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Reminds me of my air force days...being a radio technician...same basic story as now....tension between knowing and doing etc etc.
I was on both and all sides of the story at different points....when I left tech school after 6 months of training...I had passed the "program"..but I had absolutely no clue about troubleshooting radios, lol....so at that point I was a "paper" tech.
Of course I learned quickly with the on the job experience.
Then I took an interest in electronics on my own, and stayed after work many nights building circuits etc etc...I was the rare one who actually read the big thick Technical Order books for enjoyment.
So then I sort of became the complete tech...I had the head knowledge and the practical experience....passing those who had "trained" me, lol.
Looking back I remember the dudes who had the experience but NOT the technical knowledge...they could fix stuff sort of by the seat of their pants...and by using "shotgun" troubleshooting....you know, replacing enuff parts until something worked....but if you asked them to explain what they were doing, they couldnt, lol.
And now in comps, many years later its the same story sort of.
I went to A+ class not really knowing ANYTHING....the first day in class they were using windows explorer to drag and drop stuff onto a floppy and I had no clue what they were doing, lol....I had to look over to the next dudes screen to see what they were doing.
But I studied on my own and got my A+ by passing both tests first try...so at that point I was sort of a "paper A+"..although the term "paper" really doesnt apply to A+ cuz its an ENTRY level thing anyway.
But then I worked in a comp store for a year....my first few days there I didnt know beans...they had to show me how to setup a dialup connection etc etc....but I learned quickly...again, soon passing those who had been ahead of me.
And now I am in 70-210 classes....and going in i didnt know JACK about w2000 except theory from A+ class. So now I am learning the classroom stuff and terminology etc.....and I have a little network at home with 2 comps so far...a w2k server and a w2k client. I set the server up 2 days ago with dhcp and dns and set the client up to get the IP from the server. Then tonight I went in and activated active directory so I can get into all that domain stuff.
So I am getting the "paper" and the experience....and I probably learned as much in a couple hours of fooling around on my own as I did in "class"....I say "class" cuz I inadvertantly signed up for a "cram" type class that isnt really teaching, its just cramming for the exam, lol.
So the way I see it, if you are on the ball you will NOT be on one side or the other of the "paper" or "experience" side....if you are the real deal you will sort of go back and forth between the two....you will either get a cert and then proceed to flesh it out with experience, or you will get experience and then solidify it with a cert. I got my A+..then a years worth of experience...now I am after some more certs...and also am getting experience..back and forth.
An analogy is driving a car down the road.....have you ever seen someone drive down the road and keep the steering wheel dead straight locked and not moving it at all??? OF COURSE NOT...to stay in the road you have to make small adjustments all the time, left, a little right, back some to the left, etc etc.
Its the same with certs and experience....a little experience...a cert, more experience, more certs or training, back and forth etc etc.
If you lock the wheel on a car it may seem to be going straight but its only a matter of time before it hits something or gets stuck in a ditch.....if you lock yourself into one way of thinking about certs vs experience...you will end up in a ditch eventually too.
JP
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"Even a fool is thought to be wise if he is silent"
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