311–320 of 434 posts
I am CTO of a startup (and use to be freelance dev). I once did the Introduction into Machine Learning course on Coursera ( https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning ). Although I would agree with most opinions here that that does not make me into a data scientist by any meanse, I do really like that I have a good "helicopter view" of ML. This is still super benificial in my role today, as I know which kind of…
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I got irritated with the size of a quote for my heat pump repair, so I got an HVAC certification and did the repair myself. A little time, $300 worth of equipment from Amazon and it is still running great after several years. I needed the HVAC certification to buy the refrigerant. Saved several thousand dollars.
That's awesome. I want to get HVAC certified. First I'll knock out welding though.
I'd feel worse about it, but generally the HVAC companies in an area are extremely predatory and only quote out new systems when a simple repair would suffice.
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A software engineering degree is an academic degree, not a vocational certificate. Look at this syllabus for a 4-year degree in software engineering. [0] It's broadly similar to what we'd expect of a computer science degree. Topics include: • Computer architecture • Compilers • Computer graphics • Cryptography • Deep learning • Software verification The average self-taught web developer has a working knowledge of non…
First I never said anything about web development... That said then there is a clear disconnect between employment, and degree's Employers often are requiring these "software engineering" degree's for basic level software development, and /or web development That is the the point of my comment, often time people feel required to spend 10's or 100's of thousands on a degree for the sole purpose of attaining employment…
You said software development. Self-taught software developers are very often web developers.
> Employers often are requiring these "software engineering" degree's for basic level software development, and /or web development
Suppose you're right that employers place undue emphasis on academic achievement compared to on-the-job software development experience. This would not be addressed by handing out honorary degrees wholesale.
> If they are being educated in a way that does not prepare them for that job then the degree is less than worthless, and it an out right scam
If it lets them start a software development career, it's not a waste.
Also, again, a degree in computer science is not a vocational course like a coding boot camp, it's an academic qualification. The goal is to impart a basic knowledge of a scientific field.
In my experience software engineering degrees tend to be essentially computer science degrees but with a slightly different emphasis. Of course, both are more applicable to software development than, say, a degree in biology.
Some degrees have limited non-academic application, such as philosophy, and some have non-academic application but with only very few jobs available, such as forensics. If I recall correctly, computer science and software engineering are among the top degree topics measured by average financial payoff.
Back story: when I started working for my self my first client was a pilot, he encouraged me to get my PPL or at least do a demo flight. I did an intro flight and was instantly hooked. 3 years later I had a PPL, Instrument Rating, High Performance and Complex checkouts. One of the best experiences I have ever had, I was fresh out of college, had a few bucks in my pocket and not many obligations. Anyway heres why its been great:
- I have found there are basically three types of people that bum around private airports where general aviation ops occur. 1) people successful enough to afford to fly private jets or charters when they need 2) people successful enough to OWN their own plane. 3) People who are liable to become types 1 and 2. In general pilots are a nice bunch and a talkative bunch. Ive met some really great people (read business connections) just by lurking around the airport. That first client I had, had lots of similar buddies who were pilots that I got to meet etc. etc. By far the most productive business networking I have EVER done occurred near an aircraft.
- Flying keeps you sharp in all aspects and it WILL change the way you look at things. It keeps you sharp on doing paperwork, sharp on staying current on a topic, sharp on thinking ahead of things, sharp on staying in at least some sort of decent physical shape. I have built a lot of productive habits in my life to ensure I can fly.
- It hones your decision making skills, a lot....
- It re-shapes how you view getting around and enabling your business/work. Both pre and post pandemic life. Meeting with client within 500 miles, Im not dealing with trains or regional jets, im coming and going as I need. This has enabled same day travel, taking meetings i normally wouldn't have and being able to generally buy time back.
- Putting my PPL on my resume has been the best talking point, stand out item, liner note I have ever had.
- Its just good fun.
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i have an open water cert and dive 4-6 times a year. it's fine for just myself, but if you have a higher level cert like rescue, then you may be asked or expected to assist others in emergencies. thankfully, most places are very careful not to take cert cards from unfamiliar faces at face value.
I thank that is a crappy attitude. If I am on a dive and there is a lost diver or some other incident in the area, I want to have the skills to be able to help. I would note that "asked or expected" is different than "required", so there really is no downside to doing a rescue diver class or a divemaster program. In fact, I highly recommend it and it was a lot of fun.
not to say you shouldnt get a rescue cert, but that alone is insufficient if you have no actual and recent or long term experience.
This will not apply to all companies, but for our hiring decisions certs have an adverse effect. If someone puts many certifications on their resume my expectations are lower and I likely won't consider them for interviews. It's a negative signal in my experience. Your time is better spent working on side projects, contributing to open source, writing a blog, etc. I.e. do real-world stuff instead of wasting time on a…
Be careful about the bias in single-metric gatekeeping strategies like this. Contributing to open source projects, having side projects, et al are pursuits of leisure. Certificates are possibly the only foot in the door for folks working multiple jobs with kids, etc. and the government often pays the tuition for low income folks. Once you’ve got them, even if you’re more established, it would be crazy to leave them o…
This will not apply to all companies, but for our hiring decisions certs have an adverse effect. If someone puts many certifications on their resume my expectations are lower and I likely won't consider them for interviews. It's a negative signal in my experience. Your time is better spent working on side projects, contributing to open source, writing a blog, etc. I.e. do real-world stuff instead of wasting time on a…
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I'll also echo what others have said, in that certs are commonly used by people trying to compensate for a lack of actual skills. That's not always true, but it is often enough that the correlation is bound to stick in people's minds even if they don't explicitly exclude applicants because of it. If you do have both a lot of certs _and_ solid skills and experience, then kudos -- but you may want to consider tailoring resumes and other materials to the jobs you apply to based on their applicability and expected reception. (That's generally good advice for anything, but particularly for things like this that could have both positive or negative connotations in different circumstances.)
This will not apply to all companies, but for our hiring decisions certs have an adverse effect. If someone puts many certifications on their resume my expectations are lower and I likely won't consider them for interviews. It's a negative signal in my experience. Your time is better spent working on side projects, contributing to open source, writing a blog, etc. I.e. do real-world stuff instead of wasting time on a…
> Your time is better spent working on side projects, contributing to open source, writing a blog, etc. I.e. do real-world stuff Just FYI that at some companies, collecting certificates is indeed real world stuff. Some companies use it for marketing (“we have the most certifications in the industry”) and some need to to satisfy vendor partner requirements (“AWS Premier Partners are required to have X number of certif…
My rule is always to only put something on my resume if I could talk for 2-3 minutes about it in a way that makes me look good/useful. Most of my certs, the only real thing I could say is "I spent 10-30 hours watching videos and then took a test well." I wouldn't really want to work for a company that valued those skills vs. me explaining how I applied the things I learned from the cert.
6 months later I found a job and moved to Boston. After working at that company for a few months me and my boss went out for drinks and I asked him why he decided to hire me. He said that my certification was basically a deal-maker. He thought it was a sign that I was at the top of my profession. I thought it was funny, but, hey, it worked.
Super fast forward - a few years later I Fat FIREd at the age of 33 and I'm absolutely sure that the initial certification set a certain chain of reaction that led to it. So even though I think in most cases the certifications are absolutely useless, I'm absolutely sure that when you have to stand out from the crowd, especially at the junior level - they are super useful.
This will not apply to all companies, but for our hiring decisions certs have an adverse effect. If someone puts many certifications on their resume my expectations are lower and I likely won't consider them for interviews. It's a negative signal in my experience. Your time is better spent working on side projects, contributing to open source, writing a blog, etc. I.e. do real-world stuff instead of wasting time on a…
> do real-world stuff instead of wasting time on artificial tests that require memorization Interesting, since the majority of tech interviews (from what I’ve gathered) rely on artificial tests that require memorization. I’m not disagreeing, I also think real world experience is infinitely more valuable. But it seems like certs could actually be an indicator that a candidate would perform quite well in LC style inter…
Certs on the other hand are often just pure memorization. There's not really any way to "infer" which AWS service name matches to which service function. You either know the name of the API call or you don't. It doesn't provide much signal that you actually know how to apply that information to anything practical.
Even at their worst, most crappy whiteboard code interviews are still literally testing if you can literally write functional code, which is closer to what you do on the job than memorizing the Cisco books.