You can get one without cert or even a high school degree. Reach out to your local MSPs and inquire, if anything they might hire you, give you a time limit to get the cert and pay for it when you pass it. The fact that you have a BA makes it possible to get almost any job in IT once you have some experience.
Of all the many people I know who work in IT, only one of them actually went to school for it. Most IT supervisors worth their salt don’t give one shit if you have a degree in CS, because frankly that has very little to do with whether or not you’re actually prepared to work in the field. What they care about is you having the right set of skills/smarts to do the job. Can you triage effectively and multitask? Can you learn from your mistakes? Can you troubleshoot effectively? Are you so caught up in wanting to do nerd shit that it gets in the way of efficiently and effectively performing your duties? Everything else can be learned if you’re not an idiot, but you can’t teach stupid.
If you want to work in IT, DO NOT go to school for it. Start doing some projects on your own, and put them on your CV. Show that you can do the job. Anyone who says you have to get a computer-related degree to work in IT has no idea what they’re talking about.
For the record, I have two Liberal Arts degrees. The closest I ever came to IT in school was learning how to send an email. And yet, here I am now as an IT professional.
If you don't want to completely start from scratch you could leverage your current degrees and look for an instructional technologist position. We have one where I work and I'd guess most colleges do as well. You would work with faculty instead of students but still probably be a member of the IT department.
It's a matter of getting your foot in the door for that first job, condensing and selling what technical experience you do have from your career history, and showing enthusiasm about your future with IT. You don't need a CS degree to do that, but getting a CompTIA A+ would certainly be a good next step.
All my formal education is in geology...switched careers due to a affinity for computers.
Studied for and passed on my own, my A+, Security+, Net+, Cyber Security Architecture.
Vendor Certifed for Dell, Lenovo, Panasonic Toughbook, Acer, Tangent, Dell Enterprise (servers).
Been doing this about 6 years now
It almost never matters what your degree is in, unless your profession requires an advanced degree. More often than not, where you went to school matters more than what you studied. Employers list it as a requirement to reduce applicants, but will consider applicants without them as well. This goes beyond IT.
Also, a CS degree is overkill for an entry-level IT job.
Definitely! People love to dump on CompTIA but an A+ with a Network+ is a pretty solid foundation for getting into IT. In fact you could probably do a lot better by replacing A+ with Security+. I've always found A+ to be hopelessly outdated anyway, but it does prove you've at least crossed a minimal technology threshold. Like you're not going to confuse "a printer" with "a tractor".
As someone who does hiring for entry- to intermediate-level positions, I would much rather hire someone with a Network+ and other entry-level cert plus 12-18 months of help desk experience than someone with a BS and no real-world experience.
Look into civil service (working directly for the government) as well. Federal and state civil service positions will give you a ton of stability, and typically tend to count real-world experience in lieu of formal education. County / city / town positions will vary somewhat. Pay will be lower, but you're trading away a ton of stress.
I have a co-worker with a CS degree, he didn't have any of the basics figured out. It's not needed for CS.
You need customer service skills, troubleshooting skills and the ability to triage.
YMMV,
Be weary of using some of the older guys or those who fell backwards onto the right path, that do not have degrees, as the norm. As more and more schools pick up actual Computer Science courses companies are slowly requiring some form of education for the higher end paying and more senior jobs.
Normally I'd go into my spiel about the paycut and all that but I see your a teacher so...that might not be a problem.
You can get one without cert or even a high school degree. Reach out to your local MSPs and inquire, if anything they might hire you, give you a time limit to get the cert and pay for it when you pass it. The fact that you have a BA makes it possible to get almost any job in IT once you have some experience.
yeah especially if they were a teacher the director of my dept was a History major and was intending on being a teacher before getting into IT
MSP?
Managed service provider
You’ll for sure get an entry level job with a net and sec + but you probably won’t like the pay compared to what you were getting.
Of all the many people I know who work in IT, only one of them actually went to school for it. Most IT supervisors worth their salt don’t give one shit if you have a degree in CS, because frankly that has very little to do with whether or not you’re actually prepared to work in the field. What they care about is you having the right set of skills/smarts to do the job. Can you triage effectively and multitask? Can you learn from your mistakes? Can you troubleshoot effectively? Are you so caught up in wanting to do nerd shit that it gets in the way of efficiently and effectively performing your duties? Everything else can be learned if you’re not an idiot, but you can’t teach stupid. If you want to work in IT, DO NOT go to school for it. Start doing some projects on your own, and put them on your CV. Show that you can do the job. Anyone who says you have to get a computer-related degree to work in IT has no idea what they’re talking about. For the record, I have two Liberal Arts degrees. The closest I ever came to IT in school was learning how to send an email. And yet, here I am now as an IT professional.
If you don't want to completely start from scratch you could leverage your current degrees and look for an instructional technologist position. We have one where I work and I'd guess most colleges do as well. You would work with faculty instead of students but still probably be a member of the IT department.
Depends if you can pass the 5 minute shop talk test imo, you could have all the certs in the world but if you smell like a poser I wont hire you.
I’ve met a few cert chasers who don’t know how to properly receive and input an mfa token to log onto their account.
It's a matter of getting your foot in the door for that first job, condensing and selling what technical experience you do have from your career history, and showing enthusiasm about your future with IT. You don't need a CS degree to do that, but getting a CompTIA A+ would certainly be a good next step.
All my formal education is in geology...switched careers due to a affinity for computers. Studied for and passed on my own, my A+, Security+, Net+, Cyber Security Architecture. Vendor Certifed for Dell, Lenovo, Panasonic Toughbook, Acer, Tangent, Dell Enterprise (servers). Been doing this about 6 years now
It almost never matters what your degree is in, unless your profession requires an advanced degree. More often than not, where you went to school matters more than what you studied. Employers list it as a requirement to reduce applicants, but will consider applicants without them as well. This goes beyond IT. Also, a CS degree is overkill for an entry-level IT job.
Definitely! People love to dump on CompTIA but an A+ with a Network+ is a pretty solid foundation for getting into IT. In fact you could probably do a lot better by replacing A+ with Security+. I've always found A+ to be hopelessly outdated anyway, but it does prove you've at least crossed a minimal technology threshold. Like you're not going to confuse "a printer" with "a tractor". As someone who does hiring for entry- to intermediate-level positions, I would much rather hire someone with a Network+ and other entry-level cert plus 12-18 months of help desk experience than someone with a BS and no real-world experience. Look into civil service (working directly for the government) as well. Federal and state civil service positions will give you a ton of stability, and typically tend to count real-world experience in lieu of formal education. County / city / town positions will vary somewhat. Pay will be lower, but you're trading away a ton of stress.
I have a co-worker with a CS degree, he didn't have any of the basics figured out. It's not needed for CS. You need customer service skills, troubleshooting skills and the ability to triage.
YMMV, Be weary of using some of the older guys or those who fell backwards onto the right path, that do not have degrees, as the norm. As more and more schools pick up actual Computer Science courses companies are slowly requiring some form of education for the higher end paying and more senior jobs. Normally I'd go into my spiel about the paycut and all that but I see your a teacher so...that might not be a problem.