Re: MS Helps Higher Ed Again!

[Dan Strychalski <dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw>]

Excerpts from a recent thread in <news:alt.folklore.computers>
(NOT an "anti-Microsoft" discussion group) touching on the subject
of Microsoft and education. The author of the first excerpt has
previously posted messages praising Microsoft products.     -- Dan

Subj.: Re: testing and certification of programmers and IT folks

<news:369d4654.272286116@206.210.64.12>
   The Microsoft tests are a joke: can you memorize dozens of obscure
   parameter lists, odd install switches, and dozens of factoids that no
   sane programmer would waste time memorizing, since the information is
   all in the online documentation (but the exam is closed-book!) The
   classic comment was from someone who passed the MCSE exam in VB:
   "There were 20 questions on the VB Grid Control. You only need to know
   one fact about the VB Grid Control: Buy a third-party Grid Control".

   I doubt that I could pass the exam to be a certified Windows
   application developer, although I have a PhD, have been doing Windows
   development for eight years, and have written two major books on
   Windows programming, because the things I know are not the things that
   they want me to memorize for the exam.

<news:76kvb8$mc5@axalotl.demon.co.uk>
   I'm an IT manager. I pay no attention whatsoever to vendor sponsored
   exams, particularly Microsoft's, when employing people. It is entirely
   possible to be Utterly Clueless, and yet still be an MCSE.

<news:76qtnk$aeh$1@news1.fast.net>
   [...] My freshman year in CS I learned Pascal, data structures and
   discrete math.  I got a course catalog this year from a small local
   college, and their first year consisted of course like "Introduction
   to Microsoft Office" and "Problem Solving with Visual Basic".  Yet you
   can get a BS degree from them just like the ones that M.I.T. and Cal
   Tech issue...

<news:76r5vj$jmj$1@agate.berkeley.edu>
   Thanks to the world wide web, my cat is now an ordained minister.  I'm
   wondering if maybe my cat's next step is to become an MCSE.

<news:36913875.12258644@news.vip.net>
   Maybe you got the order the wrong way around?

<news:3691ea69.1623694@news.demon.co.uk>
   [...] In my experience (UK based) I have to say that the overwhelming
   majority of candidates I have interviewed with CS degrees (UK) have
   had a reasonable understanding of fundamental CS issues. I wonder if
   the Church of Microsoft 'experience' is a US local phenomenon ;-)