WGU announces the B.S. in Cloud Computing

[dfrecore]

I don't disagree with your overall point about the gaps, but MSCA is definitely going away. It's pretty poor form to put. expired/inactive certifications on your resume.

I talked to my husband who's had dozens of certs over the years, he removes expired certs from his resume whenever he updates his resume.  He would NEVER keep an expired cert on there for any reason.

MCSA's and VCP's officially do not expire anymore, I'm not sure how long that's been the case. Knowledge for Cisco, Microsoft, VMWare certs doesn't "expire" and changes very little and I can't think of a single hiring manager or team that I know of that would care. Mark it as "expired" or have a column for current & expired certs. They are paper. Nothing but paper.

A three year expired CCNP would have more sway with me than an active CCNA. I've heard of someone hired post 2013 with a MCSE NT 4.0 from the 90s. All the time you spend studying to keep paper exams active could be put to better use working on a home lab building projects or MOOCs. This is why being decked out in certs is not impressive and will probably hurt you. MSP's, Microsoft/VMware/Cisco/Redhat partners or tech support engineers are the only ones that need these so they keep "partner" status.

The best career advice I can give anybody is don't worry about your degree or certs past what it takes to get past HR. Your manager and the team hiring you will not care. This goes for IT/CS master's degrees that aren't MBA or management as well. BS + one good expert level cert is going to be the best thing for tech careers.

Again, you are ONLY looking at this very narrowly.  My husband has specifically been asked to get certs to keep partner status many times, and been hired because he has the cert to keep partner status as well.  This is VERY important to some companies.

He also got an AWS cert, and about 2 days later was contacted by Amazon to come and work there.  He got an offer, but decided not to take it for various reasons.  I'm not saying the only reason he got offered the job was the cert, but it certainly opened up the door for him.

You are only looking at this from one particular angle, it does not apply to all certs, to all jobs, to all companies.  I feel bad for anyone taking advice from you, because you don't try to see this from other ways.  You do not know everything about IT, but you act like you do.  You aren't the first here, and you won't be the last I suppose.

[xicovu]

I don't disagree with your overall point about the gaps, but MSCA is definitely going away. It's pretty poor form to put. expired/inactive certifications on your resume.

I talked to my husband who's had dozens of certs over the years, he removes expired certs from his resume whenever he updates his resume.  He would NEVER keep an expired cert on there for any reason.

MCSA's and VCP's officially do not expire anymore, I'm not sure how long that's been the case. Knowledge for Cisco, Microsoft, VMWare certs doesn't "expire" and changes very little and I can't think of a single hiring manager or team that I know of that would care. Mark it as "expired" or have a column for current & expired certs. They are paper. Nothing but paper.

A three year expired CCNP would have more sway with me than an active CCNA. I've heard of someone hired post 2013 with a MCSE NT 4.0 from the 90s. All the time you spend studying to keep paper exams active could be put to better use working on a home lab building projects or MOOCs. This is why being decked out in certs is not impressive and will probably hurt you. MSP's, Microsoft/VMware/Cisco/Redhat partners or tech support engineers are the only ones that need these so they keep "partner" status.

The best career advice I can give anybody is don't worry about your degree or certs past what it takes to get past HR. Your manager and the team hiring you will not care. This goes for IT/CS master's degrees that aren't MBA or management as well. BS + one good expert level cert is going to be the best thing for tech careers.

Again, you are ONLY looking at this very narrowly.  My husband has specifically been asked to get certs to keep partner status many times, and been hired because he has the cert to keep partner status as well.  This is VERY important to some companies.

He also got an AWS cert, and about 2 days later was contacted by Amazon to come and work there.  He got an offer, but decided not to take it for various reasons.  I'm not saying the only reason he got offered the job was the cert, but it certainly opened up the door for him.

You are only looking at this from one particular angle, it does not apply to all certs, to all jobs, to all companies.  I feel bad for anyone taking advice from you, because you don't try to see this from other ways.  You do not know everything about IT, but you act like you do.  You aren't the first here, and you won't be the last I suppose.

You always seem to make these threads about you and your husband. If WGU B.S. Cloud Computing and certs meet his needs, great. Outside of Sales, Consulting, or anyone needing "Partner" status, nobody wants or cares about certs. Operations & Engineering teams do not care. We can argue this all you want, but I'm a senior level engineer with zero certs & no degree. It is terrible career advise to recommend someone chase degrees and certifications without knowing technology in depth. This place is an awesome resource to get that checkbox out of the way, but people still need to become experts. None of this advise is specifically given to you, and can probably benefit other people looking at this career path. I wouldn't recommend this degree to anyone.

[jsd]

MCSA's and VCP's officially do not expire anymore

The Microsoft link shared in this thread specifically contradicts you. MSCA are expiring two years after retirement. The retirement is June 2020, which means they expire in June 2022.

[xicovu]

https://www.cbtnuggets.com/blog/career/c...tions-last
https://www.quora.com/Does-microsoft-MCS...on-expires
https://build5nines.com/do-microsoft-cer...ns-expire/

We can go back and fourth all day on this. I'll have to see what link I put originally, but they do not expire. The MCSA exams have been phased out over the years and these are the last being retired, but that has zero effect on existing certs. It's likely that they'll put out some role-based cert for there server infrastructure that replaces it before exams are retired. The crappy part is it's going to take HR a couple years or more to realize the MCSA isn't being issued anymore.

[jsd]

I'll trust what Microsoft says about their own certifications as opposed to third party sources that were made before MS made the change.

[xicovu]

I promise I know what I'm talking about. We can bicker about these little details or I can give some feedback from how an manager and your teammates are going to look at degrees and certifications.

"Active/inactive" doesn't mean "expired", it is still a valid cert and would be as long as that particular Microsoft product is supported. Even before the last phase of retirement, if you received an MCSA Server/SQL 2016, to keep active you would take an additional exam not another MCSA 2016 exam. Moving forward, if you had an MCSA Server/SQL 2016 and need to stay "active", you'll take one of the new role based certs and it will be the same thing. Active is better described as keeping active with Microsoft technologies then 1 particular cert. The role based certs that have replaced the previous MCSA's work in a similar fashion, but you'll need to do learning outside of it to be really useful. Taking additional electives every year or two will keep you "active" and build your certification badges and that may be a better way long term. Microsoft certification aren't going anywhere, and MCSA retiring isn't a new idea. Forcing Azure/Office365 cloud-only certs is Microsoft way to teach-force engineers to going onprem to give them that sweet, sweet recurring cloud revenue. It goes back to certs truly aren't going to make you proficient and you'll need to learn some skills on your own, with roles at least relating on on-premise roles.

If a job asks for an MCSA Server/SQL 2016 a year after the cert isn't an "active" cert, your MCSA Server/SQL 2016 will still be valid and employers will probably consider 2008/2012 valid unless they are Microsoft partners. Cisco on the other hand will expire. A three year old CCNA is no longer considered valid and you'd need to take the whole exam over if it expired. Retiring these Microsoft certs is pissing a lot of people off, and I'm pretty surprised myself there isn't any on-prem replacements for role-based certs. Office 365 Enterprise Administrator, O365 Desktop Admin, Azure Admin Associate, Azure DBA/Data Analyst/Engineer, etc will probably cover enough people showing they can do some sort of role similar to what they do now. Cisco did the same thing shaking up certs, the old CCNA is retired and replaced with a entry-level cert Network+ Cisco clone that isn't that decent for aspiring network engineers. A CCNP now equals an old CCNA. How is WGU going to cover that as it seems to me they use two separate classes to get the two parts for the CCNA exam of the old cert?

This is another big reason I wouldn't recommend WGU, certs based education locks you in and the program can change abruptly and you don't get decent background theory. Study.com is a much better educational option content wise then almost all of the WGU certs and is something that is applicable in more places. Having too many certs, especially low-class ones like CompTIA or CIW will get you laughed out of "big boy" jobs (or girl). Pick your main area of interest and keep up on keeping it active. AWS, Azure, GCP, SSCP/CISSP IS/2, CEH, Cisco, VMware taken to professional and expert levels are going to make you look focused and a subject matter expert. Back it up with broad theory.

Why shouldn't I give this advice from someone who has been on both sides of the interview table? Others I've PM'd directly seem to find it useful. People searching these forms might find it useful. If it doesn't apply to you and WGU is working for you, go for it. It'll get you there. Your husband probably needs to have the latest and greatest certs to show off to customers and clients. For operations and engineering folks, my experience and observation from being on both sides of the interview table is a good perspective. Having an industry perspective for people "degree" hacking is worthwhile before people commit to something. TESU or COSC using study.com is the best option for most people in my opinion, especially for a BA Computer Science is the most valuable by far. In the end getting a degree to get you where you want to be is whats most important, no matter if it's COSC, TESU, or WGU.

[jsd]

Arguing that inactive is not the same as expired is just semantics at this point. Obviously inactive is an important distinction that MS draws or they wouldn't add it to your transcript. But you're right, it's not worth going back and forth.

Your larger point about the pitfalls of the WGU degrees is fair.

[xicovu]

Arguing that inactive is not the same as expired is just semantics at this point. Obviously inactive is an important distinction that MS draws or they wouldn't add it to your transcript. But you're right, it's not worth going back and forth.

Your larger point about the pitfalls of the WGU degrees is fair.

I also don't want to negate the success, knowledge and accomplishments of the Western Governor's grads. I'm from Utah where WGU is based and I've seen them in all levels and roles. They even have there own "clubs" at the water cooler. I'm doing what I can to advise people on stacking the deck in their favor. Western Governor's and Excelsior seem at first glance they are for-profits (coming from a future Excelsior grad). COSC and TESU have "state" in the name so unless your from specific parts of back east it'll be easier to camouflage where your degree is from. I really could make a IT career degree plan for TESU/COSC that could be helpful for career coaching.

  

[dfrecore]

The best career advice I can give anybody is don't worry about your degree or certs past what it takes to get past HR. Your manager and the team hiring you will not care. This goes for IT/CS master's degrees that aren't MBA or management as well. BS + one good expert level cert is going to be the best thing for tech careers.

Again, you are ONLY looking at this very narrowly.  My husband has specifically been asked to get certs to keep partner status many times, and been hired because he has the cert to keep partner status as well.  This is VERY important to some companies.

He also got an AWS cert, and about 2 days later was contacted by Amazon to come and work there.  He got an offer, but decided not to take it for various reasons.  I'm not saying the only reason he got offered the job was the cert, but it certainly opened up the door for him.

You are only looking at this from one particular angle, it does not apply to all certs, to all jobs, to all companies.  I feel bad for anyone taking advice from you, because you don't try to see this from other ways.  You do not know everything about IT, but you act like you do.  You aren't the first here, and you won't be the last I suppose.

You always seem to make these threads about you and your husband. If WGU B.S. Cloud Computing and certs meet his needs, great. Outside of Sales, Consulting, or anyone needing "Partner" status, nobody wants or cares about certs. Operations & Engineering teams do not care. We can argue this all you want, but I'm a senior level engineer with zero certs & no degree. It is terrible career advise to recommend someone chase degrees and certifications without knowing technology in depth. This place is an awesome resource to get that checkbox out of the way, but people still need to become experts. None of this advise is specifically given to you, and can probably benefit other people looking at this career path. I wouldn't recommend this degree to anyone.

I make these threads about actual people to which your advice does not apply, and to point out to anyone reading them now or in the future that what you are saying does NOT apply to everyone.

I have never told anyone to chase a degree or certificate.  I am just saying that you are ONLY looking at this from one point of view.  Not everyone in the IT world is in Ops & Engineering.  For anyone in "Sales, Consulting, or needing partner status", what you are saying does NOT APPLY.  And I know a LOT of people who are in sales and consulting.  A lot.  Many of whom don't have degrees, and would do well to get one at some point, one that they could do quickly and cheaply, to unlock a door or two.

MANY, MANY, MANY people come here to get a check-the-box degree.  Probably more than anything else.  I've been on this forum for 7+ years, with 10,000+ posts, helping people get degrees, creating thousands of degree plans, and I would say the vast majority are check-the-box in a general or specific area.  You've been on this forum for 1-2 months, with 50+ posts, and you act as if you're an expert in IT, and in degrees, but you've barely had a chance to see what people are doing here.

All I'm saying is to qualify your statements.  A little "for anyone who wants to go into Ops or Engineering, then a more in-depth knowledge of technology is important.  Here are the things you can do:" would go a long way to making you sound like you're the expert you portray on here.  Instead of telling everyone who's been doing this for YEARS that you're right and they're wrong.

[xicovu]

That's fair. I think we are not comparing apples and oranges when you and I are stating what we think is best a path and I promise I have never intentionally tried to get into a back and fourth with you. Sales/Consulting and Ops are not at all the same thing. This thread is from someone who has been asking around about switching a career to DevOps and that's who this advice is for, and people who find this through google.

Throwing humility to the wind here, but I don't work in IT and haven't for years. I'm coming from an engineering operations background from major tech companies with an impressive resume and references. I've worked on Apple iCloud, VMware/Dell-EMC's private Virtustream Enterprise Cloud, DevOps, as well as the old-school managed services and now work with mining/electrical/plant engineers building control systems. All with no degree and no certs.

My alumni from Dell-EMC work for Red Hat, Verizon, Amazon AWS, VMWare and numerous VC backed tech companies. I've got a lot of experience and insight from interviewing dozens of potential teammates and being interviewed by dozens of potential teammates and seeing the types of people that have and haven't succeeded.People that have been doing this for years can ignore me, but I don't see how giving insight is a problem here. I can only give advice on degrees for the tech industry and IT, but I know that I know what I'm talking about.

I found this place trying to find an alternative to jumping through WGU's pointless certifications hoops, and I know the subject matter of the WGU degrees well enough to know what is the fastest degree to go through and it isn't going to be the Cloud Computing. If you are getting an AWS Sysops in week/months and not spending a good year practicing it, you are wasting you time on a time consuming cert. BS Information Technology is the best if you want a check box and the optics are better than "Cloud Computing" and the certs are very, very easy. If want to learn some new skills with your degree or have a bunch to transfer, do COSC and TESU with study.com and you'll get a "State School" on your resume.