Current Events > What would be a good starting point for someone who wants to get into IT?

(+) Yeah! (+)

What programs/institutions to look into?
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"IT" is a very broad field. what, specifically, were you looking to get into?
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a wig and clown makeup
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A paper boat and a storm drain.

personally i think help desk is a good starting point, try and get in as a L1 / L2 support or as a NOC technician or something. you need to have a passion about enterprise IT and be the kind of guy that wants to mess around on VMs to learn shit or play with old servers and test things out.

i would suggest working on your people/business skills (which is why I like help desk as an entry point) because the whole anti-social computer guy in the IT closet (like in the IT Crowd show) doesn't really exist, or at least he won't really get far in his career.

certs are important but i would say that a baseline of experience will get you going better than someone with no professional experience but a bunch of tests completed. you will want to specialize at some point and that's when i think certs like CCNA will help.

this is just my brief summary from working in IT for like two years, I think someone like @CableZL can give you much better advice if he's feeling up to it
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Romulox28 posted...

i would suggest working on your people/business skills (which is why I like help desk as an entry point) because the whole anti-social computer guy in the IT closet (like in the IT Crowd show) doesn't really exist, or at least he won't really get far in his career.

I know and work with lots of people in IT like that, they either develop strong enough specialist skills to go far in a very specific way or as you say just sit in low level positions for decades.

Like one guy I work with is legitimately autistic, but his back end skills are superior to everyone else by leaps and bounds so he's managed to carve out a pretty irreplaceable position. We just...don't let him near clients.

To answer your question TC, it might be first worth working out how you picture an IT job. There's a lot of variety in it and general paths attract certain personalities.
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