Re: To go to University - For the CISSP etc. - Good idea/Bad idea???

[Robin Wood <dninja () gmail com>]

2009/8/10 Derek Fountain <derekfountain () yahoo co uk>:
> Adriel T. Desautels wrote:
> > Getting a degree in Computer Science and similar areas of study is
> > almost pointless because the knowledge that you collect will be dated
> > by the time you graduate.  Can you argue that point? Can you tell me
> > that its not true?
>
> It's not true, not in the slightest.
>
> I graduated in 1995, just as the WWW was beginning to gain traction. Let me
> have a think back to what I studied and what's still useful today.
>
> Well, the underlying networking stuff hasn't changed a great deal. We looked
> in great depth at low level protocols, and IPv4 and ethernet are still
> largely as they were then. Higher level protocols have been added of course,
> and IPv6 wasn't on the radar back then, but the basics are still the same.
> Principles like latency are still relevant regardless of protocol.
>
> Most of the programming is still relevant. All the very low level stuff is
> the same; binary and hex haven't changed any. Concepts such as memory
> management (heaps vs stacks, etc.) and algorithms are still the same.
> Garbage collection is the only major thing I can think of that's appeared
> since I studied these things. A modern buffer overflow in 'C' still looks
> very much like it did in 1992. SQL has improved a lot over the years, but is
> still fundamentally SELECTs and UPDATEs. Object orientation has moved on a
> long way, but they taught me enough of the basics to know I didn't like it,
> and I still don't.
>
> The business stuff we covered is still relevant - clients, cost vs
> expenditure, hiring, etc. Given I've been running my own business since '96
> I rather wish I'd paid more attention to this content. All the "information
> analysis" remains relevant: applied mathematics basically. Plus I got taught
> concepts like language grammar, data normalisation, requirements analysis,
> etc., which are still completely relevant.
>
> In the interests of fair debate I'll consider what has changed. The
> "Computer Interaction" part of "Human Computer Interaction" got left behind
> pretty quickly as GUIs developed and the web became mainstream. The "Human"
> part is still the same though: the psychology of using complex machines
> hasn't changed a great deal. The operating system stuff dated very quickly.
> The UNIX material is probably still relevant, but not the DOS or VMS.
> Underlying principles of system programming, like IPC, locality of data,
> etc., remain useful, even though things have moved on.
>
> I'd go as far as to say that the vast majority of what I studied is still
> useful. Had I chosen a course that taught me the intricacies of Wordperfect
> and only how to be a Pascal programmer it would undoubtedly been a waste of
> time. As it was, when I started out, I wanted to be an systems or
> application level programmer. My degree set me up for that very nicely, and
> things continued to work out well when I started to get interested in
> security.
>
> So, on reflection, I'd say that your assertion that getting a degree in
> Computer Science is almost pointless because the knowledge dates too quickly
> is wrong.

I'd agree with this. I was at uni in the mid 90's and I still find
myself doing things and knowing things that I was taught on the
course. A really simple example, linked lists, they still work in
exactly the same was as when I learnt them years ago.

I think a degree gives you a very solid base to build things on and
while some of it will date the basic building blocks will stay the
same.

I'd also say that 3 years at uni while being harder on the pocket now
than when I did it, is 3 years well spent in learning life and
independence in a safe environment.

Robin

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