Re: [uug] Certifications: Good, or a bunch of hooey?

[Andrew Jorgensen]

Jake already knows how I feel about certification, especially A+. 
Another thing he may want to know would be which certs do you feel are 
worth something. It's been mentioned that CISCO is respectable, but 
I've heard that the lower CISCO certs aren't much better than A+. 
Novell was pretty valuable for a while, but we all know how that's 
been going lately. (Yes I know NDS kicks butt, that's not the point.)

I've been looking seriously at SAGE (Sytem Administrators Guild / 
USENIX http://sage.org ). Supposedly RHCE (RedHat) is gaining 
acceptance. Anyone else looked at SAGE? Any members of SAGE here? What 
other certs look reasonable to you?

In my major (IT (not ISys)) there's been a lot of debate about 
certification. We had a meeting with our Industrial Advisory Board 
that got a bit heated. The word from above (the members of the IAB) is 
that your BS (not Bull Pucky, Bachelor of Science ;) (MS in Jake's 
case) is going to look a lot more impressive than any cert. The word 
from below (the students) is that all else being equal they'd rather 
have the certs in case the HR guys are pinheads. It can't hurt. 
(Really I think it could 'cause people might judge you for the 
acronyms attached to you rather than what you're capable of and have 
accomplished.)

BTW: Jake, CISCO really aint bad, but stay away from anything 
microsofty. Also, if you do go for a cert get a book and study on your 
own, the classes won't help you much (unless that's the way you learn 
best).

Jacob Albretsen wrote:
Since I am not landing that big job right out of college, I was looking at a 
few ways to make use of my time.  Right down the road from where I am staying 
is the DATC:  Davis Applied Technology Center.  Their specialty is 
certifications.  A+, MCSE, Cisco.....they even have some sort of UNIX/Linux 
thing.  I went and checked it out.  Basically it appears to be "work on your 
own" then come ask questions and take the test and if you pass, boom, you're 
certified.

I've heard mixed opinions about "certification" and read some funny Dilbert 
views of it too.  I was wondering what some opinions of the group are that 
have been able to actually get paid working with computers.

See, I have books (O'Reilly) and I read them and learn new things about Linux, 
programming, etc.  But I don't get "certified"  Am I going to need to be 
"certified" to get anywhere?




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