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No Stranger Than You

Posted by TestOut Staff on

If your are a child of the 1980s, and you haven't yet begun watching Stranger Things on Netflix, then, sheesh, you can read the rest of this later. Go immerse yourself in the goodness! An eight-episode Netflix original series, Stranger Things will play on your Reagan Era memories like a master violinist. It's the perfect blend of every '80s Steven Spielberg movie, every '80s Stephen King novel, and every '80s Stephen J. Cannell TV series. Just sit back and let the finely-tuned performances, exquisite period detail and increasingly suspenseful mood wash over you.

Stranger Things

From an IT certification standpoint, what's cool about the show is the heroes: Three plucky preteen boys who would absolutely have grown up to live and work among the IT professionals of today if they had really come of age in the era (1983, to be exact) where Stranger Things unfolds. Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Will are science-loving members of the AV club at their middle school. When Will vanishes after a late-night Dungeon & Dragons session, the others use their wits to try to unravel the mystery of his disappearance. They ask questions first, and take a problem-solving approach to their thorny quest.

It's great fun to see a TV series this imaginative that affirms the basic sensibilities of the IT profession. Yeah, 1983 is a little too soon for computers to have much of a presence in the story (beyond the massive units that are gathering and processing data at sinister Hawkins National Laboratory), or an impact on the characters. You can totally tell, on the other hand, that one of these kids is going to be an early adopter of the Commodore 64 or Apple IIe. A few years after that, Lucas or Mike probably learned about the hot new thing from CompTIA, the A+, and started down a career-defining path.

So watch the show and take inspiration from its dedicated, brainy protagonists. Then come to TestOut Continuing Education and check out one of our training packages. With the benefit of PC Pro or Network Pro training, you'll be on your way to an exciting and challenging career in no time at all.


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