How?

Here's a start:

http://www.certmag.com

Let me share a story. I have a friend who is into a non-IT related company with little IT know-how. She resigned from work and was bum for the 1 year. She bought a whole set of books (4 core and 3 elective) for the MCSE exam and said to herself, 'Hey, I'm not working and doing anything so I might as well read books'. With her home PC and help from the books, she took all the exams in a year and became MCSE certified.

The moral of the story is, with proper motivation, even those with little IT experience can became MCSE's (with the help of books and simulation exams that goes along with them, of course)

The first decision you need to make is whether you want to go the Administrator route or the Applications Developer route. An administrator is usually responsible for a variety of systems, networks, databases, dealing with users, system crashes, hardware and software installations, people who use all kinds of foul language, and being permanently tied to the pager - often working day and night when things are in trouble. Application developers primarily develop application software - for the most part work in a team of developers, learn all kinds of applications, programming languages, and databases. Applications folks are almost always under an incredible deadline because whoever makes up the deadline is usually not the type of person who knows what's involved. There can also be a certain amount of user interaction, but its usually different.

continued
If you want to be an administrator - I hate to beat up these other people, it
takes a lot more than just one certification to really make a good
administrator. It takes good problem solving skills, good people skills, good
technical knowledge in networks, databases, operating systems, etc. So just
one operating system (i.e. the MCSE) isn't the ticket. That's why when you
read this forum and someone says I have my CCNA now what - well, they aren't
quite well rounded enough, and there's still an long way to go.
It's actually for your own protection anyway, because the administrator is
always the one who's called upon whenever there's trouble, and the one who's
head is on the chopping block. Hey, you want reality right? This is what I do
every day.
As far as the other people - the coders - well It's a great job for them, but
not for me - you have to know what YOU want to do. I'll never be a coder. No
desire. Plus, I'm too much of a perfectionist. I'd havea hard time meeting
the deadlines. But, a lot of these folks really enjoy this work - talk to a
few and see what they think. Personally, I think you have a better shot at
staying employed as an applications developer because the skills are more
portable and you aren't tied to a vendor. As an administrator, you are tied to
vendors and if the vendor goes belly up, so does your whole career.

Hi There,

Starting for scratch, you are not. You have many years of hardware/software experience, right? If that means you are a gamer, it's time to get serious.

Get A+ certified, that should be easy for you. Shoot for a PC Technician position and run it for 6months to a year. During that time, get network certified...Net+, Server+, Windows2000Pro/Server (XP Die!! 8-)

You have to plan a progression track of certification and experience. If you think someone will hire you to administer their network because you got your MSCE, it's possible, but not likely. You need experience as well, so do it in lock step.

Lastly, have an ultimate goal. The previous response was correct in stating take a strong look at the hardware(network) software(apps developer) sides of the field and try to stick with it. Apps developers pretty much have to go thru 4-yr Univ classes to get that background, its not something you can get from tech schools (as far as I have seen). If you are good at self instruction, have some bucks and time for home courses and EXPENSIVE program languages, go for it. If not, hardware/networking maybe your best bet.

Sincerely

Rob Michaels
PC Tech

This question was auto closed due to inactivity