Career as IT - Newbie seeking help.

[saven]

I have a question that can be only answers by people who have experience in the IT field. I wanna start studying for MCSE..but I don't know where is most reputable place to be at to learn. What i'm looking to study at is at my computer when I get off work. I work 5 days a week only and REALLY want to get out of the grocery business as its chipping away at my lost soul lol. TY!

[SephYuyX]

MCSE can be studied by yourself, no need to sign up for classes or anything, but they do help.

I took my MCSE 2000 many moons ago and did an easy upgrade to 2003, so i've no idea how todays standards work. But I just bought the books, and then took the tests. Some books provide you with 'free' test vouchers, some dont.

I havent taken any MS tests, or in that whole scene, in about 3 years now, but from what I remember I think they did some major changes in how MPCs work, so I dont even know if the current MCSE tree is at all similiar.

As I said, book learning was the way I did it with some videos, if thats the route you want to take, and after some looking I found MSs site with the info. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en...mcse.aspx#tab2 These will be the tests you have to take, obviously not all of them, but when you click on the exam number you can go to the preperation materials tab and see what your options are. The book is listed below and for each test the price kind of varies, and you can purchase them on various sites for the best price, and sometimes can find free torrents.

If you want to do classroom training thats on there too. But you dont have to some up in some school to do this, just buy the book, go to a test center and take the test.

I took my tests with Pearson VUE, but I believe MS no longer does testing with them, and they switched to Prometric. So look for local prometric testing centers in your area and look there for classroom, book, test deals.

[Ohemgee]

Seph, what are you employed as?

I'm slowly working my way towards doing Security (I have faith).

Doing A+, Net+ and Security+ by the end of the year. Might lean on doing Red Hat and getting a few MCSE 2003 or should I focus on doing MCITP for Server 08 shit?

[SephYuyX]

Currently no where full time IT related, I took off the last couple years to finished another degree. When I was working on my first degree and certs, I was working at the local energy company as a network engineer where they paid for a lot of my cert expenses, and then later worked at a consulting firm as an IT director.

I never took any of the CompTIA certs as I was working on an IT BA, and just jumped right in to MCSE. CompTIA is good if you have no PC/IT experiance and youre looking for a way in, by no means are they looked down upon and are never bad to have and wave around, more certs cant hurt and they arent hard tests, but they arent necessary to take.

MCSE was the de-facto cert, but after looking around it seems MS moved that out and is starting to favor the MCITP cert. Ive been out of the loop for a couple of years now, so just doing some general googleing about how the new MCITP works. 2003 servers will be around for many more years, hell 2000s are still around so for the time being MCSE is still looked for as it provides a very solid structure for all things computing and networking, and an MCITP is a more current/focused cert that is looked for in cutting edge companies.

So it depends on what you want. If you want to spend less money, but also try to get an edge on some old farts, the MCITP may be the way to go. But if you want to have a solid background and get in to large employeed companies that have been around for 50+ years who tend not to upgrade, the MCSE will probably benefit you more. Having both is obviously the best.

The MCITP is still in an infancy stage that wont come to fruition for a few more years, but I kind of get the feeling that MS is leaving the MCSE behind in favor of it, but itll still be awhile before that happens.

This topic has kind of depressed me though as now im reminded that I guess I should start working on getting current myself within the next year or so..

[Dantrag]

Quick history:

Started off as a Help desk technician. Did that for about 1 1/2 years. Then moved into a Systems and Network Admin position. Did that for about 2 1/2 years. Then jumped to a Systems Engineer position that didn't really work out to well. Now I'm working as a Exchange Administrator at a hosted services company. I will be starting a new job on the 10th as a Senior Systems Engineer.

I have my MCITP: Enterprise Administrator, MCITP: Server Administrator and all the other certs that are required to get those. I would recommend going with MCITP over MCSE. A lot of companies are still in the 2003 era but at this point I don't see it lasting much longer as the standard.

I went to a place in my town called "Computer Tutors" and took about 5 courses there. I did Exchange 2007 and a lot of the 2008 stuff for the MCITP. It helped a lot but actually doing the work in the field makes the biggest difference.

Are you going to be doing general Tech stuff or do you plan to do programming, networking, etc? There is a lot in the IT field.

For 100% passing exams for certs use: http://www.examcollection.com/ I never missed more than 2 questions on any of the exams I took for my MCITPs.

[Ikith]

School helps A LOT! You can do tons and tons of reading but overall hands on experience is the best and you get that in the classroom. Plus if you go for a degree in IT some schools offer internships which is extremely nice and a gateway into the field.

[SephYuyX]

I sort of agree. School is indeed good for a good base, but you still learn everything most everything out in the field. It just depends on how much experiance you have. Ive been exposed to computers my whole life as my aunt worked at Intel and I would often go there and 'work' when I was younger, so most of the stuff at school I already knew, and didnt find really relevent anyway. But when I got my first real IT job I learned shit tons, and that is the one benefits of school, as Ikith said, the interships are a great way to get your foot in the door.

So it really just depends on your current experiance level. Most companys who employee strickly tech slaves will like if you have lots of certs, but if you ever want some sort of manager/officer/executive/etc job, youll want that school degree.

[Ohemgee]

Its kind of hard to have another degree on top of what I already have in IT. FAU and FIU are the only viable options for a Computer Science Engineering degree. Its rather too programmer friendly, or way out there engineering. Nothing in between.

[SephYuyX]

Work on a non IT degree, it never hurts to be well rounded. After I got my BA in IT, I worked on my Business Admin BA, then on my MBA. Having lots of IT certs with the addition of a business oriented (managerial, admin, HR, marketing, etc) degree is the current best way to go.

[Caiyuo]

Doesn't FAU have a BS in IT? Or is that what you already have, omg? I could've sworn they started a 2+2 program a few years ago specifically for that.

[Ohemgee]

I think the 2+2 program goes with BC's program for Network Service Technology AAS.

And FAU's CSE program (looking at their flow chart PDF now) is heavily based on Software engineering, microsystems and heavy engineering.

http://www.cse.fau.edu/undergraduate.htm


Their IT program though is kinda meh. Looking at the courses needed (not seeing on their site where they list a degree audit or something that says what the person would take in year 3 and 4), you don't need much from the BC program.

This is all stacking on top of a Bio bachelors from USF, and MSBI masters from Nova. So the amount of room to dick around is Ron Jeremy sized.

[Bockage]

I've been building/fixing computers on my own for the last 10+ years now. I still decided to go back to school because I know how important a degree is to employers. There's only so far you can go w/o one. If you have the money, or don't mind being in debt for a bit, I really recommend it. Even with everything I learned on my own, I'm finding there's still a lot for me to learn there. My school also pays for a bunch of my certification tests, which can be expensive. FYI, take your A+ before the end of this year if you plan to take it at all. Next year you'll be required to re-test every 3 years to keep it up to date. Most tech schools also have some sort of career services department, who can really help you find a job once you graduate. I strongly recommend looking at the tech schools in your area.

[levish]

I'd start with A+ and Network + certifications and get a year or two of experience as a help desk person. I strongly doubt anyone in their right mind would hire a Administrator with no experience.

Level 1 Help Desk -> Level 2/3 Help Desk or Junior Admin -> Admin is the way things worked out for me

*Edit*

I'm not sure the Admin/IT field is even worth going into IMO, a lot of work has been and will continue to be moved offshore.

For the remaining jobs, there is a lot of competition and the compensation is just not great (for how highly skilled the labor must be for a Administrator type position).

[Ohemgee]

Theres a lot more work in engineering than Administrative work

[dekamii]

just wondering what's the salary like for IT?

[SephYuyX]

20k~200k lol

[Minions]

20k~200k lol

Average is around 40-60k~ for low to mid experience. Above 60 is a really good job atm with high experience requirements, or if you moved up a company over time. I've been trying to find a IT job for 3~4 months since I graduated and even the entry level jobs I've been interviewing agaisnt people with 3~ years of experience.

[Mizango]

20k~200k lol

Basically lol.

And as Seph said above, self studying is a fantastic way to prep for tests and save some money if you're short in that dept. I too got my MCSE just by self studying, but schools can be beneficial as well, just don't use them as a crutch or see them as your only option because they are not.

Also, try to find an employer that will pay for your tests and/or materials in the future, this helps immensely because some of them can be a pain in the ass to come out of pocket with.

[Cephius]

Seph kind of touched on it but I don't think it's been discussed here enough.

You don't need to have a degree to work in IT. In fact, these days it's pretty much worthless. Anything you learn in school will generally be outdated by the time you get out. Personally the only class I took in college that I learned anything that applies to my job was a class on unix/linux system administration. Not to say a degree won't help you find a job, but it's not required nearly as much as it would be in other fields.

Anyway, take the advice of people in this thread and just try to get certified in Cisco courses (if you plan to be a network engineer) and get a help desk job to get your foot in the door. Once you have a few years experience under your belt, you should be fine.

[Ratatapa]

Seph kind of touched on it but I don't think it's been discussed here enough.

You don't need to have a degree to work in IT. In fact, these days it's pretty much worthless. Anything you learn in school will generally be outdated by the time you get out. Personally the only class I took in college that I learned anything that applies to my job was a class on unix/linux system administration. Not to say a degree won't help you find a job, but it's not required nearly as much as it would be in other fields.

Anyway, take the advice of people in this thread and just try to get certified in Cisco courses (if you plan to be a network engineer) and get a help desk job to get your foot in the door. Once you have a few years experience under your belt, you should be fine.

Depends on where you live. In Quebec (maybe in canada) Degrees means everything.

I have a college degree and a Cisco cert.

So when i was searching for a network admin guy. The interviewer (which was the IT boss in the cie) was like mmmm ok you have CCNA but you dont have University gtfo.

Here certs means almost nothing unless you get into a real international Cie which annoys me