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Businesses Education

Is a Specialized Education in VLIS Valuable? 18

Posted by Cliff from the worth-studying dept.
neg ebx asks: "Carnegie Mellon University recently started a masters program that revolves around managing very large information systems (VLIS): 'Very Large Information Systems(VLIS) are large repositories of data that can be found in industry, government, military, academic, and scientific settings. They take the form of internet content providers, business transactions, text, video, financial transactions, genomic data, health care management, scientific data sets, etc. Currently, digital librarians manage the information, while responsibilities for operating a VLIS falls to various system administrators, system architects, and database administrators. This diffusion of responsibility results in inconsistent interfaces, a heterogeneous collection of systems that may not interoperate effectively, and a general disjointedness and inefficiency.' If you where going to hire someone to manage your information systems would you see a benefit in them having a specialized education as opposed to 3 or 4 years of experience?"
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Is a Specialized Education in VLIS Valuable? More

Is a Specialized Education in VLIS Valuable?

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  • A degree in VLIS is too specialized (Score:3, Interesting)

    by seminumerical ( 686406 ) <seminumerical.gmail@com> on Friday January 06, 2006 @08:27PM (#14413654)
    A degree in VLIS is too specialized. We can expect to see information storage standardized in the lifetime of any presently young college student. There will be niche work in antiquated technologies. Big deal. Anyway this degree is called a masters in library science in Canada.

    • A degree in kelvin is too specialized (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Currently, digital librarians manage the information, while responsibilities for operating a VLIS falls to various system administrators, system architects, and database administrators. This diffusion of responsibility results in inconsistent interfaces, a heterogeneous collection of systems that may not interoperate effectively, and a general disjointedness and inefficiency.'"

      This sounds more like a communications problem. Anyway what's described above is no different than any other collection of systems
      • I think in a lot of large organizations with extensive information networks hardware and software solutions are decided on over time and its not always possible to make one needed technology work seemlessy with a technology that has already been invested in.
    • A degree in VLIS is too specialized.

      Agreed, a good Master's program in Information Management with a track in data management might serve you better in the job market.

      We can expect to see information storage standardized in the lifetime of any presently young college student. There will be niche work in antiquated technologies.

      Can, or can't? I wouldn't worry so much about coming out of a Master's program with a sea change in technology. If you take longer than 18 months to graduate, you'd better be doing

    • We can expect to see information storage standardized in the lifetime of any presently young college student.

      Dude, today's college students stand a good chance of living until almost 2100.

      Which, ironically enough, is probably about how long it will take to see a pipe dream like "information storage standardization" come to fruition.

    • "We can expect to see information storage standardized in the lifetime of any presently young college student." I realize from the other posts you have gotten some heat on this statement already. However isn't the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray an example of how unlikely this is in the forseeable future?
      • I am not referring to standardization of the physical medium, but of the logical organization. It's a bit difficult to search through historical data on, say, telephone traffic in the 1970's in Canada (which by the way would be an incredible dull thing to do, so you can expect that someone will write a master's thesis on it). The reason it's a bit difficult is because the data is stored on tapes written by a Univac 1106 computer. You have to be aware that this computer has a 36 bit word, and that individual
  • ' If you _where_ going to hire someone to manage your information systems would you see a benefit in them having a specialized education as opposed to 3 or 4 years of experience?"
    No, I'd rather they come prepackaged with spelling and grammar built-in.
  • If you where going to hire someone to manage your information systems would you see a benefit in them having a specialized education as opposed to 3 or 4 years of experience?"

    Do you see those two things as mutually exclusive? What about once the guy with the specialized degree has 3-4 years of experience? Then the choice might be "a guy with a specialized degree and 3-4 years of experience, vs. a guy with 3-4 years of experience and no degree" or "a guy with a specialized degree and 3-4 years of experience, vs. a guy with 5-6 years of experience and a general degree," etc, etc, ad infinitum.

    It seems like every time the issue of education and / or certification comes up on Slashdot, somebody inevitably frames the question this way "experience *versus* education." That's a gross over simplification and completely ignores so many aspects of the real world dynamic. Hiring decisions are made based on many factors, in my experience, and I don't think you can safely generalize many of these things the way slashdotters tend too.

    Of course, I'm not really answering your question, am I? I suppose not, but I guess my point is to look at the big picture and try and estimate how all the pieces will fit together both now and in the future.

    FWIW, if I were reviewing resumes to hire for such a position, somebody with that degree, from Carnegie-Mellon, would be a strong candidate to go in the "interview this guy" pile. And that's really all education, resumes, etc. are for... to get you in the door for an interview. Once you're there, then the onus is on you to sell yourself. The exact nature of your degree, experience, etc. are just details... what a hiring manager wants to know (as well as possible) is "can this guy do the job, and will this guy fit in here?"
    • Thank you for taking the time to respond to my question. My motivation in "either/or" is the decision to stay in school another 2 years or get work experience. I failed to make that clear and understand the confusion.
      • Thank you for taking the time to respond to my question. My motivation in "either/or" is the decision to stay in school another 2 years or get work experience. I failed to make that clear and understand the confusion.

        Ok, I understand what you're asking a little better now. It's still hard to come up with a conclusive answer. There are just so many factors to weigh. It's kind of just a judgement call... do you think you can find a job *now* with just the education + experience you have, and will that job
  • Here's the deal and these are my thoughts on experience vs. formal education. You can either get your hands dirty doing the work or you can sit in a class room, talk about doing the work, read books about doing the work, and perform some sort of professor guided labs directing at eventually showing you how to do the work.

    Now, given that the project you have is going to be of vital, "mission critical", importance, do you want to give it someone who has a track record in doing what you need or someone who's t
  • It's well known around CMU that most of the masters' programs are a cash cow for the university. PhD programs have an expensive sticker price but most students are subsidized through TA and research positions and a stipend. The masters' programs are only worth it if you see a clear career path coming out of it -- they are designed to appeal to careerism, and priced accordingly. They are also quite a bit easier to get into, overall. You might get a good deal since the program is just starting out, but be rea

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