Re: [PEN-TEST] Education. Formal or not?

["Shetron, Richard" <multics () ruserved com>]

The goal of undergrad college is not to necessarily be up to date on
everything, but to provide a wide background of knowledge that can be
used as a foundation for future learning.

Everything you do draws on all the knowledge you have.  With a good
foundation to build on, you can quickly adapt and pickup specialty areas
as needed.  I've had courses in compiler theory and operating system
design.  Compiler theory has been useful if helping to determine what
the real errors were in programs that a compiler rejects.  Knowing how
compilers work, helps in tracking down those hard to find errors where
the compiler seems to just say, its wrong, I can't compile the program,
but I'm not going to tell you what's really wrong.

College can also help organize all the things you've learned.  You often
don't realize how much you really know unless your challanged.  One of the
most interesting courses I took in college was a problem solving course.
All that was really taught was how to solve problems and how to determine
if the answer you have is reasonable.  Knowing the answer to a question
may be worthless if you can't prove that the answer you've given is
right or at least can't justify the answer.  In this course, the only
right answer was the one you could justify.


--
Richard Shetron  multics () ruserved com multics () acm rpi edu  NO UCE
What is the Meaning of Life?      There is no meaning,
It's just a consequence of complex carbon based chemistry; don't worry about it
The Super 76, "Free Aspirin and Tender Sympathy", Las Vegas Strip.