Questions? Suggestions? IT people!

[PDX]

I am looking at a change of careers. I want to get started in the IT career field. I was looking at this course and it seems to have a lot of certifications upon completion.

http://www.pdc.pdx.edu/it/multi_cert.shtml

Will this get me a good start? Also what other certifications do you suggest?

[SteveOlicious]

It would help

[MAD_DOHC]

You need experience more than you do certs. Get your foot in the door somewhere first and most good places will pay for your schooling.

[PDX]

You need experience more than you do certs. Get your foot in the door somewhere first and most good places will pay for your schooling.

Seems easier said than done out here. I have been researching for awhile into doing that but certs seem to rule out here. Experience also! No good foot in the door jobs that I can find but I will keep looking!

[Digital4N6]

Depends on what you want for a career. If you want to get paid for sitting in a chair and repeating what is in a book, by all means get a worthless certification that is only good for a resume checklist qualification for entry level. If you want to have a steady position that is not affected by workforce shifts and doesn't require competing with workaholics on H1B1 visas, get your masters degree (or at least a bachelors degree from even a community college) and plenty of project management experience. Stay away from programming -- go for distributed server management courses. In the next 5 years, you will see a shift from applications running on desktops to those running on servers, and you're gonna need to know Linux like the back of your sticky hand. Mac runs on a Linux core. Vista is using more Linux operations. Novell has just switched to Linux as well. See a trend?

[Twelvz]

Depends on what you want for a career. If you want to get paid for sitting in a chair and repeating what is in a book, by all means get a worthless certification that is only good for a resume checklist qualification for entry level. If you want to have a steady position that is not affected by workforce shifts and doesn't require competing with workaholics on H1B1 visas, get your masters degree (or at least a bachelors degree from even a community college) and plenty of project management experience. Stay away from programming -- go for distributed server management courses. In the next 5 years, you will see a shift from applications running on desktops to those running on servers, and you're gonna need to know Linux like the back of your sticky hand. Mac runs on a Linux core. Vista is using more Linux operations. Novell has just switched to Linux as well. See a trend?

This guy is looking at A+ and such and your telling him to get his masters? Different ballparks. What certs are worthless?
You must make 7 figures b/c I know programmers who make 140K a year (btw there are a lot of apps that run on servers...I can't believe I had to say that) Competing? You'll always have to compete no matter what level your at.

[Digital4N6]

If you are just starting out, I would *very* highly recommend going into digital forensic fields. Forget workaholic network intrusion stuff, it's going to be highly automated anyways.

Forensic science is the next boom market, and I've been traveling worldwide teaching it to donut eaters, special forces, and "secret squirrels" to help protect this country from people you just don't want to know exist. Terrorism isn't fought with bullets anymore. The true battlefield is protecting financial assets, trade routes, and public perception of safety -- they are all connected.

[Digital4N6]

This guy is looking at A+ and such and your telling him to get his masters? Different ballparks. What certs are worthless?
You must make 7 figures b/c I know programmers who make 140K a year (btw there are a lot of apps that run on servers...I can't believe I had to say that) Competing? You'll always have to compete no matter what level your at.
Certs are worthless unless you are looking for entry level. They are checklist requirements on a resume.

Reread the part on the shift. Licensing has already migrated to client-server validation even for single desktop licenses. Novell and Microsoft have been trying for years to move corporations to server-hosted apps rather than say, MS-Word on a user's desktop.

Programmers making 140k/yr work more than 40hrs a week. Calculate it out per hour, and they work harder for less. I took a $50k/yr pay cut and still make more per hour. ;)

[Twelvz]

I think he is looking for entry level, that's why he's looking at A+ and the like. And there are jobs out there that pay well where certs are a necessity i.e. government held positions (contractor or civil service) will require CISSP in some cases.