to catch up on the list's reading. Advanced Networking Certs: VPN, Firewalls, VoIP I know BSD works great for routers, but what about pure [programmable] switching? Multi layer switching? BGP Internetworking? Auxiliary Certifications! Technicians: Don't count on the A+ to uphold the reputation of your Certification System graduates. We often take cabling and accessories for granted. But when you provide a training path for anyone to take, if you take typical hardware (beyond common home computing) for granted, and your boys & girls show up for the job with their fresh BSD Certs and don't know Cat5 from Cat6 (or how to crimp Cat cables), DTE from DCT, Firewire from USB, or "What IS an ISDN line anyway?" hmmm... Well, they can always do the "Eh, I'm not a *hands on* evil genius, per se" routine. But, it don't l.o.o.k good! Already knowing how to terminate a T1, on the other hand, does look very good indeed. "Estimators" / "Sales Associates" / "Marketers": Whatever you want to call it. We've GOT to get some guys out of the code and out on the streets, beating down doors, chewing off ears, thumping the BSD bible and for godsakes selling BSD Business Solutions, ethically. Seriously, I know this has dragged on to become an ungodly long rant. And I apologize. Especially if I've just babbled on here about stuff that's already been said when I ought to be catching up on the list's reading. I know I've not really contributed any technical specs to help construct any specific certs. But my own experience suggests that we should make a distinction between an open standard BSD curriculum suitable for collegiate studies (which is laudable and should be pursued) and BSD Certifications suitable for BSD Business Solutions (which is where we'll make or break the project's reputation). Furthermore, and finally, I believe we'll need Certs spanning the different layers of industry to make the Certification System model meaningful. That is, we could certify all the "Implementation and Application" layer folks we wanted. But if there aren't "Engineering" layer folks out there to map the Business Needs to a BSD Solution, and BSD bible thumping "Sales Associates" out there to carry that message and be ready to deliver cost estimates... then all the Admin certs in the world won't matter, because there wouldn't be the jobs to fill em with. Tim __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ BSDCert mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nycbug.org/mailman/listinfo/bsdcert
