Brand New to IT: Where to Start?

Scarpanooch

Hello all,
I recently have joined this forum and am very excited to start soaking up as much information as I can. Right now, I am 18 years old and my only tech experience is building PCs and coding in Java, HTML, and VB. I'm currently in college, but am only allowed to take one course and its simple Java Programming. Right now I'm looking for help and information on how to get a footing in this constantly evolving field. I'm hoping to try to gain job experience as early as possible (since all employers are looking for it or better yet treating it like a requirement) but in order to get a job I need to have at least some base information so I can hold myself over in an interview. Basically I'm trying to figure out what are the most useful and sought after skills in the IT field.

• Book Recommendations?
• Entry-Level Jobs?
• Should I even think about the possibility of a certification?

I understand due to my age I might not be able to acquire a job, but even an internship would be extremely beneficial. The main issue is with no base knowledge, trying to acquire an internship is difficult. For anyone willing to help me out I give my utmost thanks and truly appreciate it.

Cyberscum

https://www.cybrary.it/

Start with Net+ and go from there.

636-555-3226

Hot, hard-to-fill roles in my area are security (duh), SharePoint, SCCM, cloud (AWS/O365). Hope it helps!

Mow

What are your goals? Can't ask for directions unless you tell us your destination. There are many disciplines that fall under the IT Industry Umbrella.

bpenn

What interests you the most? Do you want to become a programmer? If so, grab a bachelors in computer science and find some languages you like and stick with them (like Java, if you enjoy it). Demand for software development, etc. is high and finding a job shouldnt be too hard for you.

Shoe Box

Certifications? Absolutely. If you are going to be a hardware person at all, like Desktop Support, Networking, etc, certs will give you a decent educational foundation. Normally I'd tell you to bypass the CompTIA certs and go for the Cisco CCT to get started, but if you are a complete noob to the hardware side, maybe an A+ and Network+ would be a good idea.

But if you intend to go into programming, I don't know about certifications for that. It's more what you can do on the keyboard.

Scarpanooch

Thank you all for your advice so far! I signed up for cybrary.it, it looks like an awesome resource! Since I haven't worked too much in IT specifically, I'm not currently able to specify what interests me the most. I enjoy working in an IDE and developing software, but I feel the same way with hardware. The only issue is I've only worked with software in a classroom environment and hardware at my house. Once I delve deeper hopefully I'll find a preference, still thank you all for your help. I hope I can give back to the forum as well!

paul78

Welcome to TE - I think what you will find with open-ended questions is that the advice you will get from an anonymous forum is likely to be based on someone's own personal experience.

If you enjoy developing software and also hardware, I would suggest focusing on the software side first. Ideally, since you are in college, look for software engineering classes that you can take. I would suggest avoiding the web development classes but instead focus on the core engineering classes if those are available. In my experience, if you have a good foundation with software engineering - it would be a lot simpler to decide on your future. Unless you plan to be an electrical engineer, if you intend to be in IT, all hardware you will ever use is basically running software developed by software engineers.


Hope that makes sense.

Shoe Box

Go on Udemy, a site that has lots of training videos, and look for CCENT / CCNA and other courses by Lazaro Diaz. I've gotten a few of his courses when they were on sale and I like his teaching style. There are free previews so you can see a couple with no money invested.