What Are You Doing Right Now

Obsolesce

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Obsolesce said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Your point (not example, your example was completely bad) is only valid if the material and cert are not linked, such as to know none of the material the cert or degree is certifying one should know or be familiar with by having said cert or degree.

They are never linked, logically they cannot be. So the point is always valid. Getting a cert and learning material for a cert are quite different things unless you believe that you can learn the material while taking the cert exam itself - which is possible in theory but unrealistic.

I don't get your logic here... I must be coming in from another direction or something because what you are saying here makes no sense to me.

The material teaches you what you need to know to obtain the given cert... how is that not linked? You obviously cannot get an A+ cert by studying material for pottery design... it obviously has to be material the A+ covers.

scottalanmiller

@Obsolesce said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

The material teaches you what you need to know to obtain the given cert... how is that not linked? You obviously cannot get an A+ cert by studying material for pottery design... it obviously has to be material the A+ covers

But you can get the cert without studying, and you can study without getting the cert. They are independent actions. Neither depends on the other. They are discrete.

There can be value to learning, and there can be value to having the cert that are not related. For example, every IT job ever that "requires" the A+ cert does so without rewarding the knowledge, only requiring the cert. Any job that uses the knowledge doesn't need the cert.

They are simply totally different things.

Take the Network+ as a better example. I never studied for it. Having the knowledge is something I had before the cert released (I got the cert within hours of release.) So they two cannot be connected. Because you can get it without studying the material.

You have to evaluate the value of each separately, as they are unrelated things.

scottalanmiller

In a job where you need to "know" how to do something, knowledge matters. In a job where you have to be certified regardless of what you know, a cert matters.

Passing a cert only tells us you can memorize answers, tells us nothing of if you understand the material (CompTIA certs are famous for this.) So the cert itself doesn't even tell us much of anything about the knowledge that someone has. It just tells us if someone felt it valuable to pay for a piece of paper and spend some time on it.

Just look at the people learning the material now. Some of the learning is valuable, but the cert is not. That we see the cert as literally being a negative for them in their jobs and their careers, but the knowledge for it being so valuable as for some of it to be critical, should prove the point. The two cannot be connected if one is valuable and one is worthless. If they were connected, their values would be connected.

Just like the tooth brushing example.

scottalanmiller

It is a quiet night and we have a new NodeBB release. So we are going to do that tonight. MongoDB is backing up now.

Obsolesce

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

The two cannot be connected if one is valuable and one is worthless. If they were connected, their values would be connected.

That's the issue here. They can both be valuable, they can both be worthless. What makes them such isn't the cert or material, but the job or recruiters.

My PhD in brain surgery as well as all material used to obtain it can also be valuable or worthless, depending on the job and context that is requiring it.