Printable View
I am beginning a career in the computer technology field and have completed two years of computer engineering. I am not happy with the direction that the course is taking me and am thinking of other angles to take. I know that there are thousands of options, but does anyone have any suggestions for training that will lead me to a consulting career?
I guess the best advice I could give you is just to specialize. Once you start the certs, the only way to consult on it is to know everything about it (MCSE, CCIE, Master CNE, Oracle, Linux, and many others). Know the ins and outs of it.
I've been doing the computer stuff for years and it doesn't hold a good paycheck if you're a jack of all trades. Don't get me wrong it's good to know a lot about everything but specializing will make your check larger.
My Advice!
Cisco certs pretty popular. They are the most popular routers and switches.
For consulting, I'd look into the Cisco track... CCDA, CCNP, or CCDP (throw in the CCIE for nework support). There are also the Citrix certs as well but I'd also go with a NOS cert to boot (either NT or Novell)
Just my $.02
J
By consulting I assume you mean that your focus will be on the business and managment aspects of the IT field, rather than the technical. If so, technical training and certs are important, but they are secondary to experience and a proven track record. Consulting can be a difficult field to break into of you do not already have connections in the field. A PMI or PMP certification would also help (these are non-technical certs).
If you are looking to go into a purely technical role, then MSCE or Cisco certs would be the most lucrative. Unix, Linux and Novell certs would also help especially with companies with a lot of legacy or non-MS systems. If these appear a little daunting to you then you could start with A+ or Network+ as a confidence builder.
Finish and get your BS, stick it out - it will be the best ghoice you ever made - the BS opens doors that you cannot open any other way. Then get certified in anything you can - the more certs you have the better. Many times I have gotten jobs becuase of some silly little cert I had that my employer wanted - they had the equipment, or the ammount of certs looked good on my resume - made me look proactive.