dork

So this is what happens when I go to the farm for two days……see if I ever leave again.

Well for what it is worth, I will be staying in Nebraska for the time being. UNOmaha has the best program I have found thus far. It will be a year or two before I can move there and attend but while I work at my CC I can continue taking free gen ed courses.

I will say that Elanthis keeps bringing up a point that keeps me thinking. I could go to just about any school and reguardless of the name on the building or the words on the fancy paper, I could still be a crappy excuse for a computer/software whatever. I have self taught myself so much of my computer knowledge already and of course my A.A. degree did help to further my knowledge and experiance with computers. All that being said, I watch every year as new students show up to be computer gods (At a CC? lmao) and they find out that they don't know jack shit about anything other than halo runs on xbox and internet explorer is a great web browser. I am fortunate to not be one of them and I spend all of my old gaming time working with software or hardware in some fashion. (Ok, so sometimes I drive a tractor.)

I do know that a person could learn to be a kick ass whatever without ever going to college. It's just that the degree really helps for the job, and most people are not motivated enough to self learn an entire carreer path. I am really looking for a school that helps me see the wider scope that I cannot grasp through books and online tutorials alone. Oh, and some fancy paper to hang on the wall too.


Thanks again everyone for all the input and support.

For what it's worth, I've yet to encounter a company that cared what sort of degree someone had after they'd got a few years experience under their belt. Having "a" degree is often a requirement for applications, but nobody was ever interested in what I'd done at University after I'd spent a couple of years working.

I was frequently given technical tests during interview/s, and got asked a lot of detail about my work (sometimes having to give improvised presentations), but the only time I recall mentioning my education was when my work experience didn't cover something (but my education did). The response was a disappointed "Oh."

What KaVir said is quite true. One of my professors, who is a very well-respected game designer and developer, has a degree in kinesiology. He knows his stuff, and that's all that matters.

ooo lookit mister unedumacated

There's an old joke around town - there were two students standing in the Fast Checkout line that had a sign, "Less than TEN items ONLY". One had 14 items, the other 16. One was from Harvard, and he couldn't count, the other from MIT, and he couldn't read.

All you had to do to cut the guy off at his knees was point out he didn't finish MIT - you're not even good at being bad.


So, I take it David's "a rather well-known school in California" is the proper form around here, as actually mentioning the name of your school might cause extreme anxiety among those who are overly sensitive about being under-educated?

And apparently web surfing trumps actual experience….

Or is it just that lockewarrior is an unfortunate name choice?

I'll make a stronger statement: I've never heard of an interview process for my kind of job that didn't involve varying levels of technical tests.


These are great, IMO, because it's the easiest way to do several things at once:
1- does this person know their stuff
2- do they know good stuff
3- do they actually know how to communicate that stuff

At many places, being an awesome <something> but a terrible communicator is not helpful. Where I work, the interview process is often summarized as asking the question: "Would I want to work with this person?" Obviously that includes evaluating technical skills, but it's also a test of how clearly they can express ideas, and heck even an evaluation of their personality to some extent. Asking the candidate to talk about something at some length is a nice way of checking this stuff in the relatively small amount of time you've had.


Maybe he actually wasn't, you know, trying to be insulting or "bad". The world isn't always as you have painted it.


When making or responding a claim about a specific program, is providing that very program's documentation not a useful thing to do? Huh. Weird.

You're awesome, ya know that? I started to make this same point last night, but got tired of arguing. I mean, where do you draw the line on what counts as "dick waving your credentials" (the popular term being thrown around last night). I even told Kayle on IMC, that by his reasoning, I'm apparently guilty of the exact same thing as lockewarrior - mentioning the name of the school you attended.

I'm a graduate of Total Technical Institute. You too can have a career in computer operations or programming in just six months.

Goliath says, "TTI backwards is ITT, Davey."

Niiice.



If I wanted to be "dick waving my credentials", there would be a lot more dick waving and a lot more credentials. I hardly consider my meandering career as a university student to be my credentials in the field of software engineering. :]

Mudders Anonymous, or what? Didn't know a name drop could cause so much 'anxiety', and like the chap said, I didn't finish at MIT. Hehehe..

On the topic, I would say most careers in the IT field require that you invest some amount of time 'staying current', so if you're learning to educate yourself on various topics now, that's a skill that you're going to need for the rest of your career, not just college. Whatever you need to be learning, dive in and do it. Can't learn it all in a classroom, and experience is going to pay off more than anything else.

You're on the right track, obviously, if you're trying to get involved in community projects, like a mud.

Seriously. In preparation for next time, though, you should get a tattoo on it that says: "I WENT TO MIT, *******!!!". THAT would be the best way to dick wave your credentials…

Btw, I'm sure you've noticed by now that certain people here are a bit touchy. Just don't let them get to you.

Completely agreed. The classroom is a good place to learn general concepts and understand the theory. Practice is a good way to figure out how to actually use that stuff, and without it – and without continued practice as the world evolves – you will rapidly fall behind.

BTW, I don't get the TTI/ITT joke…?

And cheaper than ITT. Besides it's only one letter difference from MIT.

P.S. I've also attended LCCC, CCC, BGSU, UA, CSU and KSU, but that's not important.

The joke is that it's cheaper and one letter different? I'm feeling like there's more to this joke that I'm not seeing at all. (Is the David & Goliath reference relevant?)

Possibly MADTV spoof on Davey and Goliath cartoon.
"But Davey! God spelled backwards is Dog!"

I dunno. Ask Lyanic.

Doing the exact same thing Cratylus is doing is a bad way to get a point across. Please don't.

I'd like to join in the dick-waving, but mine is too heavy to lift. :sad: