So very true--take note all you young programmers out there. Especially those of you who are suggesting to dive right in and begin refactoring code immediately. I shudder to think of the damage you can do by "refactoring" code which you've just started investigating and which you don't yet understand.

If you're like most people in a University STEM program, you found High School very easy. This math course may very well be the first challenging thing you've done at school. You have to face and overcome this challenge, just as you'll have to face and overcome many challenges during your programming career.

The point of all this 'well-roundedness' stuff, where people tell you you must learn diverse subjects that have no relation to your desired career, is to make you work outside your comfort-zone; and to expand your comfort zone to include new subjects and skills. You'll have to do the same in your career.

You can wear your tie as loose or as tight as you want. If your tie is constricting it's because your shirt's collar measurement is too small.

To be fair, drivel like this has been showing up for Slashdot for years. I didn't notice it was a paid piece until I read the comments complaining about it. The problem is two--fold. First is a matter of principal--rather than get their drivel on Slashdot through users submissions, like all the other drivel, they're using their position as parent company to do so.

Second is the very real possibility that paid Dice.com drivel will increase in volume until there is nothing left but Dice.com drivel pieces. Then the few genuinely good stories will be gone.

Yeah! Who are you to tell me me that I can't buy a crate full of AK-47s and put out a hit on the guy who cuts across my lawn every afternoon?

"Have you quit beating your wife yet?" has an implied premise, which is that you are currently beating your wife

Similarly, "So you're saying TSA doesn't do a good job? Then tell me how many buildings terrorists have flown airplanes into recently. Name one!" has an implied premise that the TSA is responsible for the number airplanes flown into buildings.

I don't think the US opened that box. Organized crime has been deploying malware against individuals and organizations for years. I've been seeing stories on Slashdot about "Chinese Hackers" breeching US governmental and corporate networks for years. With Stuxnet and Flame the US has merely taken what everyone was already doing and done it better.

Study part-time (you can fit one or two courses a semester around a full-time job without too much pain) for whatever degree fits best for high level system administration (it's not, or shouldn't, be Computer Science). Put that degree on your resume, with the projected completion date in the future--if you're worried, put a bullet point underneath stating that it's a degree in progress. This will get you past quick filter passes which throw out resumes that have no undergrad degree.

Anyone who is looking at these resumes closely enough to notice the undergrad isn't actually completed yet will likely be more interested in work experience than in education, so you're okay on that front. Once you get to the interview you can spin it as a positive: you're qualified to do the job based on past experience, and you're sufficiently ambitious to get the degree anyway to 'round out your skillset', or however you want to phrase it.

Indeed. I imagine sitting at your desk reading Slashdot and thinking up low-quality snarky comments is quite demanding. You have truly earned your pay today.

Exceptional teachers, and a well-behaved class. My girlfriend is a teacher who has taught at several different schools in my area, and she raves about the difference having a well behaved class can make. With a well-behaved class, she can do all kinds of engaging activities and crafts (she teaches Grade 1). She can't do that with a poorly-behaved class because they would take that opportunity for freedom and creative thinking and waste it drawings guns, knives, penises, swear words, and insults directed at other students.

This isn't meant as a rebuttal to you, but to all those posters (and there are many) who peddle conspiracy theories about how the education system is, by design, preparing students to be obedient factory workers. There are good, practical reasons why teachers have strict expectations regarding behaviour, and it's not because they're trying to crush little Johny's spirit. It's because in actual fact, little Johny is an unrepentant brat who's disrupting the 20-30 other kids in his class who might want to learn.

But I digress. More prep time will help too :P