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NEED EXPERIENCE

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by erick.l.roberts

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If any one is willing to help or mentor me it would be greatly appreciated. I need guidance on how to enter the IT field as a DBA/Programmer. I deal solely with MS Access at work so I am restricted. I need experience, I will take it in any form. I have 1 yr left at Devry university, but still need applicable experience to be marketable. I am in the US Navy awaiting seperation (1 1/2 yrs left). Any guidance or projects would help. Thanks.

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by why me worry?

The 90s' were a good time for IT because there was high demand for entry level IT professionals and the opportunities were abound to get your hands dirty in many areas of technology. The same is not true now, as many companies have gotten very arrogant and to the point of being outright out of their minds in terms of skills any given candidate must posses. Also, the salaries they are offering for all these wanted skills are enough to infuriate even the most entry level person. Given your situation, you need to network with people and find a job through a mutual acquaintance. Since you are just starting out in the field, it's now what you know but who you know and more importantly, who knows you. I have a profound respect for you guys who server in the milotary, because it takes a person with nerves of steel and a thick skin to endure the rigorous boot camp training and the chaos of real combat situations. Also, you may want to post a resume on the most searched job boards, like Hotjobs, Monster, and Dice and take advantage of IT recruiters to find something suitable for you. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

by tony hopkinson

though you are more likely to use that skill as a power user.
You need to get some stuff under your belt as a programmer. Small contracts for locals, community work, may be for the university, open source, shareware etc.
If you want to be a DBA, then you've got to get some certs, otherwise you won't even get looked at for an entry level position.

Try and move yourself away from access, to more professional technologies.

by erick.l.roberts

Thanks to all who have provided advice here. I have just receied work from an individual on sorceforge.net that said they will mentor me throughout their projects life cyclce. It is a good step in the right direction. Thanks again.

by tony hopkinson

/*
Written By Erick L Roberts
On 11/4/2007
*/

A tip, readable code.

If you look at your code and think I better put some comments in about HOW it works, look at changing the code so there's less need of a comment.

Comments about why are ok, what acceptable, how should be minimal to non-existent though.

by dr dij

you can download Oracle for free. DB2 also.
Download, get to reading and writing database tables in vb, java.. usually chapter fourteen in any book. Also for dba should know how to use utils to import / export data. you should know at least some report writing.

installing lots of major packages can clog up your system. get ghost or equiv and image your system boot drive incase installing something causes flakyness.

also use access to link to the oracle, sql server or mysql or db2 tables. I use this in report writing in crystal. easier to verify the data via links in access, as it doesn't need to retrieve the whole table.

download powerdesigner and try for 30 days to try their database modeling (30% of market they say) - these are UML models.

join acm.org or ieee (computer.org)
and run thru their online courses on database admin and backup. (each about $100 per year).
mindleaders.com also has similar courses online.
books24x7.com is expensive but less than the price of a few dead tree versions of books. Thousands of hardcore IT books. for example, 22 books with 'DBA' in title, 109 with 'database' in title.

ACm and IEEE offer a subset of these books free with membership but the full subscription is better. acm also offers o'reilly books for free included with membership.

also browse ittoolbox.com
there are a vast # of discussion groups segmented by IT topic and IT career topic. you might look at the career aspect where people discuss how and where to train. the actual topic is people in the job area discussing. for example
http://database.ittoolbox.com/
http://search.ittoolbox.com/technical-groups?r=dba

after all this, if you want try for one or two certs in dba area (such as oracle's)

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