Friday, September 19, 2003 9:09 PM
by
andy
Academia
I am a telecommunications major. I am really really really really really worried about my peers. They already think they know everything. I was having a conversation with one about previous work experience and when I mentioned that I spent two summers at my high schoolremoving whatever the hell they were using for their Token Ring network and running CAT 5 and then rolling out desktops he laughed. “Thank God I'm getting a degree. I'll never do anything like that.” The way he stressed “never” gave me the impression that he refused to ever do that. I thought to myself, “Well he must have a lot of experience running servers or routers or something of the like.” When I began to ask probing questions I quickly realized that used his computer for two things: Kazaa and games. Before the conversation was over I had to explain to him what the difference between a switch and a “router” was. I was even going to attempt to explain to him that his NAT device was not really a router per say. These people will come out of college knowing a lot about specific protocols and nothing beyond that. I don't know whether to feel good that I will come out of college with a degree and experience with administration or to be pissed at academia for mis-leading these poor souls.