Trent's projects

[Stephen Partington]

This to me suggests a exception to the norm. not a baseline for most.

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 8:52 AM, Carruth, Rusty <Rusty.Carruth at smartm.com>
wrote:

> I’d like to gently disagree with this one statement, leaving the rest for
> others to worry about:
>
>
>
> *From:* PLUG-discuss [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Stephen Partington
> *Sent:* Tuesday, January 23, 2018 7:12 AM
> *To:* Main PLUG discussion list
> *Subject:* Re: Trent's projects
>
>
>
> ​​….
>
>
>
> Schooling is best for people who have no idea where to start in an
> industry they have interest in. And there are some roles that strongly
> benefit from a degree, and others that I feel require a degree. There are
> other roles that lend themselves better to on the job training with
> supplementary education (certification courses and the like).
>
> …
>
>
>
> First, a bit about me.
>
>
>
> I was recently told ‘oh, just shut it off’.  They were referring to the
> fact that I’m always thinking, always problem solving.  They thought that
> was something I could turn off.  No, that’s something I am, not something I
> do.  So, I did all I could, which was keep it to myself.
>
>
>
> When I started high school, I had my career all figured out – I was going
> in to electronics.  So, I took the most advanced electronics class they had
> in my high school.  (Now, by this time I’d already built a heathkit
> oscilloscope and other such things, so this class was… well, not very
> helpful)
>
>
>
> I realized pretty quickly into the year that I needed to do other things
> to prepare myself for my career in electronics.  At that time, I was NOT
> interested in math, and in fact nobody in my math class would have
> considered me as a person to ask for help.
>
>
>
> Well, I realized I needed to know math, so started to pay attention and
> such.  Ended up liking it.  Took ‘math analysis’ as a senior, which was an
> honors class.  Needed to do a project to get the honors grade, so I decided
> I’d write a program to do electronic music (ok, now remember this was, what
> 45 years ago?).  My teacher probably laughed at me for thinking I was going
> to do that…  Anyway, I didn’t even start on writing a program, but somehow
> that launched me into a deep interest in software development.
>
>
>
> After that, I ended up at ASU in the math track for software.  (Long-ish
> story, won’t run down that rabbit trail today)
>
>
>
> The first year, I took FORTRAN.  I already knew FORTRAN, so I taught
> myself C.
>
>
>
> Guess what the next year was?  Yeah, C.  (Ok, the names may not be right,
> but the concept is true)  So I learned something else  (Might have been
> security hacking, don’t remember that’s too long ago)
>
>
>
> A lot of what I learned was useful along the lines of what others have
> said – giving you a knowledge base of stuff to choose from (or even just a
> wider view?)  Much faster than I’d have gotten by flailing around on my own.
>
>
>
> So not sure of my point any more.  Perhaps I’m saying that, for me,
> ‘schooling’ was (at least partly) about learning as much about my area of
> interest as possible as quickly as possible, and as a side benefit, getting
> that piece of paper (diploma) that would open up many possible positions
> (I’m amazed at how many places require a degree, even if you’ve been
> working 40 years in the field)..
>
>
>
> (As it ended up, my primary interest areas were near-real-time and
> hardware/software interfacing.  Often on the same project ;-)
>
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-- 
A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.

Stephen
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