[spam score 2/10 -pobox] [TriLUG] Linux Support Position (OT)

[Andrew Perrin]

I'd have to agree with this general point. Although the correspondence
between logical thought and a college education is far from perfect, it's
also far from random - that is, one predicts the other with greater
efficiency than chance would predict.

Whether "switching tapes in the DLT drive" requires logical thought is a
different matter, of course.

Still smarting from Tanner's previous message, I will relate my own
history. Through college and grad school (and the years in between) I made
my living (and a better one than your average student) doing a variety of
computer work, everywhere from hardware repair to unix/nt/postgres system
administration to perl and (dare I say it) MS Access development.  The
reaction I typically get is either:
	1.) Why'd you go into social science when you could make so
	    much more money in computing; and
	2.) How in the world do these two skill sets fit together?

The answer to 1.) probably contains roughly equal parts personal
satisfaction and inability to comprehend the value of money.

The answer to 2.), I think, is much more interesting. Sociology, when done
well, involves considering human behavior *systematically* - that is,
working with data to try to discover systematic patterns that predict when
people (or groups of them) do things (or groups of them).  Good sociology,
IMNSHO, is therefore quite schematic, and whether qualitative or
quantitative in nature, uses data to build and illustrate systematic
theories. Good programming does.... exactly the same thing.  If I were
back working in IT (which I hope not to be, but that's dependent on the
tenure committee :)), I would certainly hire a sociology grad, from a good
department, because of this synergy.

Just my 2c; back to work now!

ap

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J Perrin - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin
Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
clists at perrin.socsci.unc.edu * andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu


On 28 Jun 2002, Tanner Lovelace wrote:

> On Fri, 2002-06-28 at 14:09, Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
> > Every society has its caste system.  This is ours.
> 
> I disagree.  While for some positions a college degree may not
> make that much of a difference for some it does, quite a bit.
> For developers, I believe it makes an enormous difference.  
> Developing software takes extremely logical, ordered and creative
> thinking.  While some exceptional people can do this without
> benefit of a college degree, the vast majority simply cannot
> (witness the vast amount of software on Source Forge that is
> simply crap).  To say otherwise shows a lack of understanding
> of the discipline of programming.
> 
> System administration, on the other hand, can easily be learned
> in apprenticeship fashion.  While I believe a good system administrator
> will benefit from a college degree, I believe they will benefit
> more from experience (even experience administering a linux
> box at home).  Note that this does not mean I believe Sys
> Admins are any less competent than programmers, just that
> they are in different fields.
> 
> Tanner
> -- 
> Tanner Lovelace | lovelace at wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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