subject: Comptia It Networking Courses - Update [print this page] If we didn't have a constant influx of well educated PC and network support personnel, commercial enterprise throughout the country (and around the world) could well be drawn to a standstill. There is an on-going requirement for technicians to support both the users themselves and their networks. Due to the progressively daunting complexities of technology, greater numbers of IT professionals are required to run the many areas we've become dependent on.
Beware of putting too much emphasis, as many people do, on the training course itself. Training is not an end in itself; you're training to become commercially employable. Begin and continue with the end in mind. It's a testament to the marketing skills of the big companies, but a great many students begin programs that seem amazing from the prospectus, but which delivers a career that is of no interest at all. Talk to many college leavers to see what we mean.
Make sure you investigate your leanings around earning potential, career development, plus your level of ambition. It's vital to know what (if any) sacrifices you'll need to make for a particular role, which accreditations are required and in what way you can develop commercial experience. Your likely to need help from an experienced person that can best explain the sector you think may suit you, and who can offer 'A day in the life of' synopsis of what you actually do on the job. These things are very important as you'll need to know whether or not you've chosen correctly.
Students often end up having issues because of one area of their training which doesn't even occur to them: The method used to 'segment' the courseware before being couriered to your address. You may think that it makes sense (with training often lasting 2 or 3 years to gain full certified status,) for a training company to release the courseware in stages, as you pass each element. However: Often, the staged breakdown pushed by the company's salespeople doesn't suit all of us. What if you find it hard to complete all the elements inside their defined time-scales?
Truth be told, the best option is to obtain their recommendation on the best possible order of study, but to receive all the materials up-front. You then have everything in the event you don't complete everything quite as quick as they'd want.
Validated simulation materials and exam preparation packages are essential - and really must be obtained from your training company. Be sure that the simulated exams aren't just asking you the right questions on the right subjects, but ask them in the same way that the proper exam will structure them. It really messes up students if the questions are phrased in unfamiliar formats. Always ask for exam preparation tools that will allow you to check your understanding along the way. Simulated or practice exams prepare you properly - then you won't be quite so nervous at the actual exam.
Commercial qualifications are now, most definitely, beginning to replace the older academic routes into the industry - but why has this come about? The IT sector now acknowledges that for an understanding of the relevant skills, proper accreditation from companies such as CISCO, Adobe, Microsoft and CompTIA often is more effective in the commercial field - for much less time and money. They do this by concentrating on the skills that are really needed (along with a proportionate degree of associated knowledge,) as opposed to covering masses of the background 'padding' that academic courses can get bogged down in (because the syllabus is so wide).
As long as an employer knows what they're looking for, then all it takes is an advert for a person with the appropriate exam numbers. Vendor-based syllabuses all have to conform to the same requirements and don't change between schools (in the way that degree courses can).
