Getting into the IT field...

[Belize]

Even if they can, I think signaling is more relevant than any other consideration in education. Most employers aren't keen on trusting people that don't go to college for positions that traditionally require college.

IT office positions haven't required full 4-year colleges for a while now. Software devs do, not AdSys Managers, that's what associate degrees are for.

[Tradewind]

IT office positions haven't required full 4-year colleges for a while now. Software devs do, not AdSys Managers, that's what associate degrees are for.

lol my job had listed a CCNA, not so much as a requirement, but a "nice to have." The most complicated shit on any cisco devices I've had to do was some fucking vlan'ing between our PC and VoIP network and that was fucking 4 years ago. Aside from fixing the stupid NTP associations the culmination of my "nice to have" CCNA has been typing "copy run start" into 4 terminal sessions once a year before they do annual power maintenance in the building...

HR people have no idea how to hire for IT, it's such a sham. I'm pretty sure they've just been copy pasting the same position bulletin someone wrote back in 2002.

[ItachiZaku]

So, say I want to get into the IT field, but I don't really have any experience with it, other than building my own PCs and being knowledgeable about the hardware.... what do I do? Do I need to go to MIT or ITT tech? Pls halp D:

IT is a dead end field. By the time you learn it, it's obsolete. Plus, technology will bring about the downfall of humanity. However, for career advancement, you do very much need a degree. You can get your foot in the door, no problem, but to advance, most high end companys will not even consider you, unless you have a degree from a "real" college.

[Ravenblade]

Frankly put blue collar IT doesn't require a university degree here, a CoC job certificate with vocational training path coming with added bundles of certificates is enough. If you got professional experience and school-leaving certificate from 8-years secondary school (called Gymnasium here) you can even shorten training time. Granted you are not going to be much more than a skilled worker with limited promotion chances (project lead/manager) at first but for some people that's enough.

[Rukh]

Yeah you can get in to "IT" and be making barely above minimum wage. Go sign up for a call center for AT&T or other carriers. Its crap work, but its a foot in the door if you have no IT experience. Do that for a year and do well and you can move up within the company to a QA or leadership position. Do that for a while then get certs and move in to an IT position for a big company.

[Armbre]

Honestly you have to decided if you want to do security, networking and about 50 other options but expect that the first 3 years your in the field you'll be stuck at a help desk because thats just how it tends to work, also getting certs is great and all but make sure you can actually do the work and just aren't studying the anwsers off of pass4sure(granted its a great place for test practice just make sure you know what to actually do lol).

Also try to be white and male and if that fails hope your apart of the quota of "people" they need to hire. True story i work at a national university medical hospital fixing the equipment and such and every one in my department is a white dude and every person in IT is a white dude its kinda sad to see how segregated the field is, like though college only white dudes(i majored in CS and Biomed) internships only white dudes.

[Maconi]

On that topic, what are some good sections of IT to work towards currently? The IT field is so broad that it's easy to get lost in one of multiple entry/mid-level jobs and never actually make any progress in your career. What are some "titles" to strive towards?

As for me specifically, I'm currently the sole Consultant (with the responsibilities of a Sys Admin/IT Manager) for a 100+ user manufacturing environment. My responsibilities range from basic IT support, to planning/implementing server and network upgrades/expansion, to managing external vendor contracts. My current certs are the usual range of CompTia, Microsoft, and Cisco.

Is there a decent future for me on this IT career path? What "titles" should I be looking for when applying to new jobs (on this IT path)? For that matter, should I start looking at other IT paths? If so, which?

Thanks in advance.

Bumping this 2 years later since I never got a response lol.

I still have the same job. It seems like it's pretty much a dead-end (no chance for a raise/promotion unless I agree to move across the country which isn't happening right now, ignoring the fact that it would be a pay cut after taking cost-of-living into consideration).

I've come to the conclusion the only way to advance my career is to either take up official IT Manager duties somewhere (hard to get when everyone demands previous experience with direct reports, even though I would meet every other criteria) or completely abandon the Sys Admin/IT Manager path and start learning some programming languages for a Software/DevOps Engineer position of some kind.

[Iamanerd]

Where do you live by chance? I mean if you're near any decently populated areas there must be some positions to move into. Honestly with your certs you could easily get into a decent MSP. Currently I work at an MSP with no certs but I've been in the field for 5 years now with plenty of room to grow, if you have the experience like you listed above you just need to apply and keep pushing. But if you live somewhere where IT jobs are limited then I'm not sure what else to say. I live in CT and jobs are everywhere for IT. I should add a Sys Admin job is considered a good end goal in IT, it pays pretty well at least around here.

[Kuntantee]

My brother is Broadcast/System Engineer working for television channels. Seems like a bit stressful but a relatively fine paying job. As for software engineering, how old are you? Being a senior takes like 4-5 years. That's when you start to get fine numbers in programming job around here. If it's anything like this over there and you are early 30, you'll be close to your 40s when you become a senior. You may want to consider this as well.

[Xirrohon]

So, say I want to get into the IT field, but I don't really have any experience with it, other than building my own PCs and being knowledgeable about the hardware.... what do I do? Do I need to go to MIT or ITT tech? Pls halp D:

What do you want to do? Program? Security? Pentest? I would say that Programming right now has best job opportunity. You can basically pick your job and price. Not only that most programmers can also work from home since they dont really work with clients. Meaning they dont really have a set schedule. Currently, I do IT Security and its not much fun. And who knows, AI like Watson might just eliminate the position. Lol. If I was to do it again I would go into Programming.

As far as getting in the field it is relatively easy. Just depends on what job you want. Many kids in High School graduate with having Sec+ and Net+. We have hired a few kids right out of HS with just those certs. They start out making about $40k annual doing a pretty easy job (Service Desk) and learning the trade.

Also, take into account that IT is a 24/7 operation. So working odd hours, weekends, Holidays happen pretty frequently.

[Adam Jensen]

ITT tech is a rip off and you can get a better education with a 2 year degree/certifications for a lot less money. Asking if you need to go to MIT or ITT tech is like asking if you should drink a fine wine or dirty toilet water that hasn't been flushed in a year.

If you want your basic IT job, an associates degree is just fine. Chances are if your asking this question you probably wouldn't get into MIT anyway.

My college was bought out by ITT Tech . . . and went downhill from there.

Thankfully I was almost done with my degree.

[Kujako]

Get a basic bachelor business administration, don't go to school for tech, learn that on your own.

[the game]

You grow a neckcbeard and submit your resume,

How hard can it be?

Generally the people who hate on beards are the ones who can't grow them.

[PC2]

So, say I want to get into the IT field, but I don't really have any experience with it, other than building my own PCs and being knowledgeable about the hardware.... what do I do? Do I need to go to MIT or ITT tech? Pls halp D:

If you don't want to be an engineer then I would say focus on solving problems on the software side of IT. Employers want problem solvers more than pedigree. Linear Algebra(MIT OpenCourseWare) is a good class that will give you relevant skills. You could take a Python course at Code Academy. Or learn R for statistics and data science.

Moore's law is dead, thus you'll want to move in IT directions that scale post-Moore's law. Start learning about Flynn's taxonomy and parallel computing.

You could also take information abstraction courses, graph representations(Khan Academy) is an introduction. Graph computing and databases can scale far into the future.

[THE Bigzoman]

Generally the people who hate on beards are the ones who can't grow them.

Who's hating?

[StayTuned]

So, say I want to get into the IT field, but I don't really have any experience with it, other than building my own PCs and being knowledgeable about the hardware.... what do I do? Do I need to go to MIT or ITT tech? Pls halp D:

You wanna do hardware or software?

[Adam Jensen]

You grow a neckcbeard and submit your resume,

How hard can it be?

So how much of a requirement is the neckbeard. Do I *need* one or is it just preferred that I have one?

[Argarock]

Get a basic bachelor business administration, don't go to school for tech, learn that on your own.

this..
2 years into my bachelour degree in IT tech,
having had 12 different classes so far, I'd say less than half are actually usefull, and half of those are only usefull because they teach you stuff you need for the ACTUALLY usefull stuff...

just google how to learn Java / c++ / java script / sql
and you're pretty much set, all platforms are free online, there's TONS of learning sources, how to's and QAs out there.
70% of everything i've learnt has been by googling..

[Kujako]

this..
2 years into my bachelour degree in IT tech,
having had 12 different classes so far, I'd say less than half are actually usefull, and half of those are only usefull because they teach you stuff you need for the ACTUALLY usefull stuff...

just google how to learn Java / c++ / java script / sql
and you're pretty much set, all platforms are free online, there's TONS of learning sources, how to's and QAs out there.
70% of everything i've learnt has been by googling..

At least as far as software creation goes, 90% of what you will ever do is googling. Why reinvent the wheel so to speak? Odds are, someone else has already put code that does what you need it to do yo on github. Just remember to put the remaining 10% that you actually do need to create out there for others to do the same and we can keep this going.