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IT scholarships / cert scholarships
We're busy having student protests in my country (South Africa) at the moment. They're protesting the fee increases at traditional tertiary institutions.
This got me thinking about funding etc, as they already have access to scholarships or funding for tertiary education, where as I don't see any funding for anything IT related (other than say a comp sci degree).
Do we in IT have any chance of getting scholarships for courses / certs from vendors like Redhat or MS etc?
Comments
Dreamspark/Microsoft offers some microsoft online learnings material, which isn't a scholarship, but I think it's free.
Or just make a drama about being religious and you'll get tons of free stuff from Microsoft. http://www.geekwire.com/2015/heres-what-microsoft-gave-the-teenager-who-was-arrested-for-bringing-a-homemade-clock-to-school/
Generally not. With a few exceptions, vendor certifications are worthless.
@Microlinux - I'd generally agree with that but I think the likes of Cisco / Redhat that require hands on testing are a cut above the rest. It's just sad you can't find funding for things like this when you can find funding for traditional tertiary institutions.
At least in the US, scholarships are geared towards accredited institution so there is at least some accountability.
Why should private corporations should fund your education so you can go make a large salary?
You might have a case if you're talking about funding education at the national/community/government/etc. level, but looking to Microsoft or IBM to pay for your education is silly.
(cough) university of phoenix (cough) apollo group (cough) corinthian college (cough)
I can think of three that have value: CCIE, OCM, RHCE. Those are the only ones that have a practical hands-on lab. For every other cert, you can google the exact questions and answers and go take the test with zero knowledge of the material.
Even then...I'd rather have someone with five years of practical Linux admin experience than someone who's a RHCE but has never held an IT job.
Any suggestions for paid online courses for learning system administration skills? I tried taking a community college course but their vps provisioning system was so archaic I eventually just dropped the class.
Something like http://shop.oreilly.com/category/learning-path/linux-system-administration-basics.do
I know most of you preach learning by doing, and that's what I have been doing, but I want to find out more about what I don't know.
There's a ton of private charity, including education. Usually either geared towards the less fortunate people or the exceptional students. Sometimes they are location based (e.g. kid that fits in category X born in city Y).
Directly, yes.
For the same reason they provide discounts if your staff are qualified. So they can move hardware / software in to your business and become a vendor in the market place where you are actively involved in the decision making.
No, they don't. Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Cisco, etc. don't give you discount if your staff has certs. In some cases, they have "gold partner" programs that require a certain number of certifications by consultants you employ, blah blah, but that's just for the partner programming. If you then go and buy licenses for their products, they don't give you a discount based on the number of certified people your organization has.
Nice in theory, but it doesn't work that way. If you need Microsoft or EMC or Cisco products, you buy them, and they know that. Cisco doesn't need a fleet of 21-year-olds with certs to be their evangelists.
Education/certs/etc. are PRODUCTs the companies sell. You are the market for these products.
Also, I suspect you are refusing to hear the message that certs are bullshit and everyone knows it. Including the companies that create the cert programs and issue them (i.e., Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, etc.)
I don't think they're all BS. Some yes (the one's that allow brain dumps), but not all (hands on like Redhat).
At the moment i'm looking at further Redhat certs whilst doing a Bsc degree via correspondence.
EDIT: On a side I like your site theme. After some tracking I found it here. I may just give it a whirl! - http://jekyllthemes.org/themes/brume/
Since we're going off-topic on raindog's sig, just wanted to add that translantern.com doesn't resolve.
Yeah, you're right. I had an idea to take my friends-and-family shared hosting public but later found it to be too much hassle...need to fixup my links. Thanks for pointing this out.