Increasing traffic on PGD...

[LP]

That's incorrect, f.i. see http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudi...eveloper-tools

Seems like they provide Windows Phone SDK separately. I stand corrected.

Well, I've met enough "professionally certified" personnel to take those with a truckload of salt, especially when they're from a pure academic background, and I've met quite few. ;-)

Not everyone can teach and those who can teach may not necessarily be good professionals to work for industry. Teaching is not as easy as you may think and there are even professional degrees (e.g. Bachelor/Master/Doctor of Education), which are required in many cases to give classes to children, for instance. The same applies to scientific works as the scientific approach might be different than a purely mechanical work, which is very common when working in companies (ranging from software engineering to top management positions). Perhaps you can't understand it because you have not done any scientific work and/or teaching yourself, but I'm just guessing.

I guess you skipped the part on me saying I already have quite a high degree, and got it, hmmm, almost 15 years ago. So what I'm referring to is mostly what I get from new hires & interns.

No, I saw it but you are moving conversation to a personal level. What you have mentioned is an equivalent of baechelor/undergraduate degree (roughly 4/5-year university education), which is a minimal degree required by most institutions. You should note that you are not allowed to give classes with this degree, nor do any scientific work in "traditional" universities/research centers, which sort of proves my point above. If you wish to pursue this conversation further, I'd like to point out the classical Unskilled and unaware of it article, which you should read first. Please note that I'm not trying to be disrespectful, I believe that degree itself is not everything: education, experience and even personality/attitude are very important factors as well.

(edit) By the way, for comparison, here in Mexico to be *paid* to do research, you need 12 years of university education (5 bachelor + 2 master + 5 doctorate) plus 2 years of professional practice (e.g. postdoctoral stay, which must be done at least in a different state where you have got doctoral degree). To be able to teach lower degrees, you need Master's degree and 1 year of practice. This is somewhat similar to U.S., Canada and EU.

Edit 2:

I guess we have a major incomprehension here, I'm not a student, and many PGD visitors aren't and won't be. They won't be going back to university full-time, and even part-time university can be quite problematic when you have a full-time job already and children.

You are wrong. As I've said before, in M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees that I took most people had families with children and were working either full or part time. Actually, in my own case (similar to some of my classmates), I got paid to do research in my D.Sc. degree both by institution and by Mexican's council of sciences and technology and the payment was pretty good! In fact, the payment may be even higher than what you receive while working in a company! These degrees give you more labor opportunities and sometimes change your way of thinking, which you may not acquire in your entire life with experience only. This is why I recommend for everyone who want to push farther in their career and life to take one of more advanced degrees and it is never too late to do so.

Yes, it really depends on the institution and indeed some may excel in some things, while other institutions may excel in other stuff, but you can choose even on international scale and pick what you want.

P.S. Jason, sorry for this sort of hijacking, but after all it's a discussion about programming skills taught in institutions as opposed to teaching them here on PGD, so it's somewhat related to topic.