[177004] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: How our young colleagues are being educated....
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mike Hammett)
Tue Dec 23 15:31:44 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 14:29:37 -0600 (CST)
From: Mike Hammett <nanog@ics-il.net>
To: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <CAKyZmWsVqqWnnRdLUBr4fW-=UVM34sf-_=4TmfvGrVV5EReWOQ@mail.gmail.com>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
When I took my CCNA a bit over ten years ago, it was terribly out of date. =
That said, I beleive I was the last class to go through on that version. Th=
e next one added OSPF and some other things.=20
At the time, though, Ethernet belonged within a building. If you were wanti=
ng to connect multiple buildings together, bust out those T1s.=20
-----=20
Mike Hammett=20
Intelligent Computing Solutions=20
http://www.ics-il.com=20
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kyle Kinkaid" <kkinkaid@usgs.gov>=20
To: "Javier J" <javier@advancedmachines.us>=20
Cc: nanog@nanog.org=20
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2014 9:38:02 AM=20
Subject: Re: How our young colleagues are being educated....=20
In addition to my "9 to 5" job of network engineer, I teach evening courses=
=20
at a US community college (for you non-USers, it's a place for the first=20
2-years of post-secondary education, typically before proceeding to a full=
=20
4-year university). The community college I work at participates in the=20
Cisco Academy program which trains students to get specific Cisco=20
certifications like CCNA, CCNP, CCNA Security.=20
I feel like the Cisco Academy program does a pretty good job at training=20
the students and and addresses many of the issues you found with education=
=20
in US. Without knowing for sure, your description sounds like that of a=20
"traditional" 4-year university curriculum. The Cisco Academy program=20
focuses on being up-to-date (revisions happen every 4 years or so) and=20
emphasizes working with (preferably physical) routers and switches from day=
=20
one. I've found 4-year universities, if they have networking courses at=20
all, cover too much theoretical material, emphasize legacy technologies,=20
and are updated only when they must.=20
Further, when in front of students, I always try and relate the material to=
=20
either what they have experienced in their professional lives (if they are=
=20
already working) or to what I see in my job regular. I try and keep the=20
students focused on what's practical and only discuss theory and abstract=
=20
ideas when necessary. I might not be able to do that if I was a professor=
=20
at a 4-year university, having worked hard on a Ph.D. then on getting=20
tenure. I think it's important to seek to be educated at schools and seek=
=20
to hire from schools where the instructors have copious practical=20
experience and, preferably, experience which is concurrent with their=20
teaching experience. That will hopefully get you a corps of workers who=20
are better prepared for a job from day one.=20
Just my 2 cents.=20
P.S. This is not to denigrate the value of a Ph.D. or academia. My mentor=
=20
in my network engineering career has a Ph.D. in Mathematics and having that=
=20
high-level education was a boon to his being able to understand difficult=
=20
networking concepts.=20
On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 1:13 AM, Javier J <javier@advancedmachines.us>=20
wrote:=20
> Dear NANOG Members,=20
>=20
> It has come to my attention, that higher learning institutions in North=
=20
> America are doing our young future colleagues a disservice.=20
>=20
> I recently ran into a student of Southern New Hampshire University enroll=
ed=20
> in the Networking/Telecom Management course and was shocked by what I=20
> learned.=20
>=20
> Not only are they skimming over new technologies such as BGP, MPLS and th=
e=20
> fundamentals of TCP/IP that run the internet and the networks of the worl=
d,=20
> they were focusing on ATM , Frame Relay and other technologies that are o=
n=20
> their way out the door and will probably be extinct by the time this=20
> student graduates. They are teaching classful routing and skimming over=
=20
> CIDR. Is this indicative of the state of our education system as a whole?=
=20
> How is it this student doesn't know about OSPF and has never heard of RIP=
?=20
>=20
> If your network hardware is so old you need a crossover cable, it's time =
to=20
> upgrade. In this case, it=E2=80=99s time to upgrade our education system.=
=20
>=20
> I didn't write this email on the sole experience of my conversation with=
=20
> one student, I wrote this email because I have noticed a pattern emerging=
=20
> over the years with other university students at other schools across the=
=20
> country. It=E2=80=99s just the countless times I have crossed paths with =
a young IT=20
> professional and was literally in shock listening to the things they were=
=20
> being taught. Teaching old technologies instead of teaching what is=20
> currently being used benefits no one. Teaching classful and skipping CIDR=
=20
> is another thing that really gets my blood boiling.=20
>=20
> Are colleges teaching what an RFC is? Are colleges teaching what IPv6 is?=
=20
>=20
> What about unicast and multicast? I confirmed with one student half way=
=20
> through their studies that they were not properly taught how DNS works, a=
nd=20
> had no clue what the term =E2=80=9Croot servers=E2=80=9D meant.=20
>=20
> Am I crazy? Am I ranting? Doesn't this need to be addressed? =E2=80=A6..a=
nd if not=20
> by us, then by whom? How can we fix this?=20
>=20
