How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education
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In a recent discussion we spoke with someone newly working in IT who was unaware of how formatting worked and did not know that formatting a disk would erase its contents. He is aware that he is not trained on these things and knew to ask so all was fine. Further in the conversation he was introduced to virtualization and it was discovered that he had never even heard of it let alone worked with it. This is not a student, this is a working IT Pro, albeit a relatively new one.
What is shocking, to me, is just how many gaps like this crop up regularly. Obviously relying on nothing but a college education for IT training would create gaps like this, how many college programs teach things like disk formatting or virtualization? Some, but far from most.
But at some point this stuff is just too basic. It's 2017, virtualization in the enterprise is over half a century now and has been widely available in the SMB on commodity gear for fourteen years and has been the "way to do things" for around twelve. In IT terms, we have generations of mentors, classes, certifications and more than should have been assuming virtualization as a foregone conclusion and much longer teaching it as "coming in the future." The State University of NY's Monroe Community College required writing a very, very basic hypervisor for Comp Sci students freshman year around 1998! (Hypervisors aren't hard to make, they are only hard to make well that go fast, that's the real challenge.)
So how does someone get from "interesting in IT" to "working as an IT Pro managing servers for a company" while never learning about formatting a disk or what virtualization is? I did my IT basics in the 1980s and 1990s primarily so these things were early things that I learned, so never having seen a gap of this nature I really have a hard time imagining the path that bypasses them, but clearly it exists as we see this time and time again even from people with loads of experience.
This is a great demonstration of how the industry has no baseline educational process. If this was civil engineering, it would be like a bridge designer tasked with building a bridge who, after starting their design, was told it had to accommodate cars and them asking "what is a car?" Obviously standard civil engineering knowledge is so well documented that things like that have never happened. But in IT, such gaps are common.
So the first question is of course, how does it happen? The second, and far more important in the long run is, how do we stop it?
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Where and how to start.....
Being self taught by creating multi-boot machines and learning Linux the hard way (we had to compile PPP into the kernel before we could dial into our ISP), I can say that of the 3 partners in IT that I've been exposed to, the current one is the most prepared and only because he had prior experience working for a small ISP / MSP of a sort.
His 1st week at our shop, I sat down with him to fresh load a new firewall. My intention wasn't to overwhelm but to expose a task to him in a way that would allow us to destroy and start over if need be. He was overwhelmed and I had to step back to examine whether he was lacking talent or if my methods were so very poor. Turns out it was both.
Fast forward several years and we just built a storage box and are going to experiment by creating NFS shares and building a VM server to connect and well you know the rest. I finally have the resources to maintain a proper lab.
I, by no means am an expert in IT, but I've found that after many years and many issues, that I wonder if it's possible to develop a 'feeling' for systems rather than needing to constantly needing to Google log messages. I catch myself constantly deciding that something doesn't 'feel right' even though the issue isn't glaringly obvious.
I can say that most of the folks that I've met on a personal level are nowhere near ready to enter into properly managing a server / network environment and I wish that they were taught more than how to install a Windows server.
/MiniMildRantOver
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He was overwhelmed and I had to step back to examine whether he was lacking talent <<more like skill>> or if my <<teaching>> methods were so very poor. Turns out it was both.
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@scotth said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
I, by no means am an expert in IT, but I've found that after many years and many issues, that I wonder if it's possible to develop a 'feeling' for systems rather than needing to constantly needing to Google log messages. I catch myself constantly deciding that something doesn't 'feel right' even though the issue isn't glaringly obvious.
I agree there. In software circles it's called "smell". After 28 years in IT, one of the reasons that people bring me in for troubleshooting is that I can often "feel" a system and sense what is wrong long before people can dig through logs or whatever and I know when to say "I know this sounds crazy, but this almost impossible thing... I'm sure that that is what happened."
But that doesn't help for someone who, for example, has never even heard of virtualization. That's a pure gap. He can't be faulted for not "sensing the lack of it" when he was unaware someone had made it. Now how he never heard of it, that's what worries me. What sources and articles and groups and people is he dealing with that never talk about or mention it?
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scotth said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
I, by no means am an expert in IT, but I've found that after many years and many issues, that I wonder if it's possible to develop a 'feeling' for systems rather than needing to constantly needing to Google log messages. I catch myself constantly deciding that something doesn't 'feel right' even though the issue isn't glaringly obvious.
I agree there. In software circles it's called "smell". After 28 years in IT, one of the reasons that people bring me in for troubleshooting is that I can often "feel" a system and sense what is wrong long before people can dig through logs or whatever and I know when to say "I know this sounds crazy, but this almost impossible thing... I'm sure that that is what happened."
But that doesn't help for someone who, for example, has never even heard of virtualization. That's a pure gap. He can't be faulted for not "sensing the lack of it" when he was unaware someone had made it. Now how he never heard of it, that's what worries me. What sources and articles and groups and people is he dealing with that never talk about or mention it?
So "I'm not crazy -- and my mother 'didn't' have me tested :).
I can't imagine that especially trade schools or community colleges wouldn't take the approach of creating a lab and moving to hands on as most of the course. Hell, even basic electricity courses make a dummy wall and have the students wire up outlets.
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@scotth said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scotth said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
I, by no means am an expert in IT, but I've found that after many years and many issues, that I wonder if it's possible to develop a 'feeling' for systems rather than needing to constantly needing to Google log messages. I catch myself constantly deciding that something doesn't 'feel right' even though the issue isn't glaringly obvious.
I agree there. In software circles it's called "smell". After 28 years in IT, one of the reasons that people bring me in for troubleshooting is that I can often "feel" a system and sense what is wrong long before people can dig through logs or whatever and I know when to say "I know this sounds crazy, but this almost impossible thing... I'm sure that that is what happened."
But that doesn't help for someone who, for example, has never even heard of virtualization. That's a pure gap. He can't be faulted for not "sensing the lack of it" when he was unaware someone had made it. Now how he never heard of it, that's what worries me. What sources and articles and groups and people is he dealing with that never talk about or mention it?
So "I'm not crazy -- and my mother 'didn't' have me tested :).
I can't imagine that especially trade schools or community colleges wouldn't take the approach of creating a lab and moving to hands on as most of the course. Hell, even basic electricity courses make a dummy wall and have the students wire up outlets.
Trade schools aren't considered valid for IT, though. Not at this point. That leaves some big gaps and problems as there isn't an existing, professional trade process for getting into IT.
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scotth said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scotth said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
I, by no means am an expert in IT, but I've found that after many years and many issues, that I wonder if it's possible to develop a 'feeling' for systems rather than needing to constantly needing to Google log messages. I catch myself constantly deciding that something doesn't 'feel right' even though the issue isn't glaringly obvious.
I agree there. In software circles it's called "smell". After 28 years in IT, one of the reasons that people bring me in for troubleshooting is that I can often "feel" a system and sense what is wrong long before people can dig through logs or whatever and I know when to say "I know this sounds crazy, but this almost impossible thing... I'm sure that that is what happened."
But that doesn't help for someone who, for example, has never even heard of virtualization. That's a pure gap. He can't be faulted for not "sensing the lack of it" when he was unaware someone had made it. Now how he never heard of it, that's what worries me. What sources and articles and groups and people is he dealing with that never talk about or mention it?
So "I'm not crazy -- and my mother 'didn't' have me tested :).
I can't imagine that especially trade schools or community colleges wouldn't take the approach of creating a lab and moving to hands on as most of the course. Hell, even basic electricity courses make a dummy wall and have the students wire up outlets.
Trade schools aren't considered valid for IT, though. Not at this point. That leaves some big gaps and problems as there isn't an existing, professional trade process for getting into IT.
Agreed, although it would be better than nothing. However, I do know that many community colleges do have basic computing classes. But they are only basic and don't attract talent the way that would help the IT community.
My current partner went to one of the tech schools in Pittsburgh for an 18 month certificate. He's still lacking in many areas but we are working on that. I've found that once we decide on a course of action, I go back to my office and let him work through a problem and so far, most of the solutions that he comes up with can be fixed or made to work. Not very efficient, but some day when I ride into the sunset, this is his baby.
It's the only way that I use at the moment that can fill the gap that exists in my tiny world.
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I haven't even started on switching.... wiring - forget it.
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scotth said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scotth said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
I, by no means am an expert in IT, but I've found that after many years and many issues, that I wonder if it's possible to develop a 'feeling' for systems rather than needing to constantly needing to Google log messages. I catch myself constantly deciding that something doesn't 'feel right' even though the issue isn't glaringly obvious.
I agree there. In software circles it's called "smell". After 28 years in IT, one of the reasons that people bring me in for troubleshooting is that I can often "feel" a system and sense what is wrong long before people can dig through logs or whatever and I know when to say "I know this sounds crazy, but this almost impossible thing... I'm sure that that is what happened."
But that doesn't help for someone who, for example, has never even heard of virtualization. That's a pure gap. He can't be faulted for not "sensing the lack of it" when he was unaware someone had made it. Now how he never heard of it, that's what worries me. What sources and articles and groups and people is he dealing with that never talk about or mention it?
So "I'm not crazy -- and my mother 'didn't' have me tested :).
I can't imagine that especially trade schools or community colleges wouldn't take the approach of creating a lab and moving to hands on as most of the course. Hell, even basic electricity courses make a dummy wall and have the students wire up outlets.
Trade schools aren't considered valid for IT, though. Not at this point. That leaves some big gaps and problems as there isn't an existing, professional trade process for getting into IT.
I'd argue that depending on the school. I went to a 2 year tech school in a program called "computer and network system administration." It was very hands on, where we had about 70% lab work and 30% classroom. Our schedule was from 730 am until about 1 pm if I remember correctly. It taught the basics of how hard drives work, how to format etc, to windows and Linux administration ( Redhat focused) to network basics and the tcp/ip stack. Then on to more advanced networking concepts. That was year 1. Then more of the same in year 2 but with added topics. In my opinion, it was money well spent.
However, I cannot say the same for another tech school right down the road. It was terrible from what I heard and graduates barely knew basic concepts upon graduation. So I think it really depends on the school and instructors at that school.
With that being said, about 4 years later, after working full time, I went back to school in the evening to get my bachelors degree in "IT management". (Paid for by my employer at the time). That program was an absolute joke in regards to actual hands on work.
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@fuznutz04 said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
With that being said, about 4 years later, after working full time, I went back to school in the evening to get my bachelors degree in "IT management". (Paid for by my employer at the time). That program was an absolute joke in regards to actual hands on work.
In their defense, they are supposed to be. There should be little or no hands on in a true university program. University training is not supposed to prepare you for any specific skills. So that was them doing the right thing (in that one particular aspect.)
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I don't personally believe that traditional schools can really do much to help the education gap.
A+, Network+ are some OK basics.. though A+ is probably mostly outdated today, but foundation information that can have value.
@fuznutz04 said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
I'd argue that depending on the school. I went to a 2 year tech school in a program called "computer and network system administration." It was very hands on, where we had about 70% lab work and 30% classroom. Our schedule was from 730 am until about 1 pm if I remember correctly. It taught the basics of how hard drives work, how to format etc, to windows and Linux administration ( Redhat focused) to network basics and the tcp/ip stack. Then on to more advanced networking concepts. That was year 1. Then more of the same in year 2 but with added topics. In my opinion, it was money well spent.
Nothing against you, I know that some people can't learn from a book, but I learned most of these things from the MSCE course books in the mid 90's. All in about 6 months.
Do you think the time frame of your course could have been squeezed into 6 months without putting more hours in the classroom?I didn't spend 8 hours a day reading the books or doing lab work. Frankly, I didn't have access to many machines to setup full labs to practice the skills taught. I can't recall if VM workstation was out in 1995 or not. But I did have two PCs to install NT 4.0 on for learning.
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@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
Nothing against you, I know that some people can't learn from a book, but I learned most of these things from the MSCE course books in the mid 90's. All in about 6 months.
Same here. I did the MCSE (not Net+ back then) and a few BrainBench certs and nearly all of m foundations of IT were from that period. The MCSE was certainly not the only thing I used or did, and I had some UNIX systems back then. But a small window of self study in the 90s and it was all there in a handful of books.
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
Nothing against you, I know that some people can't learn from a book, but I learned most of these things from the MSCE course books in the mid 90's. All in about 6 months.
Same here. I did the MCSE (not Net+ back then) and a few BrainBench certs and nearly all of m foundations of IT were from that period. The MCSE was certainly not the only thing I used or did, and I had some UNIX systems back then. But a small window of self study in the 90s and it was all there in a handful of books.
There seems to be a lack of new blood coming to the field from those digging into books.
I wonder if it's a social move away from books - the digitization of books might be hurting their use.. I'm only grasping at a straw for a possible explanation. -
I agree - I'm not sure how someone could be and expert in IT and not know what formatting is? or how they couldn't know what virtualization is. Did they honestly never replace an OS on a system before and experience what formatting is?
If you're new to IT, then you're definitely not an expert. so perhaps the person in question is just that new - yesterday they were a receptionist and the most they ever did was run Word on top of Windows. In that case I can definitely understand them not knowing what formatting or virtualization is. Seems odd that that would be allowed to be that new and have no guidance at their company on these things. -
@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
Nothing against you, I know that some people can't learn from a book, but I learned most of these things from the MSCE course books in the mid 90's. All in about 6 months.
Same here. I did the MCSE (not Net+ back then) and a few BrainBench certs and nearly all of m foundations of IT were from that period. The MCSE was certainly not the only thing I used or did, and I had some UNIX systems back then. But a small window of self study in the 90s and it was all there in a handful of books.
There seems to be a lack of new blood coming to the field from those digging into books.
I wonder if it's a social move away from books - the digitization of books might be hurting their use.. I'm only grasping at a straw for a possible explanation.Well, for me there were NO mentors available. Books were the only option. Most people I knew, it was the same.
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@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
I agree - I'm not sure how someone could be and expert in IT and not know what formatting is? or how they couldn't know what virtualization is. Did they honestly never replace an OS on a system before and experience what formatting is?
Oh no, in the example, he calls himself a noob. THis is likely his first job. But how do you get into your first job running IT for a company without this exposure? I knew what formatting a disk did in like 1983. Before even having a computer.
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
Nothing against you, I know that some people can't learn from a book, but I learned most of these things from the MSCE course books in the mid 90's. All in about 6 months.
Same here. I did the MCSE (not Net+ back then) and a few BrainBench certs and nearly all of m foundations of IT were from that period. The MCSE was certainly not the only thing I used or did, and I had some UNIX systems back then. But a small window of self study in the 90s and it was all there in a handful of books.
There seems to be a lack of new blood coming to the field from those digging into books.
I wonder if it's a social move away from books - the digitization of books might be hurting their use.. I'm only grasping at a straw for a possible explanation.Well, for me there were NO mentors available. Books were the only option. Most people I knew, it was the same.
So you were hired by a company to do IT work and they knew you had no practical experience? and no mentor for you? Seems like that company was wanting to fail.
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@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
I agree - I'm not sure how someone could be and expert in IT and not know what formatting is? or how they couldn't know what virtualization is. Did they honestly never replace an OS on a system before and experience what formatting is?
Oh no, in the example, he calls himself a noob. THis is likely his first job. But how do you get into your first job running IT for a company without this exposure? I knew what formatting a disk did in like 1983. Before even having a computer.
I suppose I could understand if you had no personal interest in computers before jumping into IT, that you wouldn't know these concepts, but it just seems weird that one would make this jump, but I do know of at least one who did it only because he saw it as a way to make a decent wage. He supports AIX systems, but doesn't understand IP routing/networking hardly at all. He admins his systems, but he's limited only to that. He doesn't care about learning any more than that. IT to him is a paycheck. In fact, he was a job for 10+ years that he ultimately ended up hating (mostly due to management) that he quit with only the barest of notice and even gave up vacation that was 6 weeks of pay if he had just waited about another month. He just had to get away - he didn't have another place to go.. wound up as a meter reader for the local utilities district for a year. But the pay was so low compared to his previous career that he returned to IT after leaving it for a year.
I don't think situations like this happen frequently, but I do know they do happen.
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@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
Nothing against you, I know that some people can't learn from a book, but I learned most of these things from the MSCE course books in the mid 90's. All in about 6 months.
Same here. I did the MCSE (not Net+ back then) and a few BrainBench certs and nearly all of m foundations of IT were from that period. The MCSE was certainly not the only thing I used or did, and I had some UNIX systems back then. But a small window of self study in the 90s and it was all there in a handful of books.
There seems to be a lack of new blood coming to the field from those digging into books.
I wonder if it's a social move away from books - the digitization of books might be hurting their use.. I'm only grasping at a straw for a possible explanation.Well, for me there were NO mentors available. Books were the only option. Most people I knew, it was the same.
So you were hired by a company to do IT work and they knew you had no practical experience? and no mentor for you? Seems like that company was wanting to fail.
Of course, why would I fail? I was the best educated guy around, apparently. We are finding more and more that mentors in IT are often negatives.
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@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@scottalanmiller said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
@Dashrender said in How Do Such Big Gaps Get Missed in IT Education:
I agree - I'm not sure how someone could be and expert in IT and not know what formatting is? or how they couldn't know what virtualization is. Did they honestly never replace an OS on a system before and experience what formatting is?
Oh no, in the example, he calls himself a noob. THis is likely his first job. But how do you get into your first job running IT for a company without this exposure? I knew what formatting a disk did in like 1983. Before even having a computer.
I suppose I could understand if you had no personal interest in computers before jumping into IT, that you wouldn't know these concepts, but it just seems weird that one would make this jump, but I do know of at least one who did it only because he saw it as a way to make a decent wage. He supports AIX systems, but doesn't understand IP routing/networking hardly at all. He admins his systems, but he's limited only to that. He doesn't care about learning any more than that. IT to him is a paycheck. In fact, he was a job for 10+ years that he ultimately ended up hating (mostly due to management) that he quit with only the barest of notice and even gave up vacation that was 6 weeks of pay if he had just waited about another month. He just had to get away - he didn't have another place to go.. wound up as a meter reader for the local utilities district for a year. But the pay was so low compared to his previous career that he returned to IT after leaving it for a year.
I don't think situations like this happen frequently, but I do know they do happen.
I agree. Computers? Boring. Oh, IT,that's the field for me. lol
