I think the IT field as a whole, programmers, network guys, etc... are going to go the way of the auto workers in the 70's and 80's. I am a CCIE working and on a second one and it saddens me that all my hard work and advanced knowledge could be replaced by a chop-shop guy because from a business standpoint quarter to quarter the chop-shop guy is cheaper on the books. Never mind the fact that I solve problems on the network in under 30mins and save the company from downtime but I am too expensive. I used to love technology and all it had to offer but now I feel cheated, I feel like we all have been burned by the way the business guys look at the technology, as a commodity. Thankfully I am still young (mid 20's) I can make a career switch but I'll still love the technology. Anyway I am going to start the paper work to be an H1b to China and brush up on my Mandarin. Jason -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Erik Haagsman Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 7:55 PM To: Dan Mahoney, System Admin Cc: Nicole; nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Cisco moves even more to china. On Fri, 2004-09-24 at 02:29, Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote:
I've always personally taken anyone who said "but I'm an MCSE" with a grain of salt. I've had equal respect for the A-plus and Net-Plus certifications, which are basically bought.
I take most certifications with a grain of salt, including degrees, unless someone clearly demonstrates he know's what he's talking about, is able to make intelligent decisions and learns new techniques quickly. In which case a certification is still just an add-on ;-)
I used to have more trust in the /CC../ certifications but I find I may be
laughing those off too quite soon.
The vendor's introductory certs (CCNA, CCNP, JNCIA, JNCIS) don't say anything about a candidate, except exactly that ("I got the cert"). CCIE and JNCIE are still at least an indicator someone was at a certain level at the time of getting the certification, but are still no substitute for experience and a brain in good working order. It's too bad there aren't better "general" (non-vendor specific) certs, since what often lacks is general understanding of network architecture and protocols. You can teach anyone the right commands for Vendor X and they'll prolly get a basic config going on a few nodes, but when troubleshooting time comes it's useless without good knowledge of the underlying technology, which none of the vendor certs teach very well (IMHO anyway ;-) Cheers, Erik -- --- Erik Haagsman Network Architect We Dare BV tel: +31.10.7507008 fax: +31.10.7507005 http://www.we-dare.nl