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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fett527" data-source="post: 2182625" data-attributes="member: 5458">OK. here's two different routes into the IT world.  My route and my brother's.  This may help people in either situation on how to get work experience.Me:Worked in retail/entertainment while starting Community College as I had no idea what I wanted to do.  Dabbled in this and that and eventually stopped school and was in retail management for about 4.5 years.  Had a friend who worked in IT and he started teaching me Windows/PC basics and I felt I had an interest and aptitude for it (this was mid-late '98).  I researched the best options for me and decided since I was going from 0 knowledge I needed some kind of basis for knowledge.  I decided that certification was the best route as it actually taught the hands-on stuff I was interested in.  I did not want to go the boot camp route and go the "paper" MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) road.  I decided on a technical/business college and took actual college coursework that taught the MS official curriculum and was taught by MCTs (Microsoft Certified Trainers) that worked in the industry.  This way I received real-world application as well as what I needed for the cert test.  I also knew that getting a job in the industry was critical.  I did this by getting A+ certified (after my intro hardware classes) and putting out resumes.  A lot of resumes.  I also went to job fairs whenever they came up.  I did get a job as a PC tech from a job fair (at the business college I was attending) and took a pay cut to get started (I knew I would have to do this and my wife and I prepared for it).  I will guarantee that I got that job due in large part to having work experience in addition to the certification- very important!  I moved on from that job and have now been working as a Network Administrator responsible for all computer/networking/telecom for my company's US office.I'll split my brother into a different post.</blockquote>

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