RE: [FW1] Helo for CCSA Exam

["Dave Long, NCR" <dave.long@unitedkingdom.ncr.com>]

    [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ]
    [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. Some ]
    [ characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]


> And if you take it to the extreme, then what does a college
> degree even give you versus learning while doing.

Structured education is valuable even if it is necessarily more broadly
based than on-the-job learning. There are possibly bits of the CCSx courses
that I'll never need to use BUT I can't tell ahead of time which they are.
There are certainly bits of my IT degree that I've never had to use for real
but still, having done a section on database design I feel I'm better
equipped to talk to a database person about security, say, should the need
arise.

I think what I'm working my way round to saying is that you could certainly
get the level of knowledge contained in CCSE by work experience, but you
wouldn't get it in the same time. So someone who does CCSE and then starts
applying it in the real world will soon be ahead of someone who missed CCSE
but spent the time getting a few days' more real world experience.

And that's not counting the fringe benefits of formal education, like an
instructor who (hopefully) knows more than you and will answer questions,
and a bunch of like-minded people with whom to bounce ideas around and share
experiences. Oh, and not having a customer breathing down your neck wanting
to know when the darn firewall is going to be operational helps too!

Another way of putting it is that courses are like learning by other peoples
mistakes instead of having to do everything the hard way yourself. Of
course, if manuals were well-structured, well-written and error-free, we
could all get there by self-paced learning instead.

Having said all that, one of my younger brothers gave up his college course
for a job in computing, moved on to contracting and earns nearly twice what
I get, so maybe I should keep quiet!

Cheers,

Dave Long
NCR UK

Statements and opinions in this email are mine and not necessarily NCR's.



================================================================================
     To unsubscribe from this mailing list, please see the instructions at
               http://www.checkpoint.com/services/mailing.html
================================================================================