Regarding technical certifications: they are worthless by themselves. Same thing for the non-degree technical schools. There are so many smart people out there with 4 year Computer Science degrees that that’s what you’ve got to have in order to get a job. The exception MIGHT be if you are a self-taught genius and have some work that you can show to back it up and know someone who can put in a good word for you – I worked with people like that in the past. Ideally, in order to land your first job you should have all of the above – a 4 year CS degree plus demonstrable experience of completing a project or two, even if it’s just for fun or unpaid.
I know several people who blew $10,000 or so going to “technical schools” to become Microsoft certified (MCSE) and were never able to get decent jobs in the IT field and ended up doing something else.
Another thing: before getting too far along in school you need to figure out what kind of IT job you want to get:
*Programmer
*Database Administrator
*Network Administrator
*Security Specialist
*Systems Analyst
Also, you have to have an idea of which platforms/languages you are aiming at becoming an expert in. Companies want degreed smart professionals WITH expertise in the technologies they are using. Companies do not want to train newbies. That went away when the dot-com bubble burst. Once you land you’re first job, it gets easier from there.
The reason 4-year CS degrees are valued by employers is that you can’t really get any depth of understanding in a 6 month training program. It really does take a lot of study to gain the neceessary depth and breadth to be successful. Plus, the ability to graduate with a CS degree requires a certain amount of commitment and IQ so employers feel it eliminates a certain amount (but not all) of the fakers.
I was a SQL Server DBA until I got out of IT a few years ago. In 1999/2000, a contract DBA could make 200K year. Companies were going under left and right, but you could always find another job very quickly. In 2001/2002, it got to a point where new contracts were virtually non-existent. The only jobs were full-time positions paying 65K-75K/year and they expected you to work 60+ hours per week and be on call 24/7. That’s when I left the field and never went back. My degree was in something else and I fell back on that and sort of worked my way back up in salary.
