ok.......that was just a little too much for me! Howard, is looking to have one of too many neurons head toward a collision course.....LOL But, I do find it entertaining to read your posts. -----Original Message----- From: Howard C. Berkowitz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 8:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: CCIE Vs. BS or MS degree [7:59481]
I am feeling contrary, and get yet another chance to correct the incorrect spelling of "degree" in the thread subject. "nrf" manipulated photons and electrons to say, >""Geoff Zinderdine"" wrote in message >[EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... >> > I understand everything you said, and I agree that college coursework >> should >> > modernize, but I think you may be missing the point of a college >> education. >> > >> > The point of a college education is not to prepare you to step into a >job >> > immediately. That is not its purpose, and never has been - even for >such >> > 'professional' degrees like engineering and CS. *sigh* one of the classic complaints of interns is how they were told "don't worry about the details--learn the concepts." Now, facing a cardiac arrest, how many milliliters of what concept do they need to inject? >The purpose of the >> college >> > degree is to provide you with a a reservoir of general knowledge upon >> which >> > you can draw, as well as practice in life-skills such as >problem-solving, > > > critical thinking, and time-management. To say nothing of coping with hangovers. >In essence, you learn how to >> learn. >> >> In the abstract this is a nice thought and perhaps how things should >work. >> In practice, university seemed to me to be mostly about learning how to >> impress a bevy of preening mandarins who have long since lost any >relevance > > to the world at large. Perhaps a better description is that universities are optimized to produce medieval German professors. Alternatively, I find them rather like government, but without the efficiency. >By removing accountability, tenure enforces this >> irrelevance. There are some wonderful teachers and amazing researchers to >> be sure, but they tend to be focused in disciplines which are very much >> practical in nature such as medicine which are preparing students for real > > world tasks. In my experience with medical schools, someone may have tenure, but if the associated hospitals change, it becomes irrelevant. Now, the various flavors of formal critics, be they deconstructionists, anti-patriarchical physicists, etc... > > >> The real reason that college programs are far behind the times >> technologywise is not because of any noble liberal arts approach to >> learning. It is because the people on the cutting edge of technology are >> working for companies that can remunerate them better than schools. There >> is no fundamental benefit to studying old technology over new outside of >> inculcating some small sense of nostalgia for an age when you could almost >> know everything about the field. At issue is a lack of people qualified >to >> teach at the cutting edge. An interesting problem indeed. I would be delighted to teach networking at the graduate level, but I have credentials problems. I'd also be prepared to teach modern strategic thought and interdisciplinary studies between medicine and CS. > >I think you have made the mistake of restricting yourself just to the realm >of technology - and rapidly moving technology at that. The vast realm of >academia consists of subject matters that hardly change at all. > >To wit - in a hundred years, in the English major, Shakespeare will still be >Shakespeare, in the political science major, Marx will still be Marx, Karl or Groucho? In any case, Marxism is probably more an economic than a political theory -- thesis/antithesis/synthesis certainly did not originate with Karl and Friedrich. I'm fairly active in politicomilitary theory. Obviously, Clausewitzian thought is important, but its relevance to Worden's targeting theories is extremely relevant today. Sun Tzu is an important ancestor of Liddell-Hart and Fuller, and onto today's maneuvrists. Boyd's OODA loops are critical tactically, but also draw from psychology, from Jomini's concepts of movement on interior lines, and Wiener on control theory. > in >the psychology major, Freud will still be Freud, Now, that I can't let slide. Freud was a seminal thinker, but in detail, even his immediate disciples, Jung, Adler, Fromm-Reichmann, etc., think more clearly. There have been entire new disciplines since Freud, such as most of cognitive theory. Neurobiology is transforming the discipline. > in the economics major, >Adam Smith will still be Adam Smith, And we still tend to have an inadequacy of rich economists, which must prove something. >and in the physics major, >thermodynamics will still be thermodynamics. Therefore there is tremendous >benefit in studying the 'old masters' in these realms simply because they >will be just as relevant today as they will be in the future. What exactly >is the cutting edge in English, Monty Python. You can't claim to be a serious network architect without it. > and is it really better than knowing >Shakespeare? > >Again, forget about technology for a moment. Think about your world >leaders - politicians, top businessmen, top authors/philosophers, whatever. >I don't want people in those positions who know the latest RFC, I want >people who have been grounded in the entire realm of human thought. Why are these mutually exclusive? Thinking of my colleagues on the BGP convergence project, all practicing computer scientists, and what we tend to talk about at the bar: Educational background ---------------------- MS, psychology Learning behavior in machines and people. Ethics MS, CS South Asian cooking and theology something British BBC comedy, political history ?? Politics, the NFL PhD, math Book publishing and writing style. > That's >not to say that I expect them to be able to recite Plato on a dime, I doubt Plato ever said anything on a dime. Perhaps on a drachma. But even for CS, it's worth considering how Aristotelean conceptual experiments lead to the gedankenexperiments of the quantum physicists, and to simulation and visualization today. > but to >at least have some exposure to a wide realm of logical and critical >analysis. > > > >Uh, well, supple minds certainly aren't produced by a lack of education. >Consider this - go to the not-so-good part of town where people tend not to >be educated - how many supple minds do you think you're going to find? > >Now I do agree that universities often times do have a certain doctrinal >bent, but on the other hand, I have found most universities to be more >filled with independent thinkers than the average place. And one doesn't NEED universities to develop independent thought, if one has the commitment to do so. They are one of many ways to a path. > > >> >> > To wit - look at the top management of any large company and notice how >by > > > and large everybody is a college graduate. Look at Congress - Ah, that hotbed of critical analysis. Sen. Roman Hruska on a failed Supreme Court nominee: "I don't think it's fair he be criticized as mediocre. There are lots of mediocre people in this country. Don't they deserve representation?" Sen. William Scott, who called a press conference to deny reports he was the dumbest man in the Senate. I regret forgetting the name of the Representative who, on declaiming "I'd rather be right than President," induced Speaker Vinegar Joe Cannon to turn over the gavel and respond "You, sir, are in no danger of ever being either." > > > >> I think you are committing 'post hoc ergo propter hoc'. Gates values >smart >> people and as most smart people go through university it is moot whether >it >> is the diploma that is significant in getting them the job or their >> intelligence that is more important. There are dropouts at the highest levels of the IETF, etc. > >Even if this were the case, in the eyes of a company, to paraphrase from >Thomas Sowell, it doesn't matter. Whether college improves one's mind or >whether bright minds tend to go to college - at the end of the day, if >you're looking for smart people, you improve your odds of finding them by >recruiting college graduates. The only thing a company sees is that >productive workers tend to be college graduates, and exactly why this is the >case is neither here nor there. Perhaps true for inexperienced workers. > >> >> Though I do not have a degree, I most certainly have an education. For me >> the CCIE was an entry into a whole different realm of career >possibilities. >> Not once in any of my interviews was I looked at unfavourably for not >having >> completed my degree. > >Well, I would argue that you are choosing to interview specifically at >places that don't look unfavorably at this fact, therefore you're not seeing >everything. Go interview at Goldman Sachs to be an investment banker and >then come back and tell us that you weren't looked at unfavorably for >lacking a degree. > >But again, that gets to a point I made previously. Obviously not everybody >wants to be a banker, or a manager, or any of those positions that stress >the degree. Hey, if that describes you, then God bless you, you don't need >that degree. But if you ever feel that you ever want to get out of slinging >boxes, then the degree may be for you. > >>All of these tokens, be it degree or certification are >> only for getting an interview. If one presents poorly even an Ivy league >> degree won't save you. If one presents well, even a high school dropout >has >> a chance. > >Big question though - how do you get the opportunity to present? You can't >just walk into Goldman Sachs and demand an interview. > >I haven't even gotten to the other huge advantage of graduating from >college -the contacts. Let's face it, in the working world, it's not what >you know, it's who you know. Isn't it interesting that the top management >positions in New York, especially on Wall Street, are disproportionately >filled by guys from Harvard, Again, depending on context. Richard Nixon gave his recruiters orders to avoid Harvard graduates. He disliked their culture, but did find very competent people elsewhere. >and the top management positions in Silicon >Valley are disproportionately filled by guys from Stanford and Berkeley? >People tend to hire people they know, and one of the most effective ways to >get to know people is to go to school with them. This is hardly the only way to do personal networking. Professional societies are an excellent venue. >Harvard, in particular, is >infamous for this kind of incestuous behavior. How did Steve Ballmer get >hired into Microsoft in the first place? Might it have something to do with >the fact that he was Gates' old college roommate? Nah, I'm sure that had >nothing to do with it. Or might Ballmer have been hired if he was Gates' roommate at the Party Hearty College of the Beach? >\\ >> >> What is important to decide how to achieve one's goals is an honest >> assessment of one's aptitudes and interests. For instance, I prefer to >> study independently. As such, the certification process was allot more >> fulfilling for me than university. If I want to read Hawthorne or Thoreau >I >> grab a book from the shelf and read it. I don't need any external >> validation for that. I think it is a terrible shame that we rely so much >on >> an arid pedagogy to teach us the truly important lessons of life. Perhaps >> this more than anything is to blame for the current atmosphere of >corporate >> malfeasance. Our learning is done apart from moral context and apart >> largely from the world in which we live and breathe. Do whatever it takes >> to maintain personal authenticity. Trying to figure out your path >> statistically by determining whether you have a better chance of getting a >> job by doing a degree or getting a certification is leaving too much to >> chance. Figure out which suits you better and have confidence in it. > >It is indeed a shame that people choose to rely on an arid pedagogy. Yet >that is indeed the way the world is. Go to any high school and check out >all the lazy, unmotivated students who'd rather spend all day drinking and >hanging out than learning anything. If they've gotten into these habits in high school or even earlier, their chances at either college or a serious job is unlikely, barring a major life event. >If the plum of improved job chances is >the way to convince them to continue their education, then so be it. It's >a nice theory to think that young people will find their own educational >path, but we both know the reality is that if we let them do that, then most >young people will just go home and play video games. Again, like I said, >go to the part of town where people are uneducated (which is almost >certainly the poor part of town) and see how many critical independent >thinkers you'll find. 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