RL professions p99 players

[India]

IT Business Analyst/Project Manager

[sillymonster]

legal (antitrust) analyst / diligence manager.

[Barkingturtle]

I sell insurance and I'm currently in negotiations to publish my first novel, which should hopefully allow me to fulfill my life-long dream of not putting on pants in the morning.

[Jenithia]

Claims adjuster for a top 3 car insurance company.

[Thulack]

You guys talking about all your different Certs and stuff are killing me. I like putting computers together and can setup networks and crap like that and always thought about going back to school to actually get certified but you all make it sound like way more work then i want to put into it to eventually get a decent job.

[Lyssia]

I am a fulltime 911 Paramedic / Clinical Coordinator in Northern California, Lead instructor for a Paramedic Program and a primary BLS, ACLS, PALS, PEPP and PHTLS instructor

Ashar

Bard of the 18th season

[Ephi]

Originally Posted by Thulack [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You guys talking about all your different Certs and stuff are killing me. I like putting computers together and can setup networks and crap like that and always thought about going back to school to actually get certified but you all make it sound like way more work then i want to put into it to eventually get a decent job.

Gotta want it. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Lagaidh]

Originally Posted by Ephi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Gotta want it. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I suppose.

The two best programmers I ever met had nothing more than high school educations. One even ended up working for Bethesda (gaming studio).

I'm not saying certs are worthless, I personally don't really know. I've been on dev teams for the Navy, Marines, Darpa, in the medical field, aircraft design, telephony and IVR, and business apps. In 13 years, I can count on my hands the number of programmers that had any cert, other than a CS degree, on any of those teams.

In my own experience... I'll say that again... In my own experience, the certs just give potential employers a quicker way to sort a candidate; just like 4-year degrees do for a lot of non-technical positions that really only require a candidate to be timely and not a complete dipshit.

The funny thing is that a 4-year degree, or cert, does not guarantee any of that.

My own experience shows me that again: I pulled a 3.5 in college, 3.8 in my CS major at a fairly prestigious school. I never was as good as the folks that always looked confused in class when we hit the real world. /shrug

[DoucLangur]

Originally Posted by Lagaidh [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've been on dev teams for the Navy, Marines, Darpa, in the medical field, aircraft design, telephony and IVR, and business apps.

Derail not intended but possible:
I never understood how intelligent people can offer their skills to armed forces in today's times... I mean back then, when there were actual wars between countries and people had to defend themselves... But nowadays all those armies do is that they get used to further the cause of the upper ten thousand or so.

Most soldiers get manipulated into thinking they're fighting for a greater cause - and sadly that still works, millenia after the invention of wars....

Nowadays people *think* it's about who has the greater imaginary friend, but like almost every time before, it's just about a clash of economical interests. There are not even nations fighting anymore - a big part of conflicts is fueled by corporations to maximize profits in the unrest that follows....

Edit: Slozem - (civil) rocket scientist (sorta [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[LizardNecro]

Originally Posted by Lagaidh [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I suppose.

The two best programmers I ever met had nothing more than high school educations. One even ended up working for Bethesda (gaming studio).

I'm not saying certs are worthless, I personally don't really know. I've been on dev teams for the Navy, Marines, Darpa, in the medical field, aircraft design, telephony and IVR, and business apps. In 13 years, I can count on my hands the number of programmers that had any cert, other than a CS degree, on any of those teams.

Certs are worse than worthless (for development, I don't know about IT). I'd say as a dev manager, after having interviewed hundreds of candidates, the ones that put certs on their resume perform about as terrible as the people that put XML/HTML on their list of known programming languages. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I've seen amazing devs with high school educations or that were college dropouts. I don't recommend that path but I have seen it.

Best thing to impress is have a 4 year degree in math, CS, or related, and show me some code you've written outside of work. I got hired for my first real job showing my employer my guild's DKP site that I'd written as well as a little tetris game I made on the mac.