Loop Dreams: Top college talents showcase their skills … in cabling

Students from around the US gathered recently in Louisville, Kentucky to take part in a series of contests based on installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting lines for telco networks. The SkillsUSA Telecommunications Cabling Championship brought high school and university students together to compete in events including 25- …

[JonW]

Pics?

I came here looking for cable porn. Where is my cable porn?

I *demand* cable porn!

[Roq D. Kasba]

Brilliant - pride in real skills!

Well done to the winners, and indeed all participants. We've a big thing about 'getting a degree' (Mediology, all too frequently) with the enormous charges it creates, compared with 'getting really good at something that needs doing'.

There's plenty of time later for employers to be so keen to keep you that they'll pay for your degrees if you still want them, but real solid skills are what hold the world together.

[Anonymous Coward]

So where are these guys in the real world...

...when you end up with 250 10m cat5 cables tangled in a cab because they ran out of 1's and 2's.

Granted it's usually because the company thinks that we can just "reuse" the ones we rip out....sigh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So where are these guys in the real world...

In the real world these people (you'll notice the individual pictured in the article is of the female persuasion - either that or it's a guy who's so overweight he needs to wear a bra) are out in the exchanges working on proper comms gear.

[Ammaross Danan]

Re: So where are these guys in the real world...

As a (far) previous year winner, i can say I'm not working in telco. Air conditioned server rooms and an office is way better than a cable jockey or punch-down monkey. :)

[Down not across]

Re: So where are these guys in the real world...

As a (far) previous year winner, i can say I'm not working in telco. Air conditioned server rooms and an office is way better than a cable jockey or punch-down monkey. :)

I bet CWA, as one of the sponsors, is rather disappointed as now they're probably not getting slice of your wages since you're not working for a telco.

Why yes, of course I am cynical of CWA sponsoring the event.