Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 22:47:38 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Nathan Mace" <mace_nathan@uchaswv.edu>, "freebsd-questions" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: in need of a little advice Message-ID: <008201c15de1$b8321800$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20011025233341.2b6f6458.mace_nathan@uchaswv.edu>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Nathan Mace >Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 8:34 PM >To: freebsd-questions >Subject: in need of a little advice > > >next semester will be my last semester of college, i'm graduating with a >4-year degree in Computer Information Systems. my major isn't all that >focused on technical stuff, more of a mixture with lots of business, a >little programming and a little networking. i've taught myself how to >use freebsd/linux over the past 3 years. when i get out of college i >would like to get a job as a junior level unix admin. > >and please don't tell me that i should have been a CS major. by the >time i figured out what my major was like, i had already fell in love >with the campus in everyway except the bussiness classes they made me >take ;) so thats why i didn't transfer to a school that offered CS > >i have O'reilly books on both samba and apache, and yes i have actually >read them. i use samba every day on my computer, and although apache >doesn't really do anything on my machine i have fun hacking at it and >just seeing what all it can do. > >seeing as how it looks like i'll have some free time next semester i >thought i'd get into some heavy duty scripting/programming. i've had >programming classes(c++, and unfortunalty java) but nothing really >'*unix-like' i was thinking of either perl learning another OS. > >what i want to know is...which would do me more good in the job market & >the 'real' world. learning another OS, i was thinking openbsd...or >getting into perl? or would my time be better spent on something else? >i know that the majority of unix admins know either perl or shell >scripting, usually both...but what would do me the most good in the >sense of getting a job? perl? openbsd? learn more about apache & samba? > or learn more about freebsd, which is great and the only bsd i have >used to date. or something else entirely? > I'm sure people here will shoot me for saying this but you don't mention any Windows experience. Most sites that have UNIX of any flavor also have Windows systems around. Your not going to be that useful to many people if you don't know how to administer them. I have found that it's extremely easy for someone who is experienced with UNIX systems to learn to admin Windows systems, oftentimes even better than the "designated" Windows administrators. Of course it doesen't mean that learning Windows means you want to manage them for a career. But one thing that is a truism in the industry is that by and large less-competent administrators tend to blame problems on things they don't understand. This goes for both Windows admins or UNIX admins. It's not uncommon for the more competent admins to be put into a situations where they have to solve other people's problems for them. I've seen lots of times where the more competent UNIX admins had to get their hands dirty fixing up screwups on the Windows network, because the Windows admins had gotten in over their head and created a mess, and couldn't dig their way out so they just blamed the network problems on the UNIX systems. I've also seen a few times were the more competent Windows admins had to fix screwups on the UNIX networks because the UNIX admins had gotten in over their head and created a mess and couldn't dig their way out, so they just blamed the Windows network. However, I see _that_ happening much less. :-) Anyway, the point of all this is that no matter how much your determined not to work on Windows systems, your going to be forced at some point to get your fingers dirty with them. You may be the most competent UNIX guru there is but if you don't know anything about Windows your going to be viewed as an incompetent boob by most ignorant businesspeople who will be signing your checks. For your own self-defence you need to throughly understand them, which isn't going to take very long as Windows is neither complex nor flexible. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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