Comments by "Javier Flores" (@JJFlores197) on "The ONE Skill You NEED in IT - Information Technology" video.

  1. You don't need any in particular. If your school offers them, take as many IT courses as you can. If not, its not the end of the world. A lot of us learned by playing around with computers at home. I don't know what your current skills are. If you don't know much about computers, start with the basics. Grab an old PC you may have laying around and take it apart completely. Learn the hardware and put it back together. It doesn't need to be anything fancy or even functional; bonus points if you can make it work again. Once you understand that, you can move onto things like software and go from there. As I'm sure you're aware, the IT industry is a very broad industry with many sub-fields. You don't absolutely have to start from here, but I think its important to at least have some working knowledge about how computers work since you will be primarily working with computers even if you're not necessarily repairing them.
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  2. Do you have any computer knowledge? Have you ever built a PC or installed Windows on a new system? If not, I would look for the IT Fundamentals certification. Its a cert for people brand new to the IT field and/or not sure if the IT field is the right choice for them. From there, you can progress onto the A+ and maybe Network+ depending on what you want to do in IT. A big thing in IT is the ability to be self-led. That means you ideally have the motivation to learn things on your own and to look up things you don't understand. There are countless resources online and in book format; you just have to find what works for you and stick with it.
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  3. IT stands for Information Technology. IT is a very broad field with many sub-fields, like in computer networking, PC repair, systems administration, databases, computer security, etc. Although tech is mostly a male dominated field, women can do it to. I work as a computer tech at a local school district and the IT dept. has had a fair number of female techs over the years.
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  4. Check to see if your school district has any IT tech internship or IT job shadowing opportunities. School IT support is a pretty good way to get started in the industry. Just like any job, it has its ups and downs. I work in school IT support for a local district. There are days where everything is going fine (sometimes too well), and then at times everything decides to break at once and everyone needs everything fixed right now. Its a roller coaster.
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  5. I don't know how much you currently know about IT and computers. If you haven't already, and are able to, build a few PCs. You don't need to build fancy or high-end systems. Pretty much any PC that you can build can help you in learning the parts of a PC and how they work is beneficial. Before I built my first PC, I would get an old PC I had laying around and just take it apart completely and put it back together. You also want to start learning about troubleshooting and fixing PCs. There are plenty of books, guides, videos,etc that you can use as resources. If your high school has a PC repair class, consider taking it. Once you're comfortable enough in fixing PCs you can start moving onto other things like computer networking, servers, etc.
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