dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
4132

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

14 recommendations

battleop

Member

Those who can do, those who can't teach...

So I'm taking a class on networking and my teacher tells me that we have to memorize a large number of RFCs because they say that in IT and Networking that everyone refers to things by their RFC on a daily basis. I questioned that because in my environment where I'm communicating to customers, carriers, and or fellow employees that this is very rarely done.

I told him one example is that we refer to RFC1918 as private IP space and that anyone with a clue would know what we're refer to when we say private IP space. He insists that's not true and that a network like 10.0.0.0/8 would only be referred to as RFC1918.

I really don't see the point in memorizing a large number of RFCs because people just don't talk like that in any environment I've ever worked in. The only time I ever hear someone speaking like this is when someone wants you to think they are smart when in reality they really are not. The only people they fool are people who don't know any better.

I'm starting to get real irritated with these "Professors" that tell me how things are done in a real world they have never been in.

Robert
Premium Member
join:2001-08-25
Miami, FL

6 recommendations

Robert

Premium Member

As someone who is looking to convert from an administrator to a faculty, I don't agree with the "those who can do, those who can't teach" anymore.

However, I will say that one of the biggest challenges that I see in academia is that many professors, while they have strong research, they lack the practical experience.

I see it myself and it's very frustrating, so I share your frustration.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

2 recommendations

battleop

Member

So far I've taken 8 classes and about half of them have been very frustrating because the professors are 100% clueless about what really happens in this field. I've had a hard time with two professors in particular that once they found out I've been in IT for 31 years (17 in WAN Networks) the grading policy for me has become much stricter than it would for other students. One of them flat out told me that he would be testing me harder than other students and that I should expect the difficulty of my assignments to be on par with the difficulty of a new comer.
applerule
Premium Member
join:2012-12-23
Northeast TN
(Software) pfSense
ARRIS SB6183
Asus RT-N66

6 recommendations

applerule

Premium Member

I didn't have as much IT experience as you, but I finished my BS in 2012. I already had an AS and had been working in the field a few years. I had a similar experience. I had a couple of really good teachers, and several bad ones. I had two teachers in particular that were great - but both of them had a great work history (one was from Lockheed, the other one was from another large company).

I had a great facepalm moment about a year or two ago - one of the professors asked on LinkedIn what kinds of things they should be teaching in a Windows Sys Admin course. I responded that they needed to spend very little time on installing Windows (the bulk of the course when I was there), and the vast majority of the time on things like GPO's, AD, basic powershell, etc. I even explained that in the vast majority of cases now days things are deployed in the cloud or from templates - bare metal installs are rare.

I got the response of that they had to spend a few weeks on installing for students to have a good understanding of that process. My argument is maybe if you can't follow a set of on screen directions which basically consist of clicking next 10 times maybe you shouldn't be in IT, but maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Of course the person asking this question was someone who had been thru the school, and got their Masters and such but had no significant length of work experience that I could tell.

Mike
Mod
join:2000-09-17
Pittsburgh, PA

2 recommendations

Mike to battleop

Mod

to battleop
the syllabus is a legal contract between you and the instructor. you have the right to request a grading rubric.

IT people can survive a witch hunt and persecution from awful superiors

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

9 recommendations

battleop

Member

I had one class where I had to challenge every grade because the teacher was an idiot. Every single time I would win but I felt it was bullshit that I had to fight for a 100 every week.

I have another one that would try and knock off points on the weekly discussion because I didn't have a reference for most of my posts. I had to explain weekly that my posts were written from information that came out of my head and that I didn't look that answer up. He said well you need go to back to where you learned that from and cite that and I told him it's impossible to cite trial and error.
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

3 recommendations

HELLFIRE to battleop

MVM

to battleop
Question, which RFCs is your professor asking you to memorize, other than RFC1918?

Otherwise I'm with you battleop See Profile . I'd almost take the view to withdraw from that class and just challenge it if you have to.

My 00000010bits

Regards
jst3751
Premium Member
join:2004-07-08
Rowland Heights, CA

jst3751 to applerule

Premium Member

to applerule
said by applerule:

I got the response of that they had to spend a few weeks on installing for students to have a good understanding of that process. My argument is maybe if you can't follow a set of on screen directions which basically consist of clicking next 10 times maybe you shouldn't be in IT, but maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Of course the person asking this question was someone who had been thru the school, and got their Masters and such but had no significant length of work experience that I could tell.

I have to disagree just a little bit here: While it is true that you can get a new domain and enterprise installed up and running by following prompts, I can most assuredly state that it will not be done per recommended practices and industry standards.

For example, if some one purely just does a new domain and enterprise install following prompts, they will end up with yourdomain.local as the domain name. Now they go and install Exchange again following prompts and now they have a publicly accisible email server sending out email and announcing itself as yourdomain.local which breaks at least a half dozen RFCs write out of the starting gate.
applerule
Premium Member
join:2012-12-23
Northeast TN
(Software) pfSense
ARRIS SB6183
Asus RT-N66

1 recommendation

applerule

Premium Member

said by jst3751:

I have to disagree just a little bit here: While it is true that you can get a new domain and enterprise installed up and running by following prompts, I can most assuredly state that it will not be done per recommended practices and industry standards.

I agree with that part. What I was saying if you read the part before what you quoted is referring to spending tons of time on a Windows install when 99% of the time you are doing template or cloud deployments. Especially considering a Windows install is next next next done. You don't stand up AD or Exchange or any of that stuff in the initial bare metal install.

We had to screenshot and document the full install process of just Windows Server. No roles/features...just the install. There is absolutely no point in wasting time on doing that IMO.
JoelC707
Premium Member
join:2002-07-09
Lanett, AL

3 recommendations

JoelC707 to battleop

Premium Member

to battleop
That's where you cite yourself LOL. »www.easybib.com/guides/c ··· iew-apa/. Cite yourself as a personal interview if they really want to push the issue (or cite a co-worker if they take issue with you talking to yourself lol).

In regards to the RFC part, I have NEVER even bothered knowing what an RFC is and in fact the only one I do know is 1918 and that's because it's so well know. A specific RFC number has never even remotely come up in ANY discussion I've ever had with anyone. Almost sounds like busy work of sorts to me.

sivran
Vive Vivaldi
Premium Member
join:2003-09-15
Irving, TX

1 recommendation

sivran to battleop

Premium Member

to battleop
I'm only really tangentially in networking but when it is involved in my job, yeah RFC1918 is the only one that ever comes up...ever, and even that's rarely mentioned.

I mainly live in the application layer and there, RFCs do get discussed and cited, mainly to show why we're behaving a certain way. Because that's what the RFC says!

seaquake
MVM
join:2001-03-23
Millersville, MD

7 recommendations

seaquake to battleop

MVM

to battleop
The ONLY RFCs that it pays to remember are RFC 2549 which superseded 1149. Everything else can be googled.

timothyhohar
join:2004-03-20
Apex, NC

3 recommendations

timothyhohar to battleop

Member

to battleop
1918 is one of the few RFC's I know off the top of my head, and I've been doing this for 20 years now...

tubbynet
reminds me of the danse russe
MVM
join:2008-01-16
Gilbert, AZ

3 recommendations

tubbynet

MVM

said by timothyhohar:

1918 is one of the few RFC's I know off the top of my head, and I've been doing this for 20 years now...

you remember the rfc's that apply to your line of work. rfc2547 (mpls vpn interconnect) and rfc6241/7803 play a big part in my day-to-day too, not to count the numerous ietf-draft standards for all manners of technologies.

do i have the text of the rfc memorized? no. but i know the numbers so i can determine how well a vendor has adhered to the rfc when shit doesn't work right.

q.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

battleop to HELLFIRE

Member

to HELLFIRE
I'm not near the computer I do my school stuff on but they are all related to TCP/IP, VPN, and MPLS. He thinks that every conversation you will have about networking on the job will reference RFCs. The only time you see them brought up is when someone is arguing about an issue and there is a lot of finger pointing going on or you get that one guy who thinks he is the networking God threat can barely configure a Linksys router.
microphone
Premium Member
join:2009-04-29
Parkville, MD

2 recommendations

microphone to seaquake

Premium Member

to seaquake
said by seaquake:

The ONLY RFCs that it pays to remember are RFC 2549 which superseded 1149. Everything else can be googled.

Darn it! You beat me to it!

dennismurphy
Put me on hold? I'll put YOU on hold
Premium Member
join:2002-11-19
Parsippany, NJ

dennismurphy to tubbynet

Premium Member

to tubbynet
said by tubbynet:

you remember the rfc's that apply to your line of work. rfc2547 (mpls vpn interconnect) and rfc6241/7803 play a big part in my day-to-day too, not to count the numerous ietf-draft standards for all manners of technologies.

do i have the text of the rfc memorized? no. but i know the numbers so i can determine how well a vendor has adhered to the rfc when shit doesn't work right.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. You're absolutely right - you remember what matters to YOU.

For example ....If you use a Cisco IronPort mail appliance, and have LDAP routing turned on, it adheres to IETF draft lachman-laser-ldap-mail-routing, revision 02.

You can guess why I know that. (and no, I never worked for Cisco or IronPort.)

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

2 recommendations

battleop

Member

I've made it 31 years without memorizing RFCs and their numbers. Not that I've never thrown an RFC or two at someone but when I need to do so I've always Googled and found what I needed.
battleop

battleop to JoelC707

Member

to JoelC707
That's another thing that I find stupid. What exactly is the point in the citing format beyond college classes? I've never, ever had to use it outside of school work. Some teachers will let you reference a link as www.dslreports.com and then some want the full APA format and seem to get way to excited about it.

dennismurphy
Put me on hold? I'll put YOU on hold
Premium Member
join:2002-11-19
Parsippany, NJ

4 recommendations

dennismurphy to battleop

Premium Member

to battleop
said by battleop:

I've made it 31 years without memorizing RFCs and their numbers. Not that I've never thrown an RFC or two at someone but when I need to do so I've always Googled and found what I needed.

Exactly... if it matters to you, you'll remember it. Rote memorization of some obscure RFC numbers doesn't mean jack squat.

I can probably to this day quote off exactly how to migrate a bunch of VxVM volumes from one set of plexes to another without taking anything offline, but only because I've done it hundreds (or thousands) of times. But that was something that mattered to ME a decade ago... if you don't use Veritas, you wouldn't give two craps less.

And yes, on to your point about APA/MLA formats... because in certain (academic) circles, that matters. Remember, for some professors, they went to school in Kindergarten at age 4, and never left. That colors your view of the world a little bit.

NoOneCares
join:2000-09-16
Portland, OR

4 recommendations

NoOneCares to battleop

Member

to battleop
They (the teachers) have to have something that they can test you on. Multiple choice which is the right RFC for xyz . . . makes coming up with the quizes and grading them easier. An essay question on a real work problem . . . to hard to come up with and grade.

We have a student intern at my work and he asked about my advice, I told him get real world experience because if he doesn't want to go into academia then real world will trump class room learning every time.

tubbynet
reminds me of the danse russe
MVM
join:2008-01-16
Gilbert, AZ

tubbynet to battleop

MVM

to battleop
said by battleop:

Some teachers will let you reference a link as www.dslreports.com and then some want the full APA format and seem to get way to excited about it.

maybe this is just the academic engineer in me -- but bibtex for the win.
i learned tex my freshman year in college. bought a grip of books. worth the time spent. made a lot of the menial shit easy so i could focus on what i had to do.

q.
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

1 recommendation

HELLFIRE to battleop

MVM

to battleop
said by battleop:

He thinks that every conversation you will have about networking on the job will reference RFCs.

What a load of horse hockey. On the phone, on a break/fix or project, all you'll be talking about is a) is it working, and
b) if it isn't what is [party x] going to do to fix it.

Also 2nd what's been said about book learning getting you so far. The rest is the "real world" stuff.

My useless 00000010bits

Regards

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

1 recommendation

battleop

Member

I don't place a lot of weight on Degrees and Certificates. The two things I care the most about is real world experience and will you fit into our team. I do look at education and certs but without any real world experience I'll skip over it if I'm looking to fill an advanced position.

When it comes to a job where I want a newbie I do look at education but I want zero experience so I can train you to do things my way.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave to battleop

Premium Member

to battleop
Speaking as a generic network programmer, I'm likely to tell you what my product does by telling you what RFCs or IEEE specs it implements. You probably need to understand that before you buy it.

Of course you can look that up, but then practically every exam ever has required you to temporarily remember things that you can subsequently look up. That doesn't seem too horrible to me; it shows you can work with the material. I mean, I used to be able to quote great gobs of poetry when I was a schoolboy; now I have to google opening lines. But I still think knowing poetry is good for the soul.
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

2 recommendations

scross to battleop

Member

to battleop
Yep, as a working student who had toyed around with electronics and then computers as a hobby since early teen-hood, and who got a real live computer job almost as soon as I started college, after a while nothing drove me nuts more than listening to a professor prattle on about something that they had little or no actual real-world experience with. I can't tell you how many times I heard "you absolutely need to know this" when referencing things that are rarely if ever actually used out in the field.

That was decades ago but apparently not much has changed since then. A few years back I took an online technology course as a refresher and once again the professor said "you must absolutely understand the theoretical basis for this stuff before you can use it". They then proceeded to cover the screen with a bunch of mathematics and logic and other symbology. (This in order to "explain" something that I probably could have covered in just a few sentences of plain English.) But in 35+ years now of actually doing it, I've only seen said theory referenced maybe twice, and then only briefly and just in passing. There's almost no need at all for that particular bit of theoretical knowledge out in the real world, unless maybe you were designing your own system from scratch or something.
scross

2 recommendations

scross to dave

Member

to dave
said by dave:

I used to be able to quote great gobs of poetry when I was a schoolboy; now I have to google opening lines. But I still think knowing poetry is good for the soul.

The main thing I learned from studying poetry in school is that I don't really like poetry all that much! And today if someone starts quoting a poem (which is thankfully very rare), my first inclination is to reach over and slap them for doing so and exposing me once again to the inanity and pretentiousness of it all.

Another thing I learned is how remarkably clueless many college professors can be. At one point my English Lit professor stated how unfortunate it was that historically so many poets weren't appreciated in their own time, and didn't achieve any real notice for their work until either relatively late in life or after death. (I believe that he specifically referenced the Shelleys here.) Then with his next breath he lamented the supposed fact that "there are just no great poets around these days".

Something tells me that he wasn't actually thinking much before he spoke or else he would have caught the irony in that statement. Or maybe he was just testing us to see if we were paying attention and would catch it ourselves.

Drex
Beer...The other white meat.
Premium Member
join:2000-02-24
Not There

2 recommendations

Drex to dave

Premium Member

to dave
Yeah, but dave See Profile most of us weren't around when RFC1 was written.

Compared to some here, I only have a little over half the years of experience. But in that time, I can say I've only heard reference to RFCs maybe 3 or 4 times. In my experience it's just not a common thing that's brought up.

battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000

4 recommendations

battleop

Member

Unless you are dealing with the Dr. Sheldon Cooper types it's not something you will often discuss.

Drex
Beer...The other white meat.
Premium Member
join:2000-02-24
Not There

6 recommendations

Drex

Premium Member

Maybe you should ask the professor to discuss RFC1149.
Or the amended version RFC2549