Low voltage Technician benefits as first job?

rj1790

Hi guys, I am currently looking for my first IT job but all I have is my A+ and no degree. I am currently enrolled in a community college were they have an "internship" for low voltage cabling(basically pulling cable for the superbowl). I was wondering if this project will be beneficial to me or am I wasting my time? I don't want to be in a construction environment but if its beneficial I will do it. Any suggestions or experiences with this?

jrcarr2

Is it a paid internship? Do you need the money?

It's not a bad skill to have, but it's not entirely necessary either. What do you plan on doing in IT?

Like you said you'll mostly be pulling cable, possibly terminating punch blocks or keystone jacks. At best you might get a chance to use a higher end cable tester.

rj1790

Yes its a paid internship for Levis Stadium for superbowl 50. I actually have a non IT job working full time in manufacturing which I am trying to get out of. Im interested in Networking and also Systems. My goal at the moment it to get my foot in the door.

jrcarr2

So I work in a service provider/telco environment so I don't really have experience for an MSP or medium sized IT environment. The only times I've had to run cable was in a small company, we did this at Walmarts, local schools and small business. This was in addition to the small computer store business that the owner ran.

I've also done it as an employee in an unrelated role for a small business simply because I knew how. Other than at home, I don't deal with it any more. Our technicians in our switching centers and out at the cell sites may use these skills most often. But all of the NOC, network admin, system admin and data center administration positions don't use much of the low voltage electrical skills. Regardless, as most low voltage stuff still often requires a license we contract out most of it anyway.

I don't think it would really be worth it as a resume building position unless you needed the money. I'd look for an entry level NOC position or something similar.

Priston

When I was finishing up community college studying networking technologies. I ran into the problem of needing experience to find a job to get experience. After looking for an IT job for several months I got a job as a structured cabling technician (low voltage technician). After working as a cabling technician for about 2 years, I finally got a job as a rack and stack technician (running cabling and racking equipment in a lab data center). I was able to work along side network admins and sys admins and after 2-3 years I was promoted to a network administrator.

Any experience is better than no experience.

Remedymp

Use the experience from that, get your Network+ and then get your CCNA: Data Center cert and you will become a very valuable player in the game.

Because it's the Superbowl, it wouldn't be far fetched for an NFL team to hire you as a network admin for the franchise itself.

nachodba

That actually sounds very far fetched.

Remedymp

nachodba wrote: »

That actually sounds very far fetched.

I know of people who have done exactly that. From my experience, it's not uncommon that a person in that (temp) role to be offered an opportunity as a Jr. network admin position. Might not pay a lot, but it's a start.

.

nachodba

Remedymp wrote: »

Because it's the Superbowl, it wouldn't be far fetched for an NFL team to hire you as a network admin for the franchise itself.

That is the far fetched part.

Of course people get jobs from working in a temp role, but I can almost guarantee that the people who make the decisions about hiring the network staff for an NFL franchise will be nowhere near the Superbowl.

Priston

I'd agree with nachobda. On construction sites I only see construction workers. On some job sites I'd occasionally see a small group of people with suits, ties, and hard hats walking around pointing at stuff.

Since it's renovating a football stadium. I would think the majority of the cabling during the renovation would be for security cameras.

TWX

I spent a couple of years as an Infrastructure Technician before moving into Networking. I dealt with everything from the workstation-cable at the PC to the service entrance fiber between the demarc and our WAN device.

You can learn a whole lot if you get to touch the right technology, and many of those skills are very useful when you're dealing with switches and other powered equipment. I've seen plenty of Network Engineers that couldn't differentiate a 10-32 screw from a 12-24, couldn't manage their patch cabling to make their IDFs tidy, didn't know to actually use a #3 Phillips bit on the larger screws to avoid stripping them out, and had never even heard of cleaning the fiber optic cables and optics before connecting them.

If all you're doing is serving as a cable-monkey, pulling unterminated twisted-pair through existing penetrations, J-hooks, conduit, and raceway, and someone else is creating all of the penetrations and doing all of the terminating and equipment racking and patching then it's really probably not going to help you all that much other than to determine if you want to possibly go more in-depth, but if you can learn how to terminate a patch panel or a jack or how to keep the cables straight and to properly dress the cabling and establish service loops then it might do okay for you.

If you do it and if they don't give you guidance, get GOOD shoes. I straddled the line between office and blue-collar, I wore "Dunham" shoes from New Balance. You want a hard rubber sole that doesn't flex much while you're standing on ladder rungs. If you attempt to wear sneakers or other soft-soled shoes your feet will absolutely kill you by the end of a shift. You want that sole to provide relatively even support on your feet so that no one spot bears all of your weight. You'll also want to have leather gloves available and possibly safety glasses. It's unlikely these things would be provided even if they do provide tools.

TechGromit

rj1790 wrote: »

Hi guys, I am currently looking for my first IT job but all I have is my A+ and no degree. I am currently enrolled in a community college were they have an "internship" for low voltage cabling(basically pulling cable for the superbowl). I was wondering if this project will be beneficial to me or am I wasting my time? I don't want to be in a construction environment but if its beneficial I will do it. Any suggestions or experiences with this?

I see pretty much anything new in the field you want to work in as a chance to expand your horizons. This one project proably will not led to anything, but if you do a good job, maybe the next time the contractor that is doing the work might hire you again for another project. Since you have no experience, you roll would proably be limited to moving boxes of cabes around, assisting with the cable pulls, ensuring there are no jams that can damage the cabling. I wouldn't think they would trust you with terminating the cabling, let alone give you a 10k cable tester to use. I say do it, if they offered me the chance to help wire for the superbowl, so long as it wasn't more than a few days work, I'd take a couple of vacation days where I work and do it (so long as they paid me of course). I can't say I ever did cabling work for the superbowl, but I did install cat. 5 cabling for 10 patch panels at the Washington DC Air Routing Traffic Control Center (ARTCC).

Priston wrote: »

Any experience is better than no experience.

I concur.