From Vince Chin |
 |
| IT Courses... In my last article, I mentioned that three drivers had asked me what was the best course in IT as they were contemplating leaving our beloved trade! It's a hard question to answer and depends upon the person. I'll supply details of IT/Telecoms skills that I feel can earn a decent living and where there'll always be a call for these skills. I'm afraid that this subject may be rather boring for some readers, in fact I could fill numerous columns discussing the merits of certain skills and technologies, but I'm sure Alan Fisher would very soon stop asking me for articles...! First of all, you don't need a degree to get into IT (although it does help a lot). My path into IT started at a small IT college in Forest Hill learning C and C++ (pronounced plus plus) and then on to the South Bank University eventually graduating with a 2:1 honours degree - a lot of back handers, some would say! You don't have to take that arduous task - unless you want to work in Switzerland... There are certain skills in IT / Telecoms that are in short supply, these include Programmers, Database Administrators and Network Engineers. My favourite place for job hunting is http://www.jobserve.co.uk . It is an excellent resource for establishing what skills are currently in demand. But what programming language should you learn? There are numerous languages and which one you decide to learn depends upon your own current IT knowledge and how confident you are. If you use any Windows platform, an excellent language to learn is Microsoft's Visual Basic (VB). It has now matured into an exceptional general-purpose language. You can knock-up an application in no time at all and that also is its inherent disadvantage. If you're not properly trained in Software Design and Development, you can develop an application, but you may not realise that your application is a nightmare to maintain and just won't scale (grow). Two popular IT Training schools are: Learning Tree, http://www.learningtree.co.uk/ and Parity Training, http://www.paritytraining.co.uk/. I've attended Learning Tree classes and can speak from personal experience, the guys that taught Oracle were first class; they really knew their subject |
because they
worked in IT and taught occasionally. I've been told by
many colleagues that Parity Training is also extremely good, visit both
their sites and request a catalogue.
JAVA v Visual Basics Good Looking or Not? Who Decides! See you next month... |
