I may have been focused on the traditional candidate at the beginning of their career, but the advantages apply to people who fall into system administration too.
When someone didn't plan to do the work, laying out a specific roadmap for > them to follow isn't going to work very well. The roadmap wouldn't just be for people in training, it would be for people who are already in the field. A lot of people fall into system administration without much support. This is doubly true for the people who don't realize they are system administrators. With a body to define the profession, these people will also have access to the same resources as a young person. And they could use the tools to advance their career as they see fit. you must be in different areas than I am. I don't see anything like ACM > membership being expected of the programmers. I would lay very good odds > that most of them wouldn't recognize what ACM stood for. That doesn't change the fact that it's a highly respected organization that's available for people new to the field and geared towards people's career advancement. Nor does it negate the influence the ACM has had on curriculum or the field at large (unless their influence has been greatly exaggerated). Arguably, this is where LOPSA should come in. Which is why I hope whatever comes of this discussion, it stays under the LOPSA umbrella. The hard question is how a business is supposed to believe that you know > what you're doing. > A degree is one way of doing that (although from what I saw when I was > going through school, not a very good one) > The work you have done on Open Source projects is another way that I'm > hearing some companies are looking at. > Recommendations from current employees tend to carry far more weight then > either of these. There's an expectation that someone who went through school understands the basic concepts. We don't have a codified set of basic concepts. As far as I know, system administration doesn't have an open source equivelant. And, if someone "fell into" the career, there's a chance that no one can properly attest to the person's skills. What something like this can do is create some standard baseline of knowledge and professional expectations as guide. And any certification would merely be a seal of approval saying "this person passed our criteria!" Even if an employer rolls their eyes at something like that (as I'm sure people do for college degrees as well), the person who made the effort has something tangible that verifies their accomplishment and helps keep them on track. Of course this isn't the only way . . .And I am interested in hearing other alternatives that can achieve the same goals at a large scale. On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 11:24 PM, David Lang <da...@lang.hm> wrote: > On Sun, 10 Nov 2013, Edward D'Azzo-Caisser wrote: > > Josh Swift wrote: >> >> To pick one pretty close to home, >>> what about software developers? I honestly have no idea. Maybe you can't >>> get hired as a code monkey any more without a Software Engineering >>> License, although I sort of doubt it >>> >>> >> Software Engineers/Programmers in general have the ACM and an expectation >> of a college degree focused on what they do. Most colleges pushing out >> software engineers have a formal internship program/industry contacts that >> help get their students real world experience. And ACM has a lot of >> professional resources to help aspiring developers. >> > > you must be in different areas than I am. I don't see anything like ACM > membership being expected of the programmers. I would lay very good odds > that most of them wouldn't recognize what ACM stood for. > > In some businesses, having a degree in computer science may be needed to > get your foot in the door, but I'm still seeing a lot of self-taught > programmers getting work. > > The hard question is how a business is supposed to believe that you know > what you're doing. > > A degree is one way of doing that (although from what I saw when I was > going through school, not a very good one) > > The work you have done on Open Source projects is another way that I'm > hearing some companies are looking at. > > Recommendations from current employees tend to carry far more weight then > either of these. > > David Lang > > > Neither of these things are licenses, but they offer tangible avenues of >> professional support. I can't see new sysadmins without college degrees >> succeeding in the industry 5 or 10+ years from now without some sort of >> professional body certifying their legitimacy and helping them get job >> placement. >> >> >> On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 9:32 PM, Josh Smift <iril...@infersys.com> wrote: >> >> WD> There were some folks there who voiced concerns about things such as >>> WD> licensure, regulation, and the artificial limiting of who could >>> WD> practice as negative outcomes of professionalization. >>> >>> I'm definitely there, but I have this concern. >>> >>> DB> They do it for electricians, lawyers, doctors, plumbers, massage >>> DB> therapists, interior designers... We are not special little >>> DB> snowflakes. They'll turn their all-powerful Eye of Sauron our >>> DB> direction sooner or later. >>> >>> There isn't one globally evil organization that does this for all of >>> those >>> groups, though. To the contrary, my impression is that a lot of those >>> groups do it themselves; or they do it by lobbying the government to do >>> it >>> for them. There wasn't some kind of interior design crisis that led to >>> licensing and regulation of the interior design industry; interior >>> designers (and others in similar fields where this has happened) wanted >>> this, with the particular goal of making it harder for newcomers to enter >>> the field (to artificially limit supply, and drive up prices). >>> >>> I don't think we should do that. >>> >>> As to the "special snowflake" thing, there are a lot of occupations that >>> aren't licensed or regulated at all. To pick one pretty close to home, >>> what about software developers? I honestly have no idea. Maybe you can't >>> get hired as a code monkey any more without a Software Engineering >>> License, although I sort of doubt it. Maybe someone is talking about >>> creating such a thing, but again I sort of doubt it. Anyone know? >>> >>> I think "providing a better path for the instruction and guidance of >>> sysadmins" is a fine goal, but seems more like education (and maybe >>> certification) than like licensing and regulation. And if you want to >>> call >>> the former thing "professionalization", I don't have a problem with that; >>> but it's different from "we want it to be illegal to say that you're a >>> sysadmin unless you're licensed by their state's Society Of System >>> Administrators". (Which is what the interior designers do. Or try, >>> they're >>> starting to lose court battles over this.) >>> >>> -Josh (iril...@infersys.com) >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Discuss mailing list >>> Discuss@lists.lopsa.org >>> https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >>> This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators >>> http://lopsa.org/ >>> >>> > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.lopsa.org > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > >
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