On Wed, 22 May 2002 16:40:27 -0400, Kristian P. Jackson wrote:
New England) focus their BCS studies on programing. Completely unrelated to the area of anything network related. This may not be the case everywhere. Maybe the industry leaders should assist the education scene in developing a degree program for future network engineers that beter prepares them for this field. It doesn't help the industry if a bunch of programers are running around acting like network engineers, just as a bunch of network engineers are no more qualified to program. Perhaps a bachelors in network engineering is in order?
I am currently studying a BSc degree in merry old England. I have just finished my second year (well I'm part way through the exams). When I applied to do my degree I found two universities whose course were anything related to Networking. Mine is called Computing (Networks and Communications). I think we've pretty much been the guinea pigs for the course and guess what, they didn't get it right first time. Our first year entailed the following modules: Business & Professional Skills The Business & Professional Environment Programming Mathematics for Computing Systems Analysis & Design Principals of Computing Technologies Not a single one of these modules made any effort to be network related. The first two were similar and involved basic GCSE level literature stuff along with spending a whole semester pretending to run a company that made paint stripper out of pigeon excrement. Programming was a very basic grounding in C++ Maths was again GCSE level with a bit of Matrices thrown in for the Visualisation students. Systems Analysis and Design involved theorising about making computerised versions of a couple of forms for an obscure activities holiday company whilst Principals of Computing Technologies tought us how to write assembler for the 8085 chip. In year two we have done the following: Networking Technologies Unix Networking and Administration Unix, Linux and X Web Based Systems Software Development: Concepts and Methods Databases Here we are getting there, but it isn't exactly serious stuff and is the kind of thing you learn by spending your spare time fiddling about with stuff. Networking tech involved mostly installing Windows 95 systems to do peer2peer stuff and client server stuff. One experiment involved a basic Novell server install and another involved a basic Cisco router configuration. Unix Net & Admin is how to add/remove accounts, file permissions and giving an adapter an ip address. Unix Linux and X is literally bash shell scripting on a server with a weird configuration. Web Based Systems, ahh yes. First semester was html and javascript. They got as far as form tags and input checking. Second semester involved being given some perl code for connecting to a database and integrating it (putting a website in front of it). SDCM is all about how Billy Bojo and Frank Redneck came up with X theory about Y. I think about 80% of our course a) didn't see the point in the subject b) didn't understand any of the teachers (it was a rarety that they could speak English anywhere near properly) and c) have failed this subject. Databases was mysql. That was fairly useful in that it went into a fair bit of depth about the commands. Third year (next year) we are all on placements yet the uni still charges £1000 for tuition fees. I don't know what we're supposed to be doing in the fourth year because all trace of our course description has been eradicated from the website. It would appear, however that the people who started their course this year have it better than us in that they are doing all the networking stuff we did this year in the first year. A list of next years networking degree is here: http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cms/ug/courses.html I would provide a link to the actual course but I can't be bothered looking at their javascript. If its anything like the uni network, it'll be hours of fun (took them and Novell two months to realise that all the serious login problems were due to all the computers trying to use a server that had been removed). Oh well, I hope noone from the CIS or CMS departments read this list or I might end up not coming back next year. That is just an example of how little a degree in networks might actually mean. I worked 7 months nightshift at an ISP and learned far more relevant stuff than the two years on a networking degree have taught me. Several times I have considered giving it up and looking around for industry certifications but I keep hoping that the next year will be better...though that depends on whether I can find a placement that doesn't just involve writing websites. If anyone around here knows of a decent networking related company that might offer an at least half decent placement then do let me know. It seems this kind of placement is rather sparse this year. -- O- cw, security@fidei.co.uk on 23/05/2002 "Part man, part monkey. Baby that's me"