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I would like to know from my fellow IT Spiceheads where I should start at as far as getting into a career in IT. I would like to have a job in system admin or network admin. Being that the IT world is Cert driven, is a degree necessary?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

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A degree is certainly not necessary (lots of us, like me, skipped them.) The industry is experience and skill, not cert, driven though. Certs are useful, but they only get you in the door.

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The very first thing you need to do is determine your career path. System Admin and Network Admin are both enterprise-only job categories (neither exists, except for extreme exceptions, in the SMB market or communities like Spiceworks that are focused on the SMB.) You’ll find people with those titles, but not doing those jobs. SMB titles can be anything.

If you want to be a Sys Admin, your career path is rather different than if you want to be a Network admin. Deciding on your goals first lets you focus on learning the skills that will get you there.

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The first thing that you want to do is get your foot in the door, that could mean being an intern or a volunteer, and get your career clock ticking.

http://www.storagecraft.com/blog/experience-vs-education/

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Learning on your own is going to be huge. Certs can be a great way to drive yourself forward and to make you learn new things. But think of them as primarily learning tools, not value on their own. Getting the cert does have value, but generally pretty little.

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I always recommend that anyone wanting to be in IT start with the CompTIA Network+ certification. It has become the entry level, general purpose cert for IT. The knowledge in it is applicable to every (or nearly every) job in IT. So a great, general starting point. You need to do that little bit before worrying about specializing.

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Holy mother wall of SAM posts!

A degree isn’t necessary, experience is. You want to be an admin but have you worked in the industry at all? You have to start somewhere.

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In theory, and I’ve seen it happen, one can leap from “guy who never worked before” to “junior system admin.” It’s rare, but SA does have some entry point jobs. Generally they go to people with extensive personal experience (huge learning at home or whatever) and a lot of certs that are very specific and just generally good people skills that can pull off an interview really well. If you go out and get the Net+, an MCSE, maybe some BrainBench stuff to round it out, the Security+ as a nice cherry on the top and have an impressive portfolio of educational projects that you have done on your own, you could pull off going straight into SA work.

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Thanks for the quick replies!

I currently work with my county in their IT department. My job title is Field Technician but the job description has changed to more of IT. I work with databases, learning Linux and hardware support for different dept’s in the county.I was just wondering where to start so that I could try to get a grant to go to school and get on the right track.

This has help me anthems!

Thanks Spiceheads!

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Even with a grant and totally free ride, I’m not sure I’d go to school. That takes time, time that you could be learning things to get ahead in your career. School is never free, it comes with a huge cost of lost opportunity. For some people it works out, or appears to (how can they know how far ahead they would be if they hadn’t gone) but on average the numbers show that school pretty much has little to no chance of paying off over your lifetime.

I’d do nearly anything else other than burning myself out for four years.

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Then choosing your goals is bit. Cisco Network Admin? Windows Admin? Red Hat Admin? Suse Admin? Ubuntu Admin? DBA? Make that decision and get started on a path.

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I’d also suggest looking for an entry-level helpdesk position at a smaller business, and I always suggest local banks/credit unions. You’ll get the chance to work one-on-one with lots of different people and get exposure to lots of different problems and technologies. When you’re doing helpdesk at a smaller business, you’ll more than likely get an overview of routing/switching, servers, Active Directory, virtualization, Exchange, database queries, VoIP systems, and all sorts of specialized software…and, you’ll probably get pulled in to assist on some of the bigger projects. It’s a great way to earn quality experience, learn, and help you determine if there is a particular niche that you would rather pursue.

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Don’t be afraid to volunteer, you may not see a financial gain, but since you’re early in your career the experience is as much a commodity.

I volunteered, freelanced, sometimes not making a steady income but I was living at home, living costs were low (cell phone bill and disposable)

Try getting familiar with different programs and solutions, having a large knowledge base is important as well.

One day you’ll hopefully get a decent paying IT gig, until then, don’t be afraid to pay your dues.