FASTER MIKE!!

been thinking over the xmas period about tring to better my self, left school with little qualifactions and almost 30 now i have a good job at the mo but dont see my self doing it for ever, so i thought i could try and get some quailifactions, and thought it would be a good place to start as im quite interested in computers. now im far from an expert but thought i would be better studying something that that i enjoy doing and am intersted in. now the question is what are the best courses to do on a part time basis? is there any open universtiy ones that are any good? if so which ones? or is there something thats as good or better?

cheers mike

David_Wallis

Experience is much better.

Sorry to **** on the bonfire..

If you want to do it for a living, and want to do MS, look at an MCSA to start with.

darlodge

My brother on law just spent 6k on a MCSE training course

As David said, IT is about experience not qualifications. Most start at the bottom rung (Like David and I) after leaving school, where as some jump in on fast track graduate programs after completing a degree in IT or computer science of something related.

My brother-in-law has been GUARANTEED a 20k job on completion of the 6 month course. I honestly can't see how is going to hold a 20k a year role as there is a lot of responsibility and it took me over 4 years of working in IT to get to that level. How after 6 months, he is supposed to manage this I don’t know. All the roles around 20k require at least 3 years commercial experience, with a quite a wide knowledge spread so what use is 6 months working in a classroom

Why do you want to work in IT if you don't mind me asking.

Darren

mike1210

yes experience is better than letters after your name anyday, personally I might look into a CCNA soon

darlodge

Mike,

Have you got any Cisco or networking experience?

I've done the ICND training course. It's the entry level course designed to help you pass your CCNA. Subnetting is enough yo make your head explode.

Darren

mike1210

Technically.........err NO

Done loads with routers at home some at work which I know doesn't really count but still it got me a better understanding of em.

using an 877W at home at the moment and have loads of reading material for it. Next task for me is radius auth via AD. Great router but I feel im flying blind at the moment as I don't know many IOS commands (thank god for the SDM). Current job is desktop support so I doubt my company would pay for a CCNA. A college near me does it so I was thinking of doing that.....£400 per year if I remember correctly

I need to specialise to be honest in something for get more $. Only got into computing (job wise) 3 years ago ish (when I was 23), no domain admin rights where i work so at home ive set up me own domain and stuff just to learn about AD and all that jazz. Im worried though that without doing networks or Dev work it would be tough to learn without proper experience.

should have got into it earlier to be honest, and no way I would work in my current network dept. Had to argue with them for 30 mins to borrow a cross over cable.

GaryK

mike,

as said yes experience is the key, you may have to look at landing a junior role and taking a pay cut to get some experience, no amount of qualifications will substitue for work experience in IT. Might be worth thinking about what you want to do as well and specialise rather than generalise. Too many people try and cover a wide skillset and end up being jack of all trades master of none.

Gary

SJ_Skyline

To an extent I agree with what Gary says here about specialising - providing the role you are going for is a role which requires specific skills.

I took the IT degree route and whilst I have specific skills in a couple of languages, I also have 7 years wide ranging experience so I come under the jack off all trades label. In a consulting role, the general skills are in just as much demand as the specific skills.

A project team will require specialists that know the nuts and bolts but they also require people to coordinate (managers), people to see the overall vision (designers) and people to interface between the business people and the techies (analysts).

This doesn't answer your question but I think your options are as open as you want them to be.


p.s. Dave - How's the hunting going? Has my mob been in touch with you yet?

GrahamG

This is very interesting, I have a mate as well who has just started is MCSE - 6k too. This is what I want to do but in stages.

I don't know how to go about it, I want to still work.. need the money to live on. I have a good job for my ages working for Hynix Semiconductors which is also a perfect place to gain experience. not that I am working in that department. lol but still learning all the time from the IT guys.

Really not sure whats the best way of starting it off. I just think if I had the MCSA to back up my experience I would be better off.

G.

ChefDude

the qualifications will only give you the edge over an equally experienced person you are competing against for a job.

Pick your sector for the best pay - it ranges. qualifications+engineering software developer will just not give you a big payout.

As a developer, Investment is the highest paid, followed by finance and insurance, then motoring and other and then you have engineering and education/government.

I'm in Investment, credit derivatives/swaps and expert in c++/vb/sql server/oracle which puts me in the upper 5 digits for permie and, if i was contract, 500+ per day.

I would get on a c# course and learn OO design. Gang of Four type stuff. get into a junior developer role.

GrahamG

Cheers for the reply, you lost me a little. what's c# and OO design?

Cheers
G.

ChefDude

There are a plethora of programming languages out there, but some aren't as lucrative as others, eg; COBOL. lots of jobs out there for COBOL programmers, but as a new developer you'll find it hard to find work.

The most common at the moment and visual basic, c++, c#, java and the net development languages.

i don't know much about the net programming languages, but c++ is too specialist to just jump on the bandwagon and vb6 is soon to be unsupported by microsoft. don't get me wrong, you will find work with vb and it is easy to pick up, but good money only goes to the gurus and they are hard to find. Can anyone tell me what Set NewEnum = mCol.[_NewEnum] does?

I think c# will be the new 'vb' language for the masses and as such will probably be adopted en masse by the various industries.

c# is an object orientated (OO) language and care needs to be taken to develop applications properly, ie; maintainable and extensible.

I just typed a whole bunch to define OO, but if you decide to tackle c# or java, then it's best to look at OO. make sure you understand the work abstract first

Leagro

I'm thinking of specializing in a particular area (mainly to relieve boredom) & was looking at what is coming up. I'm considering getting to know IPv6 a little better . . .

ChefDude

There's no place like ::1

MattW

The alternative is to study something less technical but more business orientated such as Prince2 or BS15000 Processes.

KiwiGTI

No, but 5 minutes on Google would if you already understood programming and a what VB is.

stevencotton

If you can't program and want to learn how to, ignore C++, Java, C#/.Net, ignore all of that and learn properly by starting with something that'll teach you program design (like Pascal) then move onto something more generic like ANSI C. Then you can move onto OO, since OO is just a methodolgy. Java for example completely forces you to program in an OO way, when you may not even require it.

You need to go through those steps to be a good programmer, or you'll end up cargo-cult programming like most VB programmers out there.

Chris L

And just for those (like me) that were wondering WTF cargo-cult programming is:

cargo cult programming: n.

A style of (incompetent) programming dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. A cargo cult programmer will usually explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood (compare shotgun debugging, voodoo programming).

The term ‘cargo cult’ is a reference to aboriginal religions that grew up in the South Pacific after World War II. The practices of these cults center on building elaborate mockups of airplanes and military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war. Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's characterization of certain practices as “cargo cult science” in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (W. W. Norton & Co, New York 1985, ISBN 0-393-01921-7).

Back on the subject. True, experience is the key to all this, but where do you start if you don't have any. The answer is in a few well chosen qualifications. I was lucky enough to stumble into IT about 15 years ago - with no real experience of qualifications. Most of what I've learnt has been through experience, although I have done many courses (CISSP, ethical hacking, UNIX etc). The qualifications in many cases are there to prove to customers that I do have some idea of what I'm doing, although I know that it really comes down to my experience.

My area is IT security - one of the few vaguely interesting areas of IT, if I'm honest. Demand for good people is always high and that is reflected in the pay rates - 50K + is not unusual. My advice would be to do some general qualifications and then get some specialisation with something like Cisco routers and then make a decision on what you want to do long-term.

Chris

SJ_Skyline

Nice one Chris - I have learned a new thing today

darlodge

Sound advice Chris.

Darren

David_Wallis

Despite what any of you lot think, you cannot learn active directory at home,

I designed an AD implementation for 9000+ users and lots of servers, all works fine in the test labs, but on a live network?

Which FSMO roles shouldnt be placed together on the server? and where should the GC's be placed?

Forget MS answers..

And as for time syncronisation.. learn that first (Normally comes from the PDC emulator)

David

FASTER MIKE!!

cheers for the replys guys, though most of its gone over my head lol.

david have'nt pissed no my bonfire, just something im looking into, understand that exprience is vital, as with most jobs/profesions

darlodge you mentioned that some people jump in with with a degree in IT or computer science, thats prob the sort of thing i'd like to look into, if poss with an open university course or the like, but will it be worth while?are there any specific ones to look out for?
the MCSA obviously would be ideal but the fact that it cost so much is'nt viable for the sake of just trying to add to my cv.

cheers mike

NXG

Whatever you end up doing, MS or Cisco, my forecast is that anything to do with delivering features and products securely is going to be where the money is for the foreseeable future. I'm putting my money where my mouth is on this one, so I hope I'm right!!

Steve

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I am an Oracle DBA, the firm offered to pay for loads of training so I am Oracle Certified (OCP) on Oracle 8i and 9i, doing 10G exam in Feb and then following it up with 10 G application server. My company have spent probably 20 grand getting me here in course, course fees, exam fees, flights, hotels, time off etc.

Trouble is there is no real hope of any more money, it being local government so if I want more than 31k I will have to get off my **** and go contracting, trouble is, 29 day hol, good pension and flexi time (13 extra days hol) is quite a motivation to stay.

Basically its useful as a bit of leverage but no substitute for actual experience, my advice would be to pick an area, Oracle obviously, still seems to be on the up, you can download the software for free, install it and have a play, then use this experience to get a low end Oracle job, then cram like mad, take any opportunity to get training or experience, instead of f*cking about on here, learn something, however meagre it all adds up and before you know it you are talking the talk that will allow you to either command a higher salary where you are or score a better job.

Basically you need to put the hours in, and if you arent doing it at work during the day, get onto it at night, even if you are doing it during the day set a target to do another 30 mins reading, its all incremental, no chance of the big bang approach working, just give it time and effort.

Alan C

If you're starting from a less experienced position then programming, Oracle, CCNA and other such specialised subjects will take some years to get into a decent paid and 'secure' position.

Like Chris, I'm in IT Security and can say that this is position where experience, a good quick learning head, a broad range of knowledge & the ability to make highly judged risk analysed decisions will get you on a decent career ladder quickly. Don't under estimate how much common sense and an ability to pick up new technology quickly plays a part. This lends IT Security well to expanding IT or new to the trade people whereas the specialised trades require a lot of in depth knowledge and can ultimately narrow your field down.

You will deal with varied and complex systems (LANS, Wireless etc), software and hardware installations (Databases, Storage farms, Web facing servers etc) that will quickly give you a decent base for which to expand upon or specialise in if you find an area that you like, coding Web front ends or Pentesting for example.. Don't think of this as a 'jack of all trades' either. Responsibility for securing a large Billion $ bank requires a span of knowledge that redefines 'specialised'...

It can be stressful at this end at times, but vastly rewarding.

*smiles*

Well said

Real World Experience counts ... no substitute

Dont get me started on paper MCSE's

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Don't forget UNIX. A lot of companies are after UNIX Administrators. I started off doing 1st Line support for 2 1/2 years after landing the role when I did work experience, then had a go in specialising in PC Hardware for 4 years which was a bit of a dead end profession, but I did get to travel. Then got back into IT support and Admin for both Windows NT server, Exchange 5.5 and microsoft windows support. Luckily at that time I was chucked in to doing AIX (IBM UNIX) admin and INFORMIX database admin. With the experience I picked up I am now an AIX Sys Admin, which includes a wide variety especially with the later versions. So getting experience is a whole lot better than just a qualification. It would be worth your while getting on an I.T course to understand the basics, such as CPUs, RAM and programming principles.

KiwiGTI

I must be in a parallel universe to most of you. I work in a company where security experts, DBAs and AD experts (isn't everybody these days ) are all useless.

Seriously I would say that only 1 in 5 people in the IT industry are actually any good.

If you can learn a technology and be good at it you can shine very easily.

I have lost count the number of times I have seen a useless desktop support/helpdesk person suddenly become a £500 a day DBA or PM overnight.

ChefDude

Kiwi, your company's hiring practices need renovating

yes there's tonnes of dross developers and yes DBAs too!

I went through a 45 minute exam and 3 technical interviews to get my role.

Experience counts and you need a lot more than googling ability to get through an interview at the high end job level.

at a junior level, you just need to show you can learn and that you'll swim when thrown in at the deep end. it's experience that tells this story best. qualifications next.

I'm not sure i'd like to be back at the junior level. it's a tough nut to crack properly.

KiwiGTI

You'd be surprised, the higher you get the less they test you on technically. Head of Architectures or an IM Director role probably wouldn't be asked a single technical question.