My I.T. Skills Used to be Marketable: What Happened?

I’ll start by acknowledging that I have been out of the programming game for a few years now. Had I stayed in the game, I would have surely made efforts to keep up with the latest technology as best I could. That being said, I still find it amazing how quickly the “cutting edge” skills I came out of school with less than ten years ago have become obsolete. Gone is the high demand for programming knowledge in Visual Basic and Active Server Pages, having been replaced with the likes of Flash and Java.

I remember starting my programming career in 1998. I used to listen to the mainframe software developers complain about the lack of programming opportunities for people with their “outdated” skill set. I remember feeling sorry for them and their plight, all the while believing that it would never happen to me. In my opinion, my skills were hot and were always going to be hot…..I was the man! In fact, to highlight my value, I took the time to study for and obtain Microsoft’s premiere programming certification: the Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD). Having this certification was supposed to qualify me as a Microsoft programming expert…Microsoft said so!

Unfortunately, I seemed to be the only one in my neck of the woods that had ever heard of the certification. In fact, most people assumed that MCSD was an abbreviation for a Masters in Computer Science, with the exception being those that actually had a Masters in Computer Science. I began to wonder if those hundreds of hours of study were worth it.

I must admit that I am embarrassingly out of touch with today’s hottest technology: blogs, Blackberrys, FaceBook, Wi-Fi…..it’s all been Greek to me. This course has come along at a good time, as it is forcing me out of the dark days. I am starting to feel like I am once again somewhat knowledgeable with the latest “toys”.

Thankfully, SQL Server and Oracle are still around, so I can at least discuss database technology with today’s I.T. talent. Ironically, the certification I received so long ago is still valid.