MCSEs: We are all idiots

[Guest]

The MCSE program has proven to be flawed to such a degree that it is a wonder it hasn't been abolished yet. It needs to be completely restructured in order to have some meaning, why are so many companies against this idea? ummm
400,000+ MCSEs out there, big money...
Complete article: http://www.myelabs.com/newsdetail.asp?name=1912

 

[ejsmith2]

There's something about getting an associate's degree in msft that turns my stomach.
Whatever...

Rich is the nation that has many war heroes. Long since forgotten...

 

[Guest]

Hey dumb ass try to get 2k authorized or unix or novel. They filter out the morons because there isnt any more crams. They also have considerably more content to learn now.

-Spuddy

<font color=red>Being Evil Is Good. Cause I Can Be A Prick And Get Away With It.</font color=red> :lol:

 

[ycs46241]

college and experience is the only way that article shows 12 days, no way to much information to be covered

 

[Guest]

i have to agree with spud on this one.....the windows 2000 track mcse is extremely difficult. Microsoft has done a good job of changing the nature of the exam from the old nt 4.0 'cram for a week and your an expert' type bull. I think microsoft has restructured the program significantly. It isnt perfect, but it will weed out those who dont want to work to earn it and those who do.


plus, if you expect to get a dream job with a high school education and an MCSE, you're going to have a hard time. Today, employers are looking for those applicants who are well educated AND technical, not just well educated IN the technical field. Nothing irritates employers more than having some whiz kid MCSE who cant write a business memo or speak without jargon and slang in a meeting. Yeah, the market is saturarted with MCSE's, but that doesnt mean the certification is worthless. It means you have to do more than just be an MCSE to get a good job. A bachelors in business admin and an MCSE would make a lot of employers drool......think about it.

ignore everything i say<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by antivirus on 11/06/01 08:43 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately, the fact that Spud is a representative and defender of the MCSE program and sounds like this:
"Hey dumb ass try to get 2k authorized or unix or novel. They filter out the morons because there isnt any more crams."

Does not help in elevating other MCSEs in terms of credibility. More filtering might be needed.

And by the way Spud, read the title of the thread, I said nothing of unix or novel certs, not because I believe they're tougher to obtain, but because I simply don't know.

On the other hand, the changes on the Win 2000 exams, which I am familiar with, are not what I would call a complete overhaul of a program flawed enough to allow the certification of half a million people in a couple years.

Half a million is supposed to be the population of San Diego, not the number of people who obtain the 'extremely challenging' certification you are talking about.

 

[Guest]

are you saying there are 500,000 win2k mcse's out there? i think you must mean mcse total, including nt 4 and 2000, no? when they retire the nt 4 cert december 31st i would guess that number would drop substantially. during 1999-2000 it was common knowledge that witht he right exam cram and/or bootcamp basically anyone could pass the nt 4 mcse exams. that led to a lot of people with a 'paper' cert that resulted in them not getting a job, or moving into another area of IT. in order for those certs to stay valid those people will have to recertify by december 31st. many will not. some IT workers dont want to get involved with windows 2000, others dont feel the need to get certified either because they are secure in their jobs or the boss doesnt care if they do. others will not recertify because they dont want to put the time that the 2000 track will obviously require.

ignore everything i say

 

[wseaton]

>>The MCSE program has proven to be flawed to such a degree that it is a wonder it hasn't been abolished yet.

Man, you do you speak the truth. I've spent more time un-fu^^ing the damage caused by arrogant paper MCSEs with BA degrees than all other IT issues combined. You can always tell when a "paper MCSE" works on your network because everything with a HD installed is a BDC, all the license modes are in "Per Server", and roaming profiles are enabled on laptops across the ISDN WAN. An MCSE, pre 2000 or other, is a guarantee of one thing: you know how to pass a Microsoft test that contains anechoic room problems that you'll likely never encounter, or shouldn't be faced with if you have a clue to aovid them in the first place.

I had my test scheduled for my NT 40 cert, then Microsoft changed the whole program and I bought into the hype that "it was to filter out losers and housewives taking exam crams." Then I started looking closer at the material with the Win2K cert and I relized it was about 75% Active Directory related and did not go in the direction that most companies want their IT staff to go. Applications come before Network Operating systems, and nothing I see in the Win2K program move to reflect that. Name one damn thing in the Win2K study materials would you defend against the Code Red or Nimbda worms. Might explain why I'm still installing NT 4.0 servers left and right and taking the old FDSIK to Win2K ones.

Who gives a sh^t if Sally in domain A has FCRW rights to a file in a mixed mode network to a server in a AD tree in yadda, yadda, yadda. CIO's want their staff to come up with centralized solutions and work with their application people and help them run their business, not create bloated layers of network administration that don't work anyhow. That's why they're yanking the cord on Novell - NDS and file services don't run an IT department.

 

[NickM]

I agree with such description of the situation. Nothing is perfect and nothing wrong with the idea of certification and the certification itself. Don't see much reason for panic and being too nervous about the certification, I think it’s OK and useful, at least some people know what to do during their leisure time. There's nothing to worry about. Let people do the certification instead of bad things.
One note:

Re: “…in order for those certs to stay valid those people will have to recertify by december 31st…”

<font color=green>"MICROSOFT REVERSAL ADDS LIFE TO MCSE CERTS
In a recent reversal, Microsoft said it will not decertify MCSEs at the
end of 2001. The company's announcement also included plans
for an overall revision of the company's certification programs."</font color=green>
<A HREF="http://click.online.com/Click?q=62-4oEiIePeZIBI4442tUkznSkvBRRR" target="_new">http://click.online.com/Click?q=62-4oEiIePeZIBI4442tUkznSkvBRRR</A>

 

[Guest]

An MCSE, pre 2000 or other, is a guarantee of one thing: you know how to pass a Microsoft test that contains anechoic room problems that you'll likely never encounter, or shouldn't be faced with if you have a clue to aovid them in the first place.

yeah, well, when the CIO askes you to install and manage active directory dont call me. jesus, its just a certification, amigo. im not going to get crazy trying to convince you why its valuable, amigo. But i definately take offense to your attitude. next time you want to make a point about something i had to bust my freakin ass for over 13 months of private study and experience and damn hard work to earn, i hope you have some respect in your post! nobody is slandering you here, lay off the freakin MCSE's! make your point, but do it with respect. the win2k exams are no joke.

you are wayyyyyyy off on the exams. and way off on the windows 2000 track. in the next 18 months thousands upon thousands of corporations will be migrating to win2k for their enterprise networking. when they do, you'll undoubtably join the ranks of the win2k MCSE wannabe's.

ignore everything i say

 

[wseaton]

>>yeah, well, when the CIO askes you to install and manage active directory dont call me. <<

What I'll do is stick all your 3rd party apps on a cluster of Terminal Severs and show the CIO how much money I can save him if I lay all you overpaid losers off. Then I'll have have 99% of your duties delegated to help desk support people making half your bloated salary. I'm on "Wanted: dead or alive" posters by putting almost a dozen CNE's out of a job, I'm proud of it, and you're next. CCNA's are almost as bad with their whining.

>>i had to bust my freakin ass for over 13 months of private study and experience<<

Aww, you feel society owes you a job because your resume' didn't show enough experience so you got a paper certification in how to created bloated administration layers that don't help a company perform it's job. My heart bleeds for you...really, it does {aaaack}. Pop quiz: how do you tell if a 32-bit app spawns a DOS/16-bit thread on a Win2K or NT server???

>>when they do, you'll undoubtably join the ranks of the win2k MCSE wannabe's.<<

Actually, I interview you guys and tell companies if you have a clue or not, and uh, most of you don't. Corporations don't want endless layers of administrators, they want people that can make all this high tech stuff work and integrate their legacy systems into the new ones. The entire MCSE path is so anti application/development/troubleshooting it's a pathetic joke, will bite microsoft in the a$$ in the long run, and that's what the guy above was bitching about.

I can rip out ADS, go back to a flat domain model, and be just as productive without out. Cept' some bright engineer at Microsoft coupled Exchange 2000 into AD which forces companies to have to make a massive upgrade they don't need. You've essentially mastered a technology that is being pushed by other MCSEs, but not really desired by corporate America and doesn't help do a darn thing to help a corporation perform it's business. Get a clue...I think you're having Trancender withdrawl or something.

 

[Guest]

sounds to me like your runnin scared........here we come nt-boy!

ignore everything i say

 

[Smilin]

I'm replying to Myelabs at the top of the post to protect the person I'm really replying to. Anyway, on to my point:

If MCSE's really have their [-peep-] together why am I (someone who abandoned the MCSE track) here answering all your dumb little problems on this forum instead of you fixing them yourself.

The guilty party here knows I'm talking to them. Yes you.

As for MCSE classes I'll just quote Mark Twain:

"I have no problem with school as long as it doesn't get in the way of my education."

 

[Guest]

its easy to throw stones, but the truth is its not an easy thing to accomplish getting your mcse. id be willing to bet all posters in this thread who are so avidly anti-mcse are people who started the testing process and quit early. its like my buddies who say that 'college is for losers'. please.....dont make excuses.

in the end, all that matters isnt what you think of the mcse program, or the abilities of those who have that cert. what matters is that microsoft has positioned itself to make it nearly mandatory for companies to upgrade to win2k in the next 18 months whether you like it or not. when they do, they will realize that win2k server is nothing like nt 4.0 and the CIO will look for someone who is certified and/or experienced with win2k server. its a fact of business.

ignore everything i say

 

[Smilin]

lol.

Yes, I'm a person who started my MCSE then quit. Duh. How else would I be able to give a meaningful opinion on this matter? I didn't say that it was easy to get an MCSE. It's just kinda worthless. It's not easy to roll a boulder up a hill either. Doesn't mean you should go out and do it.

Here, go answer a bunch of questions on RIS and then go out to the industry and see how many people are using it compared to say Symantec Ghost.

I did not stop the testing process because I was having difficulty (never failed a test ever). I stopped because I was paying $100+ a pop for something useless.

As for your "facts of business"...My CIO will take a college drop out with 2 years of experience and no MCSE over a certified person with no experience. The CIO that snags up a bunch of paper MCSE's is going to be in hot water as soon as the network has its first problem.

My best friend is working on his 2k MCSE. He's lucky he has me to answer all his questions.

 

[Lars_Coleman]

Funny argument. I'm taking the MCSE courses for my own benefit. I would care less if it helps me get a job where some loser of a tech with a college education can think he's better then me. I understand that there are some pointless things about the MCSE course to some people but I think it gives you a look at the operating system at a different level then anything else can offer. Who else better to learn that information from then the manufacture.

I don't think it's the test/course that is flawed. My opinion is it's the people taking it. There are the type of people that are taking it because all that matters to them is money (which are the people that cheat their way through it), and there are the people that actually want to know the information regardless of the outcome.

<font color=red>1GHz AMD x MSI K7T-Turbo x 512MB PC133 x 2-Maxtor 30GB/RAID 0 = Stream Line Butterfly</font color=red>

 

[Smilin]

You, my friend, are taking MCSE courses for the RIGHT reason. I finished all of mine (did learn a thing or two and it was fun) but then I bailed on the tests.

I kinda did the same thing with college. I have a buttload of credits but no degree. My courses are scattered all over the place because I figured out that online registration at my school doesn't verify prerequisites. I've just always picked subjects I wanted to learn without any regard for my actual degree. Kinda bit me in the ass...I can't get my degree without going back and taking "Intro to computing". ROFL.

 

[Guest]

yeah, experience is great. i have plenty. what im saying is that how can you have experience running windows 2000 server in an active directory environment when your company has never done that before? my point is that nt has been around in enterprise use for quite a while so all of us with experience can hold that over 'paper mcse's'. that will not be the case when you nt4 boys who have never used win2k server and arent certified to use it come up against me who is and who has. nt 4.0 is on its last leg. enjoy the glory while you can. times are always changing.....what was worthless 12 months ago will be invaluable 12 months from now. hell, your CIO will take a paper mcse when thats all thats out there for win2k. a paper nt4 mcse is worthless when you compare it to hiring somebody with experience and intelligence. but a paper win2k mcse is far from worthless when nobody has experience running it yet. how are you gonna claim to be experienced? this is new stuff, amigo.



ignore everything i say

 

[Smilin]

LOL the cluelessness.

It's time to implement active directory boys and girls, which one you gonna pick:

1. Self taugh NT administrator with say 5 years experience.
2. Someone fresh out of college with a 2k MCSE.

Both have the same amount of "time" invested in learning the technology. Which one is going to make it happen?

BTW That NT guy has been running active directory on a server at home since 2k pre-release. Doesn't matter anyway. This is NOT new stuff amigo. I'll be learning XP while you (or your company) is still making payments on that 2k cert. I know it grates you that you've invested so much in 2k but it doesn't change the fact that it was a poor investment for the payoff you'll recieve unless your goal was simply to learn for your own enjoyment.

And to answer someones pop quiz above: NTVDM.

 

[Guest]

Well i'm certainly happy to see that many people have found it worthwhile to take a stand on this topic, which ever side they may be on. I don't think there should be a 'side' or another to be on here anyway, it's pretty obvious that most of us are employed in the IT industry, and it would seem logical that we're all interested in having meaningful carreers and in trying to discard or remedy some of the... well, crap that comes along with being in the industry.

To clarify one point brought up by one of you (I don't remember the user name):

- No. I'm not someone who was hoping to get MCSE certified and had to quit because I couldn't cut it. I'm not bitter about not having successfully passed the exams, because i have.
On the other hand, I can certainly respect someone who has the guts to drop out of a program he/she feels to be ridiculous before spending any additional money completing it.
I am certainly bitter about other aspects of the MCSE program, i'm bitter about having spent the money to take the exams for example. Because i do feel cheated in a way, i do feel that too many MCSEs were 'allowed' to flood the market through the acquiring of a relatively simple certification, i do feel that the industry has suffered from this flooding, whether because of some MCSEs' lack of experience resulting in numerous costly mistakes, or because the volume of applicants to interesting positions is such that it is becoming increasingly difficult for those who deserve the job to be singled out from the crowd and hired.
I am also bitter that the sheer number of unemployed 'qualified' people out there has tremendously diminished the salaries we can expect from our carreers.

By the way, although i do have my NT4 MCSE, i have no intention of upgrading to a 2000 MCSE, i will not fall into the trap this time, the argument that since the NT4 MCSE has lost much of its value and credibility we should seek to obtain more unconvincing certifications just doesn't make sense.
Where does the madness end?

 

[Guest]

well said. i guess i never felt the bitterness besause i never assumed my mcse would be the end of the road. i always understood it to be a beginning. much like my bachelors was only a beginning to my professional career. from there you have to seperate yourself from the crowd if possible through experience and/or more education. funny thing is i hear much the same bitterness from recent college graduates (i have my masters and have been out a few years) who feel cheated cause there are so many college graduates all competing and nobody really feels like they got all they were promised. but when they realize that their graduation is only the start of their struggle, the attitude changes. once you realize that the mcse is just a starting point to go towards more certs and more experience and more education, you stop blaming the mcse for not granting all your wishes. but that doesnt mean that it isnt a valuable pursuit. its just not the answer to all the career troubles people have.

ignore everything i say

 

[juice]

Well put antivirus! I am going for my w2k mcse and maybe some others later. If you really want to do it right, take your MCSE class at a college. Not only getting your mcse you also get college credit at the same time and can use that toward a degree plan. I think allot people don't realize it's not an overnight thing get your mcse. This was a hobby for me before I was in the field. So I get paid to play with new technology. Well that is my spin on this. Thanks and have a great day.

<font color=blue> I know nothing that is why i am here at THG!</font color=blue>

 

[Smilin]

I will continue to take microsoft classes and "follow" the MCSE tracks but I doubt I'll ever spend any more money getting the actuall certification. I don't really need the cert to tell me I know what I know. A few good bullet points on the old resume and a good interview is all I need to prove myself.

 

[Guest]

A response to many of you who have pointed out that while there are close to 500,000 NT4 MCSEs, the number of W2K MCSEs is closer to 50,000.

I have heard conflicting opinions as to the difficulty of W2K exams as compared to the NT4 exams, having not taken the W2K exams I have no opinion as to their true difficulty and so I can not comment on that except to say that many of you seem convinced that the exams have been made considerably harder to pass while many others are convinced that they are pretty much the same thing.

Let's not forget that there are fewer W2K MCSEs for some obvious reasons:

1 - Microsoft has extended the MCSE status of those who are NT4 certified, and therefore those admins. whose IT departments are still based on NT4 platforms, which is quite a few, don't feel obligated to take the W2K exams in order to keep their MCSE status alive.
This extension has also allowed those who were disappointed with the quality and value of the NT4 exams to save a considerable amount of time and money by bypassing the W2K exams and keeping their status.

2 - The W2K MCSE program has quite simply not been around as long as the NT4 MCSE program was, so there are less W2K MCSEs for the same reason that there are less 2002 Honda Civics their 2001s.

3 - Give Transcender and co. a chance, it took a while for those companies to come up with enough questions from the actual NT4 exams before they were able to put out mock tests that were pretty much carbon copies of the real exams, the same is happening with the W2K exams, but they'll get there, I promise you.

4 - Employers are less likely to pay for their employees' W2K MCSE training for two reasons, 1. because some were disappointed in the quality of many of the NT4 MCSEs they hired in the past, and 2. because the economy isn't exactly booming and many employers are still in the process of picking who's going to go next in their IT department, which means that it's hardly the time for them to worry about spending money on training for employees they may soon lay off.

5 - Hopefully, given the rapidly increasing unemployment rate in the IT industry, many people who might have once considered making their way into the industry, and opted to use the MCSE program as a launching pad, have realized that it just isn't going to work in today's market, making them less likely to fall victim to technical institutes' advertising, false promises and flat out lies.

 

[Guest]

i agree with most of your points and think we are actually closer in opinion than you might think. there are many things wrong with the MCSE program. i agree completely. will they all be fixed ever? probably not. does that mean the certification is worthless. hardly.

again, itds much like any other certification, degree, or label of excellence. most are marketing tools. all involve making money on the part of the 'certifiers'. thats life. take a college education, for example. the university i received my masters degree from was doing it to make money. they push their programs to get people to enrol and then charge them big bucks. would we expect anything else? no. then why is it so evil when microsoft does the same thing? thats a part of education, my friend.

yes, there are too many mcse's. yes, some are not well trained. yes, some employers no longer respect the certification. but trust me, the indistry will still continue to use the mcse as a benchmark of excellence whether it deserves it or not, much like most professional jobs require a bachelors degree whether they realy need it or not. thats just how our society operates. we need to categorize people.

as to the difficulty of the mcse windows 2000 exams i can tell you that they were much more difficult than the nt 4 exams. as an example, mark minasi wrote an article recently on this exact topic and claimed that he took the four core exams and nearly failed the windows 2000 pro exam. his opinion was that it was extremely difficult, and he is well regarded as the premiere windows expert in the country. the questions are primarily case studues that integrate many principles into each question thereby making it nearly impossible to have memorized the answer previously through exam preps and crams like the ones you mentioned. all they have to do is change one variable and the question is completely different. if you dont honestly know your stuff, you will never pass.

ignore everything i say