[olug] [OT] IT degrees

[Spencer Butler]

I work for a company locally and have been involved in the interview process
quite a bit.   I'll agree with a lot of the sentiment in this thread "it's
more about having the skills to learn than it is having a set of skills".

Learning how to learn is one of the most useful skills you can obtain in
life.  I'm no expert in how all the fancy certificates and degrees will
foster your career.  What I do know is folks that grave knowledge and know
how to apply it to their current work tasks will do well.   As an
interviewer, I would much rather have a candidate that works through a new
and unknown problem logically (and be wrong) than a candidate that
regurgitates text from a book she memorized (and have no idea if he was
right or wrong).


On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Jason Zeisler <superztnt at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wow! I didn't think I would get such great insight and valuable opinions.
>
> So to give y'all a little background, I already have an associates in
> computer programming from a community college and a BS in business
> administration from Bellevue. The thing is that I want to go back to school
> for some of that higher level knowledge that I didn't learn at the
> community
> college. Obi-Wan was right, they only realy teach you the syntax of the
> languages. If I can avoid COBOL for the rest of my life I will be a happy
> man. The other part is when I look at job openings, most of them require a
> degree in CS, MIS, or Software Engineering. When looking at my location,
> Sioux City Iowa, there are very limited options for a degree like these. So
> when I saw an opportunity to get a CS degree online through Regis
> University. My thoughts were I could get the degree that a lot of jobs ask
> for, I will gain more knowledge, and I could get out of Sioux City. Maybe I
> am wasting my time going back to school and I already have enough of an
> educational background to get a job as a programmer. I don't know and that
> is why I wanted to ask some people that are experienced or involved some
> how
> in hiring.
>
>
> Jason Z.
>
> ________________________________________________
>
> What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
> John Lubbock
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-- 
Spencer Butler :: HWOps Linux Pirate III
 612.251.8073 :: Cluster Bluffs, IA