ITT Seminar
May. 20th, 2011 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elliondrkToday, I went to the school to hear a guest speaker from UPMC. Five years ago, she graduated from the same campus that I go to (well, back then it would have been in a different city, but same campus none the less). She's apart of UPMC's Linux team, and came to tell some of us about what it's like in the IT field, and offered advice on how to get into the field. I took notes, now I share.
She first started off with life in IT. This is going to vary from company to company. She stated to get anywhere, get a degree higher than an Associate's. This is true. The good jobs come into play when it's Bachelor's and higher. (I plan on going for my Master's). Then again, there are some good ones that can be had by an Associate's, but she said that they are too few and far between. She also said the work can be rough, and one will likely work way more than 40 hours a week.
One of the biggest things she emphasized on was to be versatile. She even said "Do not be a Windows fanboy/girl." There are *way* too many Windows specialists out there, and a lot of the Microsoft Certifications are laughed at. (Still not bad to have, but yes, too many Windows people out there.) Linux is a good thing to learn, and one of the best ways is to download an .iso of Suse, Red Hat (Fedora since it's free), or Ubuntu, don't add a GUI, and practice different things on a Virtual or Test Machine. She also said Database is really hot, so refreshing on MySQL and writing queries is a good idea.
Another thing that was emphasized is that one has to have a passion for this sort of work. This means researching and staying on top of new technologies in spare time. It is important to keep learning since technology is always changing.
She then went to talk about how to get experience, and this is going to help me most, I think. She mentioned two things. First, if there's a job that you know you're better than, go for it anyway. Sure, it may suck and be shitty, but once one starts getting experience, it'll be MUCH easier to get something better. Secondly, she said to research internships. ...I have a meeting about internships on Monday in career services.
I'll actually make another post sometime soon on the same subject. I plan on typing up the notes I took down at some point this weekend, so I'll actually post those too.
She first started off with life in IT. This is going to vary from company to company. She stated to get anywhere, get a degree higher than an Associate's. This is true. The good jobs come into play when it's Bachelor's and higher. (I plan on going for my Master's). Then again, there are some good ones that can be had by an Associate's, but she said that they are too few and far between. She also said the work can be rough, and one will likely work way more than 40 hours a week.
One of the biggest things she emphasized on was to be versatile. She even said "Do not be a Windows fanboy/girl." There are *way* too many Windows specialists out there, and a lot of the Microsoft Certifications are laughed at. (Still not bad to have, but yes, too many Windows people out there.) Linux is a good thing to learn, and one of the best ways is to download an .iso of Suse, Red Hat (Fedora since it's free), or Ubuntu, don't add a GUI, and practice different things on a Virtual or Test Machine. She also said Database is really hot, so refreshing on MySQL and writing queries is a good idea.
Another thing that was emphasized is that one has to have a passion for this sort of work. This means researching and staying on top of new technologies in spare time. It is important to keep learning since technology is always changing.
She then went to talk about how to get experience, and this is going to help me most, I think. She mentioned two things. First, if there's a job that you know you're better than, go for it anyway. Sure, it may suck and be shitty, but once one starts getting experience, it'll be MUCH easier to get something better. Secondly, she said to research internships. ...I have a meeting about internships on Monday in career services.
I'll actually make another post sometime soon on the same subject. I plan on typing up the notes I took down at some point this weekend, so I'll actually post those too.