IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[↓R↑LYB]

Ok
Yea I am going into government work so im getting the security plus..

I'll change the network plus to ccna then. Im doing this all through the military so I have a lotof shyt at my fingertips

of all the nikkas in this thread who actually have careers, you're gonna take advice from a dude who's career plan is to master html and CSS?

There's more than enough cats in here who have years of experience who you could ask for advice than that nikka

Here's advice breh. Figure out where in IT you wanna be. If you wana go the networking/server route, get your A+ and focus on getting a help desk/pc tech job. All of the other certs will be a waste of time because no company is gonna hire someone with no experience and only certs. After you pass the A+, come back in this thread and I can give you better advice.

I have about 9 years of experience, a bunch of high level certs, and I'm making 200k/yr right now so I might now what I'm talking about

And don't listen to that nikka @kevm3 when it comes to IT career advice unless

 

[FreshFromATL]

of all the nikkas in this thread who actually have careers, you're gonna take advice from a dude who's career plan is to master html and CSS?

There's more than enough cats in here who have years of experience who you could ask for advice than that nikka

Here's advice breh. Figure out where in IT you wanna be. If you wana go the networking/server route, get your A+ and focus on getting a help desk/pc tech job. All of the other certs will be a waste of time because no company is gonna hire someone with no experience and only certs. After you pass the A+, come back in this thread and I can give you better advice.

I have about 9 years of experience, a bunch of high level certs, and I'm making 200k/yr right now so I might now what I'm talking about

And don't listen to that nikka @kevm3 when it comes to IT career advice unless

You didn't have to be so mean, breh

 

[Blackking]

It's taking a while, but I'm finally starting to get an idea of how to progress. First I'm going to master HTML/CSS... HTML is extremely simple, so that shouldn't be too difficult. CSS isn't that difficult from what I've seen of it. Then on to Javascript/HTML5 and I'll probably mix it in with PHP and SQL (MySQL).

By the way, if you are looking for a sale on some nice courses, including ones on ccna and different programming, check out:

https://www.udemy.com/u/infiniteskills

the courses are $10 if you use the coupon 10deal

jquery - ajax

 

[FreshFromATL]

Well I'm already going for a degree in computer science/ programming.
So I'll assume that would be ruled out.
Though if I can get certs in certain programming languages then
I'll gladly go handle that too

You need to figure out what the fukk you wanna do. If you want to be a programmer/developer, certs SHOULD NOT be in your vocabulary. Also, if you a CS student, they gonna have you doing a lot of shyt in the curriculum that you WILL NOT do in industry. My advice is to work with a high-level language from the jump (C# or Java), and learn how to use the frameworks and libraries available to you. In college, they make you write shyt like bubble sort and linear search algorithms and take classes for that shyt. You may think you a boss writing them shyts only to come out of school and see you nikkas that never been to college ahead of you because they know how to use the libraries where that code has already been written . In industry, you NEED to know the frameworks because most of that code has been written for you already.

To learn to program, you need to...

1. Learn the fundamentals - (variable, data types, reference types/primitive types, iteration/repetition (while, for, do/while, foreach), selection (if, if/else, switching).
2. know when to use different data structures (arrays, Lists, stacks, queues, dictionary/maps, sets, etc.)
3. Have a CLEAR understanding of OOP.
4. Know how to navigate through the framework/library of the language because most code have been written for you.
5. Don't get too drowned into a language because 5 years from now that shyt could be obsolete. Just learn enough to write good code and keep it moving. People that become masters of a language and only know how to use THAT language can be in for a rude awakening when they gotta learn something new (old C/C++ developers trying to learn new languages and OOP concepts).

 

[Insensitive]

You need to figure out what the fukk you wanna do. If you want to be a programmer/developer, certs SHOULD NOT be in your vocabulary. Also, if you a CS student, they gonna have you doing a lot of shyt in the curriculum that you WILL NOT do in industry. My advice is to work with a high-level language from the jump (C# or Java), and learn how to use the frameworks and libraries available to you. In college, they may you write shyt like bubble sort and linear search algorithms and take classes for that shyt. In industry, you NEED to know the frameworks because most of that code has been written for you already.

To learn to program, you need to...

1. Learn the fundamentals - (variable, data types, reference types/primitive types, iteration/repetition (while, for, do/while, foreach), selection (if, if/else, switching).
2. know when to use different data structures (arrays, Lists, stacks, queues, dictionary/maps, sets, etc.)
3. Have a CLEAR understanding of OOP.
4. Know how to navigate through the framework/library of the language because most code have been written for you.

I know what I want to do.
I just remember several posters saying that IT Certs was
a way to potentially make decent cash while getting a degree
so I decided to check out IT Certs.

if getting some IT certs isn't viable then
I'll stick to this programming.

Since you in school, you gonna need FREE tools at your disposal. Go to https://www.dreamspark.com/
That is Microsoft's website for college students and they provide you with ALL of their developer tools for FREE. I'm taking about the FULL Visual Studio 2013 for FREE. That shyt costs thousands of $$. You can download that and start creating apps and shyt. You can download SQL Server for free and get busy. They also have FREE courses on Microsoft-related certs. Also, once you have your dreamspark account, you can get access to pluralsight for free for 3 months

I'll check this out.

I've done a few things in Java and Python
but I'll definitely check out this out.

 

[kevm3]

I'm going to spend some time compiling different resources, both free and low cost, to help people get the information they need.

 

[FreshFromATL]

I know what I want to do.
I just remember several posters saying that IT Certs was
a way to potentially make decent cash while getting a degree
so I decided to out IT Certs.

if getting some IT certs isn't viable then
I'll stick to this programming.

Since you in school, you gonna need FREE tools at your disposal. Go to https://www.dreamspark.com/
That is Microsoft's website for college students and they provide you with ALL of their developer tools for FREE. I'm taking about the FULL Visual Studio 2013 for FREE. That shyt costs thousands of $$. You can download that and start creating apps and shyt. You can download SQL Server for free and get busy. They also have FREE courses on Microsoft-related certs. Also, once you have your dreamspark account, you can get access to pluralsight for free for 3 months

 

[↓R↑LYB]

You didn't have to be so mean, breh

I'm drunk so I give 0 fukks right now. But still though, if you're not in IT, don't give dudes advice on what they should or should not do.

 

[kevm3]

Yup, I had to go ahead and grab the javascript courses.... one that specifically covers jquery in depth and an overall overview of javascript which has ajax included. Javascript is looking like an extremely important language to learn if you're going to do web development since it is so expansive that it can do server-side programming via node.js... so instead of having to learn something like ruby on rails, django(python) or php for server-side programming, you may be able to learn javascript and then utilize a framework like node.js.

Anyone looking to get into web development? I'd like to start a small group so we can learn this sort of thing together.

If you're too lazy to look through it yourself, here are some of the more significant courses that might interest people on here. If it interests you, make sure to use that coupon and start investing in your education.


FREE
MySQL and PHP Tutorial
https://www.udemy.com/php-mysql-tutorial/


$10 if you use the code 10deal

C++ for Beginners
https://www.udemy.com/learn-c/

Windows Server 2012 Certification
https://www.udemy.com/server-2012-exam-70-410-tutorial/

TCP/IP Training
https://www.udemy.com/tcp-ip-training/

CCNA Training 1
https://www.udemy.com/cisco-640-816-icnd2-exam-training-made-easy/

Beginner's Ruby Programming
https://www.udemy.com/ruby-programming/">Beginner's Ruby Programming

VMWare and V-Sphere Admin Tutorial
https://www.udemy.com/vmware-esxi-and-vsphere-admin-tutorial/

Cisco ISDN-1 Training
https://www.udemy.com/cisco-100-101-icnd1-exam-training/

Cisco ISDN-2 Training
https://www.udemy.com/cisco-200-101-icnd2-exam-training/

Learning CSS 3
https://www.udemy.com/learning-css3/">

Learning Dynamic Website Design PHP, Javascript
https://www.udemy.com/learning-dynamic-website-design

Learning C# for Beginners
https://www.udemy.com/c-sharp-for-beginners/

Learn J-Query
https://www.udemy.com/jquery/

Learn HTML 5
https://www.udemy.com/learning-html5/

Learn MySQL 5
https://www.udemy.com/learning-mysql5/

Web Programming with Python
https://www.udemy.com/web-programming-with-python/

Ultimate Python Programming Course
https://www.udemy.com/the-ultimate-python-programming-course/

Advanced C++
https://www.udemy.com/advanced-c-programming/

Programming Javascript
https://www.udemy.com/programming-javascript/

Advanced Java
https://www.udemy.com/advanced-java-programming/

Advanced HTML 5
https://www.udemy.com/advanced-html5-for-web-developers/

 

[↓R↑LYB]

You need to figure out what the fukk you wanna do. If you want to be a programmer/developer, certs SHOULD NOT be in your vocabulary. Also, if you a CS student, they gonna have you doing a lot of shyt in the curriculum that you WILL NOT do in industry. My advice is to work with a high-level language from the jump (C# or Java), and learn how to use the frameworks and libraries available to you. In college, they make you write shyt like bubble sort and linear search algorithms and take classes for that shyt. You may think you a boss writing them shyts only to come out of school and see you nikkas that never been to college ahead of you because they know how to use the libraries where that code has already been written . In industry, you NEED to know the frameworks because most of that code has been written for you already.

To learn to program, you need to...

1. Learn the fundamentals - (variable, data types, reference types/primitive types, iteration/repetition (while, for, do/while, foreach), selection (if, if/else, switching).
2. know when to use different data structures (arrays, Lists, stacks, queues, dictionary/maps, sets, etc.)
3. Have a CLEAR understanding of OOP.
4. Know how to navigate through the framework/library of the language because most code have been written for you.
5. Don't get too drowned into a language because 5 years from now that shyt could be obsolete. Just learn enough to write good code and keep it moving. People that become masters of a language and only know how to use THAT language can be in for a rude awakening when they gotta learn something new (old C/C++ developers trying to learn new languages and OOP concepts).

I'm not a developer, but I do a lot of scripting and what the breh says is 100% right. The fundamentals is the most important. I started out learning vbscript and WSH and now I mostly do powershell but the fundamentals are still the same. Understanding OOP, basic coding fundamentals (memory management, error handling) is way more important than a cert (plus I don't think certs are really all that important for programmers, but I'm not sure). Whether you know C#, Ruby, Python, or some new language that will be all the rage 5 years from now, understanding the key concepts is what you need to focus on.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

I know what I want to do.
I just remember several posters saying that IT Certs was
a way to potentially make decent cash while getting a degree
so I decided to check out IT Certs.

if getting some IT certs isn't viable then
I'll stick to this programming.




I'll check this out.

I've done a few things in Java and Python
but I'll definitely check out this out.

Certs are important in certain areas of IT. I'm in security, so certs are very importantant. For programmers, I don't think it matters all that much. If you want to be a developer what I'd recommend is going on Monster, looking for jobs that pay 150k+ and seeing what skills/experience are required. Then your job is to make a plan to have those skills/experience in the next 5 years.

Always have a plan breh. Without it you'll be a IT cat making 40k with 45k in student loan debt

 

[kevm3]

You need to figure out what the fukk you wanna do. If you want to be a programmer/developer, certs SHOULD NOT be in your vocabulary. Also, if you a CS student, they gonna have you doing a lot of shyt in the curriculum that you WILL NOT do in industry. My advice is to work with a high-level language from the jump (C# or Java), and learn how to use the frameworks and libraries available to you. In college, they make you write shyt like bubble sort and linear search algorithms and take classes for that shyt. You may think you a boss writing them shyts only to come out of school and see you nikkas that never been to college ahead of you because they know how to use the libraries where that code has already been written . In industry, you NEED to know the frameworks because most of that code has been written for you already.

To learn to program, you need to...

1. Learn the fundamentals - (variable, data types, reference types/primitive types, iteration/repetition (while, for, do/while, foreach), selection (if, if/else, switching).
2. know when to use different data structures (arrays, Lists, stacks, queues, dictionary/maps, sets, etc.)
3. Have a CLEAR understanding of OOP.
4. Know how to navigate through the framework/library of the language because most code have been written for you.
5. Don't get too drowned into a language because 5 years from now that shyt could be obsolete. Just learn enough to write good code and keep it moving. People that become masters of a language and only know how to use THAT language can be in for a rude awakening when they gotta learn something new (old C/C++ developers trying to learn new languages and OOP concepts).

Nice overview, especially with the advice not to become too tethered to a language. I think language choice is really dependent on what you want to do as well. Obviously PHP and Javascript and it's derivatives for web development. Ruby and Python and their web frameworks for general programming with the ability to go onto the web. C/C++ for hardcore game programming. C# for game-programming using the unity library.

I think I'm going to focus on the development/programming side of things, just for the fact that I love creating. I read through one of those massive tomes on A+ and to me, the track seems wack. They don't tell exactly what you need to study for the A+ and a lot of it seems like computer trivia. Who cares how many pins are in such and such processor? All that time I'm wasting memorizing something I could easily look up in a table if needs be I could spend learning how to program and actually produce something. It was nice to learn a bunch of descriptive knowledge on computers, but I didn't really feel like after all of that, that I'd really have tangible skills. You learn a lot about computers, but not how to do anything with them.

 

[FreshFromATL]

Certs are important in certain areas of IT. I'm in security, so certs are very importantant. For programmers, I don't think it matters all that much. If you want to be a developer what I'd recommend is going on Monster, looking for jobs that pay 150k+ and seeing what skills/experience are required. Then your job is to make a plan to have those skills/experience in the next 5 years.

Always have a plan breh. Without it you'll be a IT cat making 40k with 45k in student loan debt

nikka just dropped the best advice you can possibly get. *daps*

 

[↓R↑LYB]

nikka just dropped the best advice you can possibly get. *daps*

This is exactly what I did when I started. I looked up network engineer gigs that payed 100k+ then bit they whole style. Best decision I ever made

 

[FreshFromATL]

Nice overview, especially with the advice not to become too tethered to a language. I think language choice is really dependent on what you want to do as well. Obviously PHP and Javascript and it's derivatives for web development. Ruby and Python and their web frameworks for general programming with the ability to go onto the web. C/C++ for hardcore game programming. C# for game-programming using the unity library.

I think I'm going to focus on the development/programming side of things, just for the fact that I love creating. I read through one of those massive tomes on A+ and to me, the track seems wack. They don't tell exactly what you need to study for the A+ and a lot of it seems like computer trivia. Who cares how many pins are in such and such processor? All that time I'm wasting memorizing something I could easily look up in a table if needs be I could spend learning how to program and actually produce something. It was nice to learn a bunch of descriptive knowledge on computers, but I didn't really feel like after all of that, that I'd really have tangible skills. You learn a lot about computers, but not how to do anything with them.

Get your plan going, breh. Udemy is a learning tool, but with all do respect, it's trash. I don't really see the value in a model of paying course by course to learn what you need. If you really trying to dive in and learn this technology, you need to hit up Lynda.com, get you an account for $25, per month, and then have access to a FULL library of videos for pretty much every relevant technology out there. Using Udemy, you hustling backwards. And last,, like I stated above, If you in college, you can use your school email to gain access to all of Microsoft's developer tools. And with that, you can get a free, 3-month trial to PluralSight.com, which is just as good as Lynda.com. Honestly, I'd hit up youtube before udemy.