Considering going back to school
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@IRJ said in Considering going back to school:
I would think the reason for a recent degree would be obvious if you look at a resume that has steady job history, experience, etc
What's the point of "recent?"
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@IRJ said in Considering going back to school:
@coliver said in Considering going back to school:
@IRJ said in Considering going back to school:
I could see this degree not being helpful to get your foot in the door, but If you were looking at my resume and saw 12+ years experience and a recent degree you would see that as a negative vs 12+ years experience with no degree?
I think the point was, it depends on the college. There are several, often for profit, colleges that are degree mills. WGU being one of them.
Right and I understand that. There is no point getting a bachelors in a real school for me. I have no desire to go to a real school.
Then you have no interest in a degree, it's that simple. There is no legitimate shortcut to going to school for a degree. If you don't do the work of a degree, that means you didn't earn a degree so anything that "lets" you say you have a degree on a resume is seen as dishonest. And if you had real skills and value, why would you feel the need to do that? So think about how an employer would see it - it makes no sense to them.
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@scottalanmiller said in Considering going back to school:
@IRJ said in Considering going back to school:
@coliver said in Considering going back to school:
@IRJ said in Considering going back to school:
I could see this degree not being helpful to get your foot in the door, but If you were looking at my resume and saw 12+ years experience and a recent degree you would see that as a negative vs 12+ years experience with no degree?
I think the point was, it depends on the college. There are several, often for profit, colleges that are degree mills. WGU being one of them.
Right and I understand that. There is no point getting a bachelors in a real school for me. I have no desire to go to a real school.
Then you have no interest in a degree, it's that simple. There is no legitimate shortcut to going to school for a degree. If you don't do the work of a degree, that means you didn't earn a degree so anything that "lets" you say you have a degree on a resume is seen as dishonest. And if you had real skills and value, why would you feel the need to do that? So think about how an employer would see it - it makes no sense to them.
I don't see how getting a real college degree in Computer Science will be beneficial in any way if you plan on pursuing a career in IT. Sure, you'll be able to code your own custom accounting application from scratch or design your own functional calculator program... but you'll be knowledgeless or useless as far as managing servers or IT systems engineering/administration is concerned. I suppose a B.S. in biology or aviation would be just as useful for an IT sys admin.
But I suppose that's where experience and certifications come in... with the B.S. or M.S. in aviation as proof that you can stick to something random to better yourself and get things done, thus making a better Sys Admin than someone who hasn't done that.
Is that basically the gist of it?
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@IRJ said in Considering going back to school:
@coliver said in Considering going back to school:
@IRJ said in Considering going back to school:
I could see this degree not being helpful to get your foot in the door, but If you were looking at my resume and saw 12+ years experience and a recent degree you would see that as a negative vs 12+ years experience with no degree?
I think the point was, it depends on the college. There are several, often for profit, colleges that are degree mills. WGU being one of them.
Right and I understand that. There is no point getting a bachelors in a real school for me. I have no desire to go to a real school.
It's actually hard to prove accreditation. I researched WGU and even though I have a friend that has a degree from there I still cannot guarantee that they will accredited throughout me going there. You will run into this in any of the online schools sadly. If you aren't willing to go to a college I just wouldn't do it in general.
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@Tim_G said in Considering going back to school:
I don't see how getting a real college degree in Computer Science will be beneficial in any way if you plan on pursuing a career in IT. Sure, you'll be able to code your own custom accounting application from scratch or design your own functional calculator program... but you'll be knowledgeless or useless as far as managing servers or IT systems engineering/administration is concerned.
Where you thinking that I was recommending a degree in Comp Sci? I definitely was not. I list it always as the worst possible degree for IT.
Actually Comp Sci does not prepare you to write business applications, that's Software Engineering. Comp Sci is algo theory - it only prepares you for things like search engine research, database research, filesystem research and the like. Comp Sci students are nearly the most niche and useless in the business world that you can think of.
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Here is my article written some time ago outlining why I feel Comp Sci is the worst possible option, IT in the middle, and general liberal arts the best.
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2015/11/choosing-a-university-degree-program-for-it/
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2015/11/how-to-approach-the-university-experience/ -
@Tim_G said in Considering going back to school:
I suppose a B.S. in biology or aviation would be just as useful for an IT sys admin.
Exactly. Better, in fact, because they tend to give a broader view of the world. Those are not great examples, but they work. Better examples would be literature, accounting, business, psychology, history, international studies, economics or similar. You want extremely broad studies so that you get the best of the university system while also broadening yourself the most to be ready to understand the business side of IT.
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@Tim_G said in Considering going back to school:
But I suppose that's where experience and certifications come in... with the B.S. or M.S. in aviation as proof that you can stick to something random to better yourself and get things done, thus making a better Sys Admin than someone who hasn't done that.
Is that basically the gist of it?
Right, mostly. University never demonstrates "sticking to" anything, because it's easier to go to college than to work. So it actually demonstrates taking the lazy route, unless you did something else at the same time to justify the four year vacation from putting in serious effort. If university was harder than work, that would be different. But it's not, it's literally, for most people, the easiest four to ten years of your life. It's the vacation years. One of the biggest fears of university is that it trains students to be so lazy and to learn so slowly and poorly that they move backwards. That's why I only see university as a positive if someone does something else at the same time, like gets loads of certs, works a full time job or similar. Nothing wrong with taking a four year paid vacation on your parents or by racking up debt, just don't expect me to be impressed with that
But what university should do, if done well, is broaden your horizons - make you appreciate art, history, culture, business, or whatever. It's about making you more than you would be just coming out of high school. But there are other ways to demonstrate that, too. Put together a better reading list than any university, travel around the world, take a community pottery class, go to Tuesday night village choir practice, write a poem... whatever.
But the idea of university's value is exposure to things you would not be exposed to in high school, at home or at work. So that you bring that broad experience with you and that, combined with industry education (certs) should make you stronger, in theory.
So yes, certs are what we use to show IT readiness for specific tasks (MCSE to show readiness for Windows Systems Administration) and CCNP (to show readiness for Cisco Network Administration) or whatever. Those are the trade certs and come before or after school, or even during. And that shows both pieces, the broadness of uni with the trade skills of the certs. But if the uni "gives" you a degree based on having certs, it means that the purpose and value of the university was completely skipped! Hence the problem that arises.
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@wirestyle22 said in Considering going back to school:
@IRJ said in Considering going back to school:
@coliver said in Considering going back to school:
@IRJ said in Considering going back to school:
I could see this degree not being helpful to get your foot in the door, but If you were looking at my resume and saw 12+ years experience and a recent degree you would see that as a negative vs 12+ years experience with no degree?
I think the point was, it depends on the college. There are several, often for profit, colleges that are degree mills. WGU being one of them.
Right and I understand that. There is no point getting a bachelors in a real school for me. I have no desire to go to a real school.
It's actually hard to prove accreditation. I researched WGU and even though I have a friend that has a degree from there I still cannot guarantee that they will accredited throughout me going there. You will run into this in any of the online schools sadly. If you aren't willing to go to a college I just wouldn't do it in general.
WGU is fully accredited. But what people often forget is that accreditation just means it "legally" made it to the point that it is a college, by law. It's a standard so low that if any college has to use it to prove it is viable, you know that it isn't. It takes effectively nothing to be accredited. It's like asking if someone is a good IT Pro and the answer is "well, they can type." Sure, it's important to never attend a school that isn't regionally accredited. But it is also important to never attend a school where that was a possible question.
All schools risk losing accreditation and cannot guarantee that they will not. But few do, it's such a pathetically low bar. If your school can't keep its accreditation, you should have known it ahead of time.
WGU also carries the stigma of "you go there when you can't handle classes." That's not good, because you pay for that stigma and it stays with you for a lifetime. You never want people to look at your resume and say "oh, college was too tough for you?" Skipping college you have a great story of "I didn't want to be held back by how slow and outdated and useless the education was, I was already ahead of the professors." But once you attend a school like WGU, you can't sell yourself on self education anymore and you rely on the reputation of the school and that's... scary.
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There are great alternative schools out there, SUNY Empire is my favourite. Great education, very non-traditional. But it isn't an end run around the college education, either. It's a real college, harder than a normal one, rather than easier. But still completely alternative so you have a lot of flexibility. I don't want to make all colleges sound bad, shop around and there are great options. I am just warning against a certain category of colleges that are very risky.
