Re: Linux administration course - thoughts???

[Micah Yoder <LYoder@cyberis.net>]

"Aaron D. Turner" wrote:

> 1)  Not having a college degree doesn't hold you back in entry and

Actually I *do* have a college degree - BA/CS.  :-)  This is just a bit
different than a degree.

> 2)  Never stop learning.  Ever.  If you ever get a job where you're no
> longer learning something almost every day, find another.

Good call.  That's why I got out of my last one - I was only learning M$
and AS/400 crap.

> For the record, I have taken numerous Novell classes (I'm a CNE BTW) and a
> Sun admin class.  Most of what the classes stress is preping you for the
> exam which is about as un-real world as you can get.  I've maybe once come

Actually this class doesn't even have an exam.  It's just a week of
classes!  But they say they're "confident" that it would help me prepare
for a standard Linux exam, once one exists.

> Luckly, it was always the company's money so it didn't hurt that much.

Wish I had that luxury.....  :-)

> Conclusion:  Don't fly to Colorado.  Stay home with some Orielly books and
> setup NFS, NIS, apache, TACAS+, etc on your system at home.  Find a
> company that is willing to help nurture you.  Someone that can mentor you.

It does seem like there would be an advantage having experienced people
there to help you and make sure you do it right.  OTOH it might not be
worth 5 times the price of O'Reilly's entire UNIX library...

> Look on www.dice.com.

Did that, sent several applications.  Replies to my applications: zero. 
And I think I was perfectly qualified for most of them...

It is a bit tricky finding a Jr. level administration or programming
job.  I have experience with LOTS of different things, but not really
EXTENSIVE experience in anything.  Sucks... :-)

Thanks,
Micah