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Alright Spiceheads, with my first ever question I need some advice from the community. In my current position I am a basic help desk tech. I am 6 months in and have 0 prior IT experience. Now that I’m getting the hang of things I have decided IT is definitely the career path I want to take. I work at a community bank and there are 3 of us in IT, and to my knowledge there is not going to be any expansion of our department. So, there really is no room to move up. So I am trying to decide if whether or not I want to go back to school while continuing to work here and learning as much as I can in the meantime and getting certs, or if I should solely focus on getting certs. I know the obvious answer is both, but being limited on funds I would have to get loans and I don’t like that. I’m not sure what my best bet is. Your opinions would be much appreciated!

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Both. i have a Bachelors of Science in IT, and i have A+, Net+, Server+, 3 MTAs, 2 MCSA’s, CCENT, im working on my CCNA, and im looking to get certified in Linux+, Cloud+, maybe 2 or 3 more MCSAs, and a VMWare Cert hopefully in the next 2 years. So yeah, its going to suck, but its worth have both a degree and certifications.

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Ok so this is a difficult one really depending on your location and what you’re willing to change in your life. First and foremost within the IT community experience and certifications are the gold standard of qualification, if you can prove you know how to work on IPTables and how to subnet an ASA properly. If IT is hiring you, that’s what matter, that’s all that matters, college is irrelevant.

Now if you’re trying to get a job with one of the big players though… they process resumes through a screening software to verify you match their required credentials, if you don’t have a degree, HR will throw your resume into a stack of papers and never look back.

Its a double edged sword, many if not all of us will tell you a degree is stupid and pointless, but HR will tell you you aren’t worth your face value because they worship a piece of paper that is irrelevant to your job duties.

If you want to move up in IT, regardless of your opinion on that silly sheet of paper, it may be beneficial to at least get an associates out of the way (trust me I don’t have one, I’m struggling).

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(Frostyck) 4

If you have the option, both.

Wish I still had the option for schooling.

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I agree with getting at least an Associate’s degree. Many doors have been closed on me since I don’t have a degree. Certification is good but I have also noticed that in some places, having too many will also not net you the job as they see you as over qualified. So my answer is do both. Get that Associate’s degree and also some basic certs like A+, Network+ and Security+. Don’t forget to learn from your team. Experience can trump the certs and the school.

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I don’t agree with this.

edit: Let me add my justification (full disclosure, I got a degree with the Post 9/11 GI Bill, so I had almost no money out of pocket for my degree costs) …

I believe that the right degree will not only offer the technical skills you need to learn but also build a foundation for a life in a professional workplace – group projects, presentations, reports, papers, etc… I believe all build a foundation for a professional to bring into the workplace. If you never work on a group project in college you will probably be at a disadvantage as compared to someone who knows how to work in a team, how to present themselves in a professional manner, how to communicate with others effectively. Is college expensive? Yes. Can college be pointless? Yes. Is a degree the end all, be all? Of course not, but the higher you get in your career, the more beneficial that degree becomes. Obviously you can get by without a degree, many professionals here at Spiceworks don’t have a degree and are hugely successful.

It depends on how much you put into it, in my opinion … if you go about your degree with minimal effort, then yea, you won’t get much out of it. But if you go into it with an open mind and a willingness to learn, then yea, I think a degree can be really beneficial. Of course, it goes both ways.

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I have a 4 year degree (in an unrelated field) and no certs. All of my IT knowledge is experience. Honestly, if you go to an interview and you know what you are talking about and can provide examples employers are going to like it. Unfortunately, one of the hardest parts is just getting the interview. A lot of HR techniques look for the degree, certs, what have you. You do you when it comes to getting experience, can you learn on your own? Do you need a class/teacher? Do you need hands on?

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Well here’s my next question in regards to your responses. Say I do decide to go to school again (which is the way I’m leaning), is it more wise to work longer and figure out which field of IT I want to focus on (Server, Network, Security, etc) and enjoy, or get a more general degree that covers a bit of it all?

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Boy, this is a quick way to start a war on Spiceworks. Careful now.

My two cents is that there is no one size fits all answer. Some people benefit from formal education, some don’t. Some people need the structure and the broad computer science education provided by going back to school. Some people learn everything they need to know from studying for certs. Others learn more by just getting experience in a role similar to yours. The key is that you continue to learn and grow, ALWAYS. You can never stop learning in this industry. How you choose to learn or what works best for you may be different than the next guy. But you’re already on the right path in that you know you want to be in IT and you have a desire to learn.

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In my opinion all either prove is you have the ability to learn. I think that is the most important aspect of the IT industry. If you cannot learn and continue to learn on a daily basis you will not go far.

With that being said, obtaining these certs can be costly and to be honest a waste of time. But if the employer you are seeking has this as a pre-requisite then definitely seek them out. As for schooling, if you feel you would benefit from another institution provided certificate proving your learning ability. Then go for it.

The greatest thing you can do in this industry is gain experience.

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I’m one of the minorities here who advocate for a degree. It is important to remember though that a degree is a foundation upon which to build your skill set, not a golden ticket to IT wealth and fame. You won’t leave school an IT God but you should leave with the tools you need to get there. My advice is to start small with a 2 year degree and go from there. Any good IT based AS program at a (reputable) community college will give you a good foundation to build off of and will give you looks at a lot of different tech while still being manageable both time and money wise. Once you have your AS in hand you can go back and look at the last 2 years and you should be able to tell yourself honestly if going back to school for your BS in a particular field is worth it to you or not. Just be smart about it, don’t go from 0 to Masters and put yourself $200K in debt if a simple AS will get you where you want to be. College can also prep you for your certs…hardware class is a great time to prepare for your A+ as an example. Be smart, craft a plan, enjoy success.

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I’ve given my two cents before in a similar thread:

Basically, its more than just both degrees/certs. Keep learning. Show that you can keep learning.

Here’s a fairly useful roadmap on certification paths. You don’t need the certs (hell, many of these are hilariously expensive per attempt), but studying for them is still useful. To parrot many people above me, keep learning! If the material in a cert or cert path is not for you, grats, you saved a lot of time, money, and energy and you can focus on something else.

Don’t be afraid to not know the answer to something technical in an interview. Having been on the other end of it, how you work through an answer (or even have the balls to say you don’t know/can find out/ask for help) is far better than nothing. Be able to admit you don’t know something when you don’t know something. No one likes a know-it-all, especially if they can’t admit when they need help/don’t know.

Don’t be afraid to ask what they were looking for if you feel your answer was inadequate or wrong. I’ve done this before and have still gotten offers simply because they liked me. Certs and degrees are nice, but if you’re not likable, your BA and 5 certs isn’t going to save you.

Finally, I can’t stress this enough, but IT guys need to work on their soft skills. I still say to this day that the most useful class I took in HS was theatre.
Being able to effectively communicate and present is a huge part of it.

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I would focus on skills. What is it you want to learn? What do you want to do? What do you need to learn in order to do what you want to do? Once that’s identified, then you seek the path to gain X skills. In other words you choose the certs to learn particular skills or sets of skills, rather than choosing a cert just to get a cert.

For me, I’m interested in Linux system administration. It wouldn’t make sense for me to start down the Microsoft cert track just to get their certs. I’m sure I would get useful information from the certs, but it wouldn’t make sense for sharpening the skills in my area of interest.

As far as school is concerned, personally, it seems that certification routes are the most direct way to acquire skills. Depending on how you learn, you might benefit from a classroom environment dedicated to preparing your for a cert rather than 100% self-study. Make sure said classroom environment is focused on teaching skills rather than the test. That being said, my undergraduate and graduate degrees (not in IT) weren’t wasted. I believe undergrad is where you’re forced to learn how to learn.

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I have a Bachelors in IT. Been in IT for 10 years now. Started off at Geek Squad, then to manufacturing company, then to medical, now been doing it for the Energy industry for about 5 years. I don’t have any certs and never actually had an employer ask about them or require them. I’ve been starting to look into it though, will go with Microsoft ones along with security and cloud.

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both if possible, stay where you are as long as you can to build experience.

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Having gone to school for a BA in MIS and then later worked to get certs I say experience is most important then certs 2nd. Degree is the least important. My expensive BA (with no experience) did not get me hired even though the school was known for having one of the best MIS programs in the country. The only thing my degree really did for me was to make it easier to move into managerial roles after I had the experience to back it up.

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A lot of times you can achieve both in a college setting. At Fort Hays State University they train you to get your CCNA and you end up with a Tech degree also. My stance is though degrees don’t expire.

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What he (or she as case may be) said. I’ve been in the game a long time and the only two certifications I have are A+ and Network+. I have a degree, but it’s not IT. I’ve gotten where I am by always learning and then proving I can do the job. Customer service skills are a must. I’ll take someone who has a fair to middlin’ skill set but great customer service and a teachable attitude over a know-it-all supergeek with lousy CS.

If you don’t already have a degree, I’d lean that direction because a degree (in whatever) field can help keep your resume from hitting the dustbin as soon as it gets in HR’s door. Certifications help in this regard too, but not as much. Networking (in the business sense, not IT) has become more and more crucial these days. I’m in my present job because of it. I get to go to work, play with cool toys all day and occasionally something useful pops out. And they pay me for it. How cool is that?

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I come from a different era so my perspective on this is different. I come from a time when there was no computer science degrees. If you wanted to get into computers, you took an Electrical Engineering major.

I have a Bachelors and Masters in Civil Engineering, Transportation Concentration. My formal computer training was one semester of FORTRAN. I got the bug. Began learning other stuff on my own and was able to apply my learning in my jobs as a Civil Engineer.

But the bug grew stronger, and I got out of Civil Engineering, took the plunge, and went to work for one of the first UNIX startups (learning C directly from Kernighan and Richie at Bell Labs). Since then over the course of 37 years, I’ve learned more technologies than I ever thought I would and took on more different tech jobs than I could ever imagine. All based on hands-on experience.

It’s a different world out there now, and I don’t know that I can relate to it. As a hiring Director now, I have no interest in someone’s formal education or their certs. I look for experience and, most importantly, curiosity and the desire to play in the sandbox. I have hired people with all the paper in the world who turned out to be complete busts because of a lack of curiosity, common sense, and inability to think outside of their preconceived norms.

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I think it really depends on how you learn and where you’re wanting to go. There are some occupations where you have to have a 4+ year degree (teacher, nurse, lawyer, etc) but unless you’re looking to go into management I don’t think IT is one of them. From personal painful experience (and I know many many others), college debt is crippling, period. Is $500+ a month for the next 30 years really worth the benefit? Hardly.

If you are a self starter and can manage yourself, study your butt off. Get certifications, not necessarily for the paper, but for the knowledge. A degree and certifications can’t hurt, but in the end, experience is king. Buy equipment, build a lab. Hang around people who know more than you and ask questions. Ask for more responsibility at work and take every opportunity you can get to learn. There are so many great resources online these days you can learn until your head explodes (cbtnuggets, udemy, codecademy, etc)! if you really need the structure then take courses at a community college or if you want to be a developer go to one of those 6 month immersive software schools (it’s a sacrifice but I have a few friends who’ve done this and it paid off big time).

It takes perseverance and hard work, but you can get where you want to be without giving your soul and first child to the government :wink: It is also helpful to make sure you’re working for a company where you have the ability to interface with other IT departments (systems, network, security), and that you work directly for people who see your hard work and also have the ability to help you move up. Hope that helps!

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