It is needless to state that computers have become an integral part in one life. Whether it is IT/Banking/Consumer services anything. No matter that’s one reason that in the last 5-6 years there has been a tremendous growth in this sector and a sudden downfall also after Sep.11 attack.
What course to go for is more important to know before you actually decide that whether I should join a computer training institute. I have myself been a corporate trainer for 2 years with few of the big shots in trg. And, there is indeed a great difference in teaching professionals and students. Not because the corporate’s are more techy or kinds. Rather then have a vision or a goal in the mind before coming to the trg. They know what they expect out of them after the course finishes and therefore they are more serious towards it. It lacks on the other hand.
A greater percent of youngsters especially teens join computer trg institutes just to make friends, date and stuff’s. Im not offending anyone or saying that all of them are like that. But most of the people I met were with these mentalities. You know this really doesn’t help. Once I used to be involved in counselling and found that most of the boys who walk in to join a course want to be in a batch with more girls in it. I mean why?? Are you here to study or to flirt. This is was indeed the reputation of a computer trg institute when I left the country. And then later you find the same lot complaining for things. This all turns up to be a mess just because the objective of joining a computer trg institute is primarily to make friends and later somewhere if you can make a career out of it also. NOW, this kind of a dual vision will land you no where. And lead to frustration, distress and complains.
The MOST important thing to know about yourself before you join a computer trg. is “Do you have a good aptitude and a logical mind”???? Because unfortunately these are the two things that can NEVER NEVER be taught. As an IT person you need these foremost. These are in-build and no computer trg institute can actually teach you this. So abruptly if you join a course and assume that the trg institute will make a programmer then you are absolutely wrong.
This is the reason that even today if you go for an interview in and IT company they will make you appear for an aptitude test first. Because if your aptitude level is low then you can never be a programmer, it needs logics, mind twisters to write an efficient application. And if you fail the basic ranking for the test then you are rejected. It evevn happened with me also. I had spent more time on the technical test that was given to me assuming that the company people would be interested to know that how much techy knowledge I have in this subject. Rather aptitude test must be a part of there formal HR procedures. But I was rejected, just because I didn’t qualify the aptitude test. Although my technical test was rated ‘A’.
If you want to make your career in computers or want to be involved in computing then you must fit in one of these.
1) End – user
a. Using ms-office/autocad/tally any software designed for the ultimate user
2) Designer/Programmer
a. Developers who really write the above code for end-users using any language(s)
3) Administrator
a. Network administrators or DBA’s related work involved in overall administration security and stuff’s
That’s’ it!! You first need to decide where in the above you want to be?? And then think of joining a course.
Joining in a course for 2-3 years is no good. Due to the simple reason that the IT industry is running with a jet speed. So if you join a course for 2-3 years and by the time you are finished
1) Whatever you had learnt in the first 1-2 years is lost from your mind.
2) New technologies have come up in the market and you are obsolete.
3) If you are not competent with the industry then you land no where.
The most important factor is a course for 2-3 years is like teaching you all the languages everything that is running in the industry. Later you are thrown out in the market, so that you can yourself choose where you fit in. Where as in real life things are not like that. A programmer will never be working on different languages at the same time. In fact it’s actually going to be one or two of the languages that you learnt during the course. Once you are into the work you actually don’t need a formal trg for getting yourself upgraded to the newer technology. Unless the company has enough money to send you on a course.
So decide on if you wanna be a programmer, then find out what is the demand in the industry for languages. Be it java, c, c++ whatever. Join a short duration course for say 3-4 months on that. If you are competent enough you will grasp it. Now look for a official certification on that course. Like Novell certifications, Sun Microsystems certifications etc. these certifications will add a flavour on your CV and career rather than a 3-4 years of a course from a trg. Institute. Everyone knows what is being taught in trg institutes these days and there is a great degree of negative publicity in the market. Once you are in the industry and even get a low level programmer job go for it and then you will start learning things on your own and will also wonder that how the theoretical life is different from practical exposure.
I would say there is nothing called extra time on the computers or 1:1 ratio in man and machine. I hear lot of students complaining about it. If you want to be an end-user operating ms-office and making excel sheets then definitely you need what you are demanding for. But if you have to be a programmer then first learn how to write a program on the paper and whether you are able to build up the logic or not. Compiling that program on the computer merely involves typing skills. And running it is to test and see the output. So don’t be a spoil saying that you didn’t get extra time etc. these are just ways to run out of the situation you are not able to handle.
My personal feeling is that even today 90% of the companies in the world are running there software’s systems on so called outdated languages and operating systems. Say the Indian railway reservation software/air line reservation software all are running on UNIX platform and developed using C language. Why don’t they upgrade there systems? They cant!! It involves a huge huge investment in terms of finance. So there is still a great workforce required to maintain and edit those systems.
Even the Y2K bug was only with outdated languages like COBOL that no one uses these days. But even then millions were spend at that time to save the existing applications to crash on year 2000 rather then upgrading the same to java or some advanced language which dosent have anything like y2K bug. So what I mean is that even today joining a course on mainframe computing or unix administration is worth it. Microsoft products are merely made for the web, and the web technologies are already flooding and there is no more growth or scope left.
Hope it helps you decide..