On Thu, May 23, 2002 at 03:00:20AM -0400, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
At 02:42 PM 5/23/2002 -0400, Henry Yen wrote:
On Thu, May 23, 2002 at 06:22:50AM -0700, Rachel K. Warren wrote:
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule - I've had managers and executive officers in the same companies I worked at who did not have degrees. But more often than not, the degree was there.
i was once taught that causation and correlation are different.
Stating as fact a causation simply because of a correlation (e.g. degrees == promotion) is probably not a good idea without other evidence. However, lacking evidence or hypotheses to the contrary, it is not unreasonable to tentatively assume a causation given a strong correlation.
i don't disagree, but the your specific observation seems too broad for me. i've long deleted the original post, but ISTR that the OP's interest was in getting a network/engineering/related job, and the degree (no pun intended) to which having a formal college education might contribute toward that goal, at least in the short run. assuming that the companies to which this post refers are those which are in that situation (hiring good network people), the fact that the managers and executives at those companies "more often than not" had a degree is not necessarily more than a correlation. it doesn't speak to the issue of whether or not they are/were good network people. for instance, perhaps a degree is more useful to managers and executive officers than to network engineers. or perhaps people who get degrees strive more for those management positions than people who don't. or perhaps those companies tend to hire people with degrees more often than not, and this post shows that, but it doesn't necessarily relate to network engineering (i.e. maybe it's a less-than-useful holdover hiring practice, which is what many offshoots of this thread are discussing); perhaps the OP would be just as happy to be hired in a non-network-engineering- oriented position, but that's not the impression i got.
Assuming correlation and causation are completely unrelated is probably worse, since if there is a cause / effect relationship, correlation is bound to show up.
yes, but i didn't assume that. :)
Given that we *do* have other evidence (e.g. HR department which ask for degrees when hiring & promoting), why would it be wrong to make a leap such that "a degree will help more than it will hurt".
yes, i think it would be wrong. the "evidence" presented above is one person's experience, based on observations of "executive officers and managers" at places where she has worked. you could certainly say that a college degree will more likely than not lead to a position as an executive officer or manager (not necessarily network-related), especially if you tend to try to work for companies such as those quoted above. the "hurt" part presumably refers to the time (5+ per cent of your life), as well as the ten-thousands of dollars expenditure.
As one person said, all else being equal (as it frequently is), a degree (or certification) is a great way to differentiate yourself. Especially to the non-technical (like CFOs and HR departments).
i think it makes a bigger difference when one is young. i tend to believe that the differentiation lessens over time. as well, the opportunity to seriously and formally study computing/networking is "relatively" recent.
The interesting thing about this long (and sometimes interesting) thread which keeps appearing here every year or two is that people without degrees seem to have value experience only, while people with degrees have a relatively high opinion of experience and degrees.
it would be interesting to see the age distribution of these two groups.
IOW: The people who have been to college tend like it, those who have not, do not.
Of course, that is just a correlation, and not even a 100% correlation at that.
-- Henry Yen Aegis Information Systems, Inc. Senior Systems Programmer Hicksville, New York