Starting a career in IT

You need to known what your going to be supporting, sorry to say but if the only thing you know about is the dress code and you start in a week you have a lot to cover.

1. Go to the place your meant to start working for and ask can you sit with the I.T department or the department your going to be working for so you can get the feel of the place.

2. Take notes on everything, you need to know what systems, servers, network setup if you are going to do a good job.

3. You need to know what your going to support before you can start to learn you don't no what your going to support so thats your 1st step good luck.

they already know, you have some suitable technical skills and no workplace knowledge. Which strangely enough is the way we all go into a new job. :p

How they did it at your last place, is rarely how they do it at a new one.

A notepad, an open mind, and a willingness to work your ass off, should do fine.

Treat every one there from the cleaner 'upwards' as a useful resource.

My best tip, if they do something different to what you'd expect, ask them why. There's usually a reason (not always a good one), but generally an important one.

...."whatever you have to say, I'm excited to listen and learn from you all" and you should be okay. Too many people, newbies in particular, go into a new position already thinking they know everything. Allow yourself to be malleable, and you'll find that people will take to you much more readily.

Asides from that, I'd say to try and not go into the position with any expectations in terms of 'how it will go'. Invariably, reality will end up differing from anything you may have envisioned. I find it best to try and go to a 'zen place' before starting a new position, and let the chips fall as they may.

Best of luck!!

Learn everything that you can and keep learning. If someone uses a word or acronym that you don?t understand, ask. Use TechRepublic and Google at every opportunity, and avoid the pay sites like the plague, they often charge for content that is free elsewhere. Also, don?t avoid volunteering for something that looks good on a resume.

Oh, don?t take the Schuylkill after 4:00 PM.

In this era of outsourcing, the number one thing you need beyond excellent IT skills is deep knowledge of some business domain, so that you can become an active partner with people from the business side of the organization. If technical skills are all you have, then your job can be done equally well from Beijing or Bangalore. You want to have sufficiently close working relationships with people in the client organization that they place a high value on having you physically close to them.

Starting an "IT Co-op" with minimal experience ( 1 semester on school help desk ) is a big step. Factors that will assist or hinder your chance of success will be:

1.Find out as much about your target market as you possibly can, you need to know what services you can provide that potential customers can be reasonably be expected to want to pay for.

2. The caliber and experience of others who may join the co-op, you need people with skills that compliment the skills of the others in the co-op. You don't want a situation where you end up in direct competition with yourselves for available work. Working alongside the more experienced and an open mind can be beneficial to gaining knowledge and experience.

3. a factor to consider is how you are going to finance the initial start up period when you may have minimal income but many expenses as part of getting the co-op out there into your market. There have been many good business idea's that have failed due to lack of finance. Not having to rely on the co-op to provide an income to live on may make establishment easier.

4. Do your homework. find as much as you can about the business side of things, understand basic accounting and what records you are required to keep for tax purposed etc. Keep in the back of your mind at all times when the money comes in, it's not all yours, the tax man will want their cut as well.

5. Don't be scared of putting in the effort to learn as much as you can about as many different aspects of technology as you can. Learn to look at each problem you are presented with with no preconceived point of view. Books, internet etc if you take the time and put in the effort can be great tools, as it is highly unlikely you will come across problems that have not been encountered and solved by others.

6. To have any chance of success you will probably be required to work harder than you have ever needed to before, you will need to enjoy this type of work as in the beginning you will be working more for love than the money.

7. Understanding the concept of a "dress code " is a good concept , the first step towards becoming a professional outfit is to present yourself as a pro, but it is important to back this up with true professional service.

Good luck ,as if you go with this you will need all the luck you can get. There will be depressing times along with the good, try not to let them get you down. If in the end you meet with success or failure it will still be a positive experience, You are still young so the things you will gain from trying this in the long run will all be positive, eg. knowledge strength of character, work ethic. Give it your best shot, but don't be afraid to walk away if it does not work out, taking out the positives before being dragged down too far and then you will be able to take what you learn into something else.