Date: Wed Jun 22 13:44:20 2005
From: dan_20407 at msn.com (DAN MORRILL)
Subject: Intense School finally goes under,
	bought up by k-mart of security companies

Umm,

Very interesting, but maybe in an obtuse kind of way, Larry has brought up a 
good point. By the way I am also an instructor, who teaches at a local 
college, I teach a Bachelor of Informaiton Security Program. I have 11 weeks 
per term with 5 hours once a week to teach students what they will need to 
be functional in the information security field. I have them for 2 years, so 
realistically I have them for about 240 hours in total in those two years, 
and this assumes they pay attention for those hours.

I don't think that any course could ever teach practical experience, if you 
were looking for that, get a home network together and practice till your 
fingers bleed. Volunteer in your local community to set up secure networks 
for small companies, non-profits, disadvantaged schools. Get practical 
experience. Any course you take, either Intense School, SANS, College is 
going to teach you what they can in the period of time they have to teach 
it. It will not be practable, it will be a benchmark in a long life long 
learning process. In this industry if you stop learning, you become obsolete 
in about a year.

It always depends on the student what they do with it. You referenced this: 
http://infosecuritymag.techtarget.com/ss/0,295796,sid6_iss143_art308,00.html 
where the person is basically saying, hey I knew that already, I didn't 
learn anything new. You know that happens, life experience etc. When I took 
my Intrusion course, I got to spend whole days out of the 6 because I knew 
it already, I helped out the instructor with students that were not getting 
it. Depends on what you are doing there and what you hope to get. I learned 
lots helping out the other students that I would not have learned by sitting 
on my butt complaining.

You mentioned that a company bought out intense school. If you look at the 
margins for training dollars over the last 3 years, consolodation has to 
happen to keep the companies profitable so they can stay open and do more 
trainnig. This is happening everywhere across the tech industry, it has to 
happen, it is happening, why are you complaining? The stronger the company, 
the more people stay employed. If you really hate them, get employed by them 
and show them how they should be doing it. It is always better to change a 
culture from within than from without. You will be more effective by taking 
this tack.

Hey personal attacks, you know I laughed out loud when someone in this group 
called me a "cyber punk doesn't know what he is saying", and I kept that 
e-mail up on my wall because it is and was and will continue to be funny as 
all get out.

Since you have not talked from fact or basis througout your rant, you had to 
resort to a personal attack, there are better ways to spend your time, like 
helping out the community, helping raise the standards. All certificates and 
degrees in this do not confer actual practice in the field, they rather are 
a bench mark along a path that says you can at least do something.

How you apply yourself is up to you.
R/Dan


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