I concur with what Jon has said below.
For me, it was the mid 70's when I got my start as a programmer, by the
time I went to work for the government in the early 80's we still called
it ADP or just Data Processing (IS/MIS was a terminology coming into
vogue), although Computer Science was a discipline in an of itself, with
ADP being mostly scheduling and operations, or business programming in
COBOL.
I can't simply flatten out a a shredded card anymore, tape it together,
hold it up to the light, and read it off to a keypunch operator like a
line out of a book, but none of those skills have gone to waste and over
the years they've actually migrated into other aspects of systems
administration and development.
So, nothing you've gained or achieved in your past is lost, even if it's
been forgotten, the technologies and disciplines you master moving
forward are merely part of a morphology where your new skill sets build
upon anything you've previously attained.
On 8/12/2021 9:53 AM, Jon "maddog" Hall via lpi-examdev wrote:
> When I was teaching "Data Processing" ("Computer Science" had not been
> invented yet) we had a lot of students who "wanted to work with
> computers" and had no idea what a professional life was like in doing
> that. They were attracted by advertisements on matchbook covers (yes,
> it was that long ago) that promised a good job, big house, fancy car.
> In those days they had only seen computers on TV or in the movies.
>
> They came into my class and found out that the computer was not going to
> think for them. Two-thirds dropped out.
>
> Today it is not quite as bad, but you still have a lot of "kids" that
> think computer science is writing a bit of HTML.
>
> To answer the issue of Ottavio, our school normally used two years to
> teach an associate's degree in data processing. We did have a separate
> one-year program called "Women in Technology" that was for women who had
> obtained a bachelor's degree in some engineering field, then took time
> off to raise a family, and now wanted to re-enter the field. We
> acknowledged the education and skills they already had, but brought them
> up-to-date with new technologies and skills. The program had a 98%
> placement rate.
>
> I do not know what skills Octavio had as an "Open Source Evangelist",
> but Evan is right in saying that is mostly a Marketing Job. Inside of
> Marketing there are positions for Marketing Communications (MARCOM) and
> often Technical Marketing. The latter is the position I had when I met
> Linus Torvalds. It was my job to take highly technical aspects of the
> products and explain their usefulness to customers, among other things.
>
> If Octavio was a systems administrator AND an Open Source Evangelist,
> then the LPIC certifications are the fastest way for re-training and to
> re-enter the workforce. If Octavio was a COBOL programmer, but wants to
> re-enter the workforce as a systems administrator, the path is a bit
> harder, but still a good path. If Octavio was a programmer and wanted
> to re-enter programming, then there are paths for that too and probably
> the DevOPs Cert is a place to start.
>
> In either case you are not starting from scratch, and do not let anyone
> tell you that you are. You learned things from "your prior life" that
> may be very applicable even though it has been twenty years or more.
>
> o Logic flow
> o Data types
> o Programming Constructs
>
> I could go on for hours.
>
> But you also have soft skills, very important to professionals. How to
> work in a team, how to produce a piece of software on time. How to
> determine the customers requirements.
>
> All of these are also necessary for "professionalism", but sometimes as
> an "older person" you have to remind people of that.
>
> Warmest regards,
>
> Jon "maddog" Hall, Board Chair
>
>
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