At 7:35 AM +0000 6/2/03, n rf wrote: >Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: >> > >> >> Another aspect that hasn't been discussed is the whole area of >> other >> skill sets, other than perhaps server skills and general >> management >> (MBA-ish). Now, I'll challenge the assumption of some people >> that say >> they don't want to be engineers and haul boxes around for their >> whole >> careers. Engineers do lots of things that don't involve hauling >> boxes, such as design, product management, presales, etc. >> Engineer >> != support technician. > >I would submit that all these alternatives are more easily achieved with a >degree than with a cert. Things like presales, design, product-management >and the like all require soft-skills that are better addressed via a degree >program but are addressed poorly, if at all, by a cert program.
I don't necessarily disagree with the above. But, the reason I changed the thread title slightly is that _my_ central point is that a work-study degree may be the best of all worlds early in a career, since it allows both. Degree programs are not necessarily the best for soft skills, or at least some of the technical degree programs. I remember telling a computer science professor in a graduate program that if I started programming his sloppy way, I'd get fired. If one attends the IETF, one will find the presentation skills often to be very deficient. The IETF is a very mixed bag, with dropouts and PhD's getting respect on their accomplishments rather than their credentials. Realistic network design doesn't usually enter undergraduate programs of any sort. Quite frankly, in later career, personal networking and one's experience (including things such as publications) may be more important than either. Self-education, beyond the scope of the degree or cert, also is important. While my original academic work was in biochemistry, most of my medical knowledge was acquired less formally. I have an extremely successful friend who is a consultant to the brokerage industry -- his main training was as a Navy sonar technician, but he now has a deep understanding of financial operations. > >Therefore the central point still stands - the degree gives you greater >overall career flexibility than a cert will. No industry field outside the >very narrow confines of network engineering gives much credence to the value >of a Cisco cert, but every field values the degree. So the real question a >person who chooses to forgo the degree in favor of Cisco certs has to ask >himself is whether he is absolutely sure that he wants to do Cisco >networking for the rest of his life, or does the possibility exist that he >might want to do something else when he gets older? Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=69992&t=69963 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
