First Red Hat Academy for High School

FrankBama writes "As a follow-up to the story of a few days ago, Red Hat has started a program in my old hometown. The story's at the News & Record. I love this part '...this training normally would cost more than $10,000. But Weaver students can get Red Hat certification free -- and use it get a job paying more than $30,000 a year right out of high school.'"

Nice that it's free for the students...

[meme_police]

...but I beg to differ with the $10,000 amount. And I'd hope that even a high school graduate could make more than $30k a year with a good understanding of Linux systems administration.

Not the only such thing happening

[killthiskid]

According to Google News [google.com], this isn't the only place such things are happening. Many schools are embracing linux, this program is just another great extension of such happenings.

Re:At my high school

[SparklesMalone]

And I got the same comment from my high school math/Fortran teacher (in 1980) when I told him what I was offered for my first job.
But Good for Red Hat. Send out those little Linux trojans into the Winworld.
Now are they also going to teach PHP and MySQL?

Re:Presumptions

[BluedemonX]

Dude this was SOP when I couldn't find work a decade ago in Canada. If I had $1 every time someone said "go down to that Nortel and th'll give ya a $60,000 a year job right outa school!" I'd never need to work again.

Shop/Trades

[stratjakt]

If they want to make a living, and dont plan on going to college/university, their better off learning a trade down in the shop wing.

They're much more likely to be brought on as a carpenters/plumbers/welders/machinists apprentice than get a job in an office. They put in their dues on the jobsite, and can wind up a very well paid craftsman.

A lot of companies are giving up on certifications like this. Many more are looking for people with actual skills with computers and administration. You should be able to hand your IT guy a manual and he should be able to figure out the nuances of the system.

These children are being done a disservice by this. It's no different than the 'get Microsoft certified and make $50,000 a year' ads blaring on the radio.

Re:$30,000 a year Can I have what you are smoking

[Bud Higgins]

First, I don't smoke anything. I have to pass drug tests for my jobs. Second, I am now graduating with a PhD in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in photonics. I have turned down 2 $70k+ job offers already. I am now trying to decide between jobs that are offering $80k-$100k. Getting good grades and putting in long hours does not necessarily correlate to how productive or successful someone will be. I know several graduate students who have a very high GPA, but when it comes to doing something real (i.e. not a homework problem), they flounder. Conversely, I know several people who do not have a great GPA, but they do have a desire to be as good as they can be. These are the people who don't have problems finding a job because they do 10 times more than what is asked of them. You say to get a reality check, but everybody I know is not having any problems getting a job now.

Re:$30,000 a year Can I have what you are smoking

[Anonymous Coward]

The GOOD CS guys I knew at Harvard got offers from 80k-100k and up (I got offers substantially higher than that, and some of my friends who got a fourth year master's did as well). Even in today's shitty economic climate, decent CS grads from Harvard can expect 55k-70k.

The situation for the MIT EE/CS people I know is comparable. I have two friends who are MIT course 6 class of 2001 who were making 80k-100k the year they graduated.

Part of the key is being able to do more than just write code. If all you can do is write code, you are going to be perceived as providing only so much value to most companies. If you can write and speak and explain well, and demonstrate the ability to think abstractly and solve problems and interact well with people, you can command a higher salary and be in a growth track job (to technical leadership or management roles). Anyway, just something to keep in mind.

Sounds good... but...

[pyite]

My high school was ahead of pretty much every school in the area in starting up a CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) program. In fact, we were the first high school in the world to use the new Cisco Curriculum or something last year. However, the program is only as good as the students. You can't take your typical pretty girl who only uses her computer for AIM, Word, and browsing to routing guru over the course of the program (and our program was four literal semesters, two years). It just doesn't happen. The students should have a good grasp of the concepts they're going over and most of all, want to learn. I'm probably one of the few who actually got something out of the program.

Re:looked at it...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that many schools are using courseware from Guru Labs [gurulabs.com]. My school does here in Boston. My teacher said that Guru Labs charged no school fee for use of the materials.

My older brother took a class direct from Red Hat, and when was looking at my Guru Labs manual, he said my manual was much better and offered to buy it off of me.