by Marc Phillippe Babineau

Created on: April 12, 2009

Do people need computer training? Only if they want to know what to do if something goes wrong with their computer, how to install or remove hardware and software, or to use the capabilities of their computer to the fullest. As computers get more and more advanced, the elder technologies are being left behind in their wake. Just as people need to be kept up to date on their immunodeficiency shots, like flu or polio shots, computer users should keep themselves up to date on all the new software and hardware that hit's the shelves every 2 to 3 months.

Growing up during the exciting times of the evolution of the computer, I was lucky enough to have taken the very first Computer Technician course at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. We learned the wonders of the computer and how to fix any problems that may arise, a very good field to get into at the beginning of the computer revolution. However, as the computer was fast evolving, my first course as a Computer Technician was taught on a PDP-11, a computer that you had to feed computer cards into to make it perform any calculations.

There was no Internet, so there was no remote access, and each card was the equivalent of one but of information. Imagine, a simple program to mimic the processes that drive an elevator took over 12,000 computer cards, and if you dropped your card box (which happened to two fellow students, both of whom failed because of their droppings), you would have to start all over again. Now, with each card taking about 2-5 minutes to punch and make sure that the punch took, a dropped box of cards (or, for today's younger crowds, a box of dropped bits of code) would be impossible to restore to it's original form, making starting over the only possibility to redo your program.

Okay, so I graduated 3rd in my class of 7 graduates. Not so good when you look at the number of graduates, but I can still say that I graduated 3rd in my class, However, on the day of graduation from this wonderful course that was the first of it's king in Canada, we were all told that everything we learned was now obsolete, and were given a free-ride for any other courses we wanted to take. So, I took Computer Sciences, figuring that programming would be the one standard that would hold it's own against the ravages of time.

Ooops. Okay, so I graduated first in my class, but only 5 of us graduated. After the first year, there were only 14 people left in a class that started with over 80 students. As the third year started, what started out as a course that had to be divided into 3 classes was now being called into the dean's office, again to be told that what we were learning was now obsolete. Another course was offered, free of charge again, and, being a sucker for punishment, I took Technical Writing. I figured that no matter the technology, somebody had to write the manuals for the computers and computer-driven objects. I was right on the final of my three courses, and went on to a successful career as a Technical Writer.

The moral of this story? If you can't keep up with the times, at least try to learn as much as you can about the time that you are in, because predicting the future of the computer, or any high-tech piece of machinery will just drive you nuts.

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