IT Profession Guide and Opinions
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I'm a new IT guy, and I've been looking at degree paths in Networking and the like to better my IT skills and employment opportunities.
In my experience I do really good with advance (300-400 level) job specific classes in college, but STRUGGLE to do mundane General Education things like writing a 2,000 word essay (My opinion is never strong enough, or I can say it in a couple paragraphs) or figure out what AB ÷ YZ × Spaghetti + Saturn sums up to. So pretty much anything past Pre-Algebra on the math side.
This leads me to believe that I should instead spend my money where it won't be wasted: Cisco Languages, CompTia A+, Networking+ Security+, PHP, JQuery, and whatever specialized languages that I find interesting/useful to a preferred career path.
In your experience, is seeking out specific job related skills instead of a degree a bad choice?
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Yes, I would agree that certs will get you farther for career purposes. Certs cost less, go faster, are far more focused, better match your own learning style and are designed around career, rather than personal, growth. Collegiate work is not even meant to help your career, that is not its goal. Certs, however, are.
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Wrote this seven years ago but accidentally forgot to publish it. But perfect timing for this...
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2017/04/using-certifications-to-drive-education/
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Some general guides on collegiate education to help with understanding its role and how it works best and, very likely, reinforcing why it is probably not a good fit for your desired outcome:
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2016/12/legitimate-university-programs-are-not-certification-training/
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2016/10/choosing-a-university-for-it-education/
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2015/11/choosing-a-university-degree-program-for-it/
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2015/11/how-to-approach-the-university-experience/
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2016/07/finding-a-job-or-finding-the-job/ -
CompTIA A+ is definitely not something that you want to look at. That's not an IT cert, but rather a "bench" cert. Bench being the hardware repair bench. The A+ is used by places like Best Buy for their minimum wage bench staff, not for IT pros. Skip over that, not applicable to your career. If you are looking for an easy place to start, a cert that is general purpose but still valuable for IT pros, the place to look is the CompTIA Network+ instead. Way better use of your time and money.
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@scottalanmiller said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
Wrote this seven years ago but accidentally forgot to publish it. But perfect timing for this...
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2017/04/using-certifications-to-drive-education/
Where do you come up with your pictures?
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@Tim_G said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
@scottalanmiller said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
Wrote this seven years ago but accidentally forgot to publish it. But perfect timing for this...
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2017/04/using-certifications-to-drive-education/
Where do you come up with your pictures?
@dominica does that.
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@G-I-Jones said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
... or figure out what AB ÷ YZ × Spaghetti + Saturn sums up to. So pretty much anything past Pre-Algebra on the math side.
That's quite a list of certs. What is your goal from the certs? Where are you hoping that they will take you?
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What helps a lot in the grand scheme of things, is to first figure out what deeply interests you, what motivates you... what's your passion?
From there, match those answers to a preferred career goal or ideal job.
Once you do that, you can figure out an educational path and career path to get you there.
I see a lot of times people just mentioning what seems like a list of 20 random certs they want to get... but why? If you want to be a C++ programmer, what good are all those cisco sales certs going to do for you? You may as well tell your potential employer at a job interview about the classes you took in 4th grade.
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@scottalanmiller I've heard that A+ is a waste of my time from other people, namely my own boss. Unfortunately, it's a requirement for my job. I've been reading over the study guide for it, and I feel there are some bits of relevant data in there. Mostly just things I wanted to know, but didn't already.
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@Reid-Cooper Don't read into that too much, it's just a random list of certs to illustrate my point. Literally just a list of certs I need for my current job, was told to look into for my current job, or I want to learn or am learning for leisure.
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@G-I-Jones said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
@scottalanmiller I've heard that A+ is a waste of my time from other people, namely my own boss. Unfortunately, it's a requirement for my job. I've been reading over the study guide for it, and I feel there are some bits of relevant data in there. Mostly just things I wanted to know, but didn't already.
So your boss told you to not get it? Seems like you probably shouldn't waste the time and effort on it then. Where are you getting these requirements from?
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@coliver it's in my contract. I'm a Federal Contractor.
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First, if you want to learn, what's your budget?
Second, take your budget and go to your local computer recycler or government auctions or ebay and spend as little money as possible on a wide range of gear (ask and we'll suggest some stuff based on your interests)
Third, spend time fixing, changing, and generally messing with the gear.
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@Tim_G LOL! yea, I hear you.
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@G-I-Jones said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
@scottalanmiller I've heard that A+ is a waste of my time from other people, namely my own boss. Unfortunately, it's a requirement for my job. I've been reading over the study guide for it, and I feel there are some bits of relevant data in there. Mostly just things I wanted to know, but didn't already.
Ah okay. Well it isn't too hard, really. Just mostly boring and silly.
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@coliver said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
@G-I-Jones said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
@scottalanmiller I've heard that A+ is a waste of my time from other people, namely my own boss. Unfortunately, it's a requirement for my job. I've been reading over the study guide for it, and I feel there are some bits of relevant data in there. Mostly just things I wanted to know, but didn't already.
So your boss told you to not get it? Seems like you probably shouldn't waste the time and effort on it then. Where are you getting these requirements from?
I think he said that it was a waste, but not that he shouldn't get it.
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@Reid-Cooper said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
@coliver said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
@G-I-Jones said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
@scottalanmiller I've heard that A+ is a waste of my time from other people, namely my own boss. Unfortunately, it's a requirement for my job. I've been reading over the study guide for it, and I feel there are some bits of relevant data in there. Mostly just things I wanted to know, but didn't already.
So your boss told you to not get it? Seems like you probably shouldn't waste the time and effort on it then. Where are you getting these requirements from?
I think he said that it was a waste, but not that he shouldn't get it.
That doesn't make sense to me but... government.
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I don't see the benefit of requiring federal contractors to be A+ certified.
I know here in CA, they require Sec+... maybe they (your immediate employer) have it wrong, because A+ makes absolutely no sense what so ever.
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@Tim_G said in IT Profession Guide and Opinions:
I don't see the benefit of requiring federal contractors to be A+ certified.
I know here in CA, they require Sec+... maybe they (your immediate employer) have it wrong, because A+ makes absolutely no sense what so ever.
Definitely no benefit to it, just a requirement.
