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Old 3rd November 2008
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TerryP TerryP is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: USofA
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Interesting pov on people with doctorates Mdh, with what it take to chase one... your probably right lol.


Quote:
Originally Posted by anomie View Post
Would it be possible for you to get in touch with some recent ITT Tech grads in your area to talk with them about their experiences?

Don't know of any, perhaps they might be able to help with that. As to where I live.... I'm surprised that in ~10 years I've met one A+ certified person between jobs, one programmer, and also one lone bearded CLI-user that knows what on earth FreeBSD is, out of everyone I've met in this city - you could say that it's not really a technically inclined area.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mdh View Post
High school diploma or GED is kind of a must nowadays, but so much so that if you never mention it on your resume most people won't either. It's assumed that you've got it. I've never asked when I didn't see it on a resume.
You're right, everything basically requires (and assumes) a diploma or GED these days. One of my friends in Texas nearly completed college before they found out he never graduated high school, they didn't even seem to think about it at his age, so he had to go out and get a GED in a hurry in order to finish his studies there. I've been home schooled since I was 7 years old, but between work and other stuff, never got a diploma out of it. You could say that after working hours, I'd rather have a date learning Scheme lisp or tinkering with a website - then snore with my eyes open in front of a school book.




Quote:
Originally Posted by mdh View Post
Generally speaking, though, just get yourself an interview and then go do a good job. Speak well, be likeable, etc.
Getting an interview would be an improvement! I would hope if I could complete something like the networking course at ITT Tech, I might at least get that far in the process. The CISSP/SSCP and related look worth while, but potentionally costly to get and /maintain/. From having looked at some of the Cisco certifications, I'm sure those are worth the arm & leg that can be involved; but I think they would have to lay ahead in the future.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mdh View Post
A good personality + technical skills interview is worth a million times more than a resume, a degree, or whatever else, save possibly references from prior employers. I'm gathering you probably don't have too much of the latter in a related industry?

I am the webmaster at www.sasclan.org but I'm not sure if I would want to put that on a resume... (just feed the site through an html or css validator). I started out just helping a friend on the admin team, with some f his PHP work, and crying about bleeding eyes when I saw the code he/we inherited from the previous webmaster. Later on when he was promoted in the group, I was made the webmaster and took over his position, since then I've been pushing us towards sane code and decent html/css but it's a slow and *painful* process. But that is volunteer work for a group I am involved with: not a paying job :-(. I also handle most admin issues and back up the server manager (guy in charge of our game servers).


My job in real life on the other hand, would only qualify me for janitorial staff or a butler. That or dealing with people who can't find the computers on/off switch, because they are looking at their toaster oven lol. I've dealt with issues with customers, friends, and families computers over the years when asked; but my line of works not really related to computers at all.


Skills wise, I can't hold a candle to people like our Scotto or Vermaden when it comes to computers. But I've thought myself more in the past few years then I ever knew my head could handle. The only limit to what I can do, is what I've encountered or have been able to learn about so far with a small budget.... as for learning new things, whatever don't explode my gray matter 'cross the wall paper is the topper.

Setting up networking equipment and daemons = interesting; implementing an TCP/IP stack = hard.
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