When I was at school..

Discussion in 'The Lounge - Off Topic' started by Juelz, Aug 27, 2015.

  1. Juelz

    Juelz Gigabyte Poster

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    When I was at school those people who went on to learn IT at college (hardware related courses not programming) were seen as less intelligent and going the easy route. In all honesty I thought it would be a doddle and not really a hard subject, now I'm sat here reading my A+ book trying to learn all the different aspects and thinking how these people were very wrong as I honestly feel like the computer itself is a very complicated system and you have got to be reasonably intelligent to really understand it all.

    agreed?
     
  2. Apexes

    Apexes Gigabyte Poster

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    I got no higher than a C in my GCSE's - and i only got 2 C's

    I went to college to study "PC Servicing" - dropped out 3 months later. Only half of it was actually hardware related, which is what i wanted to do, the rest was C++ & crossover networking between NT systems after making our own network cable :blink

    If you knock it down the the fundamental basics of hardware, it's a piece of cake. Anyone with a couple days worth of training, and not having any IT experience can build a PC. It's like a jigsaw puzzle.

    Onto the more advanced part of hardware, when you start looking at CPU/Memory clock speeds, CPU Cache's, SATA, RAID/SCSI Controllers etc. - that's where it becomes more advanced, but i guess it's like anything - spend the time on it and you'll learn it.

    I do agree, you have to be intelligent to understand it all, especially when you get to the more advanced parts. I remember learning about the FSB in college and being sat there thinking what the f is he going on about - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front-side_bus

    I don't deal much with hardware now, but i always enjoy building new PC's for friends/family and knocking a system uptogether from scratch, get onto ebuyer, buy everything individually and build one up. charge a £50 admin fee for doing so :biggrin
     
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  3. Theprof

    Theprof Petabyte Poster

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    Its relative, how come some people find math easy while others struggle? Everyone is different and for me, I found A+ related stuff quite easy when I took the program in school (later passing the certification). But it also has to do with the fact that I was already building and repairing computers by the time I was 14 years old. So going to school to learn this stuff officially was not very challenging.

    As to IT being the easy route, I heard that many times but we all know that's not the case.... :)
     
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  4. dmarsh
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    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    The A+ stuff is the 'easy' stuff.

    Basic computer architecture is taught at GCSE level to 14 year olds.

    Nothing complicated about SCSI, RAID, SATA, from an IT perspective, my first HDD was SCSI nothing complicated about it. Designing the protocols and circuits to build any these devices, yes that's complicated.

    Real hardware is hard, learning to be an electrical engineer, how to make digital and analog circuits, VDHL, FPGA's etc.

    Lots much harder subjects, maths, physics, biology, chemistry, engineering, much harder for me than any computer stuff.

    I don't think it takes any real intellect to understand 90% of computing, IT or computer science.

    Hard things to understand related to computers ? NP completeness, Queuing Theory, Paxos, Threading, Discrete mathematics...
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2015
  5. Dazzo

    Dazzo Byte Poster

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    The intelligence debate has been done to death!

    Sure people have an affinity to learn faster, retain knowledge easier and so on but not in every aspect of life. It's more based on interest that determines how far we go and what we acheive. The smart money at the moment is in all things security related and a large number of people will go into this field in the hunt for treasure but without interest how far do you think they will get? Not as far as someone who has come into it who when they get home read books about the subject and go over what they have done during the day to understand it better.

    It all stems from the university drive that occured, were who ever didn't go to university were less intelligent then the ones that did. Look at those around you who did and didn't go to university. The spectrum is broad in terms of how they are doing and particulary what they are doing now later on in life.

    Hardware related stuff can be very complex, the A+ stuff is the easy stuff and with good reason. If everyone tried to enter the world of IT by manufacturing their own hard drives to show they are able to work in 1st line support there wouldn't be many tickets being resolved!

    Apologies for the early rant, I hate the idea of people discouraging others for the sake of appearing intelligent!
     
    Certifications: A+, MOS: Master 2010, Network +
  6. dmarsh
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    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    Who's discouraging anyone ? The less intelligent people in my school went to jail...
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2015
    Apexes likes this.
  7. Dazzo

    Dazzo Byte Poster

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    Not anyone on the thread but people in general if they try persuade some one not to take something up as it is seen as not requiring much 'intelligence'.

    What was the intelligence line that determined if they went to jail or not? Don't say getting caught! Haha
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2015
    Certifications: A+, MOS: Master 2010, Network +
  8. Juelz

    Juelz Gigabyte Poster

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    It's funny really, alot of people at uni (where I went) looked down on people who did manual jobs such as carpentry/car mechanics etc. But those types of jobs require you to be not only good with your hands but have knowledge of maths etc. Alot of people I went to school/college/uni with were either good with numbers or good with their hands never a combination of both.
     
  9. JK2447
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    JK2447 Petabyte Poster Administrator Premium Member

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    I'm not very practical but good with numbers and technical detail (in my opinion anyway). Only thing I know for sure is that if Aliens disabled our technology, or if there was a zombie apocalypse, I'd deffo be dead ha ha Unless someone wants a proposal on the invasion with some pretty visio diagrams, then I'd last two minutes
     
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  10. Yinfusa

    Yinfusa New Member

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    I think A+ is hard for me
     
  11. Juelz

    Juelz Gigabyte Poster

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    why?
    personally I think remembering all this the useless content is hard.. there are just too many things you don't really need to know. I do feel though that I am over-thinking that the exam will be harder than it actually is, but I did the same with the MTA.. I thought it was going to be a hard exam but was in and out in 5 minutes.
     

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