> I've read all the replies to this so far and I feel there's an angle that > hasn't been covered yet: Just go and learn this stuff on your own! > There's LOADS of *free* course materials online (Stanford, MIT, etc) that > cover whatever you could possibly want to learn. >
The problem here is there is no proof. The knowledge you gain from those free courses are useful, but not encompassing of what you would get from an entire degree program. That's why those universities make those classes freely available. Taking some online classes from MIT and having a degree from MIT are to TOTALLY different things. Not to mention you miss out on all of the soft skills, communication skills, and other useful pieces of information you pick up along the way. A degree is much more than technical knowledge alone. A degree says to an employer that you started something and finished it. Which is saying quite a bit. > If your concern is that employers won't consider you without a piece of > paper (degree), forget about it! Experience is far more important. I > don't have a degree and it has never caused me trouble in my (12+ year) IT > career. Honestly this model is dead. It's all well and good for people who have been in the workforce for quite a while, but what about future students? They can't get experience because they can't get hired. You can't come straight out of high school and get a job in technology. It just doesn't happen anymore. This isn't the 90's ;) What company do you know that offers on the job training? Those programs got cut back when the big drop happened. I mean, is it even possible to get an AOL tech support job anymore? Comcast? I'm guessing if so, the number of positions have fallen drastically. Our society has become much more technology savvy rendering much less need for positions like that which honestly did help people break in to technology careers in the past. There seems to be a decline in the quality of high school student nowadays as well. They aren't learning the skills necessary for the workplace. Community colleges and universities offer an environment where they can work on projects and work with other groups of students. Then some of them even have internship programs as well to get them some seat time working in technology. I don't think the importance of this can be overstated. In addition technology has also become much more specialized. In the past we were all generalists to a certain extent. Admins or developers roughly. Now it's not enough to understand the core concepts they also want product or framework specific knowledge too. "Oh it's fine that you understand firewalling, but if you don't have CheckPoint experience we can't hire you". "Oh you write Java, have you ever done any Spring development? Nope, sorry then we need a Spring Guru". The number of products and frameworks has grown exponentially from the small amount that was around when many of us started our technology careers. It's not the same market, we adapted to the environment and through that we picked stuff up along the way. New students do not have that luxury. > Certifications also help but only certain ones are "worth it". What is > "worth it" changes all the time so don't waste your time with things like > A+ or Microsoft certs (unless you really want to be an underpaid Windows or > Exchange admin =). CISSP and RHCE really do carry a lot of weight with > recruiters/HR folks. > Certifications are great, but one of the ones you mentioned CISSP requires 4 years of verified work experience in the security field. That's hard to get if you can't get a job, or as I mentioned previously are just out of high school. > All that matters is that you get through to the technical interview where > anyone who even remotely seems like they could do the job will appear like > an angel of mercy compared to what typically gets through the HR > department's resume filter: Getting through that filter can be impossible if the requirements are 4 year degree required. Let's not forget, HR people have no hooks in to technology. All they do is translate the requirements and publish them. It's not always so easy to get past them. In the future there are going to be more and more of these gates particularly because of the specific technology focus. Just to sum up, unless you have a hookup somewhere the only place for students to go after high school for most jobs of the future is some form of college, university, or tech school. If I were in Vegas I would have no problem going all in on that statement ;) -- *Nathan Hamiel* <http://hexsec.com>http://twitter.com/nathanhamiel
