[ale] Breaking into the field [Inquiry]

[Arie vW]

Thank you all for the input! What I have surmised is that I need to
continue in my current track and keep an eye open for any and all
opportunities. The various meetups have been invaluable and it's nice to
hear that my little home lab setup is beneficial. My next step I think is
installing CentOS (using KVM) and learning my way around the platform. Up
until now it's been all Debian based. How much emphasis should I put on
learning a programming language? I've been dabbling with Python for years
but it's been kinda out on the back burner. Any other must-knows for the IT
field in general? I'm currently studying for the CompTIA A+ cert just to
showcase that despite no degree, I do have a fundamental understanding of
computers. At some point I would like to extend my certification list to
include the LPIC cert but probably not until I can better afford it. Thanks
again for all of the responses! They give me hope that I was beginning to
lose.

Arie

On Sep 23, 2017 10:49 PM, "Chuck Payne" <terrorpup at gmail.com> wrote:

> Guys,
>
> I started out at a help desk, some 27 years ago. The one thing that helped
> me is hard work, never saying no, keeping an open mind, and pushing myself
> to keep learning.
>
> The only regret I have I never learn a program language, so if you can't
> join on of the free online course.
>
> I would as well recommend coming to the meetings, asking questions here on
> the mailing list. A lot of the greybeards know a thing or too. I don't mind
> helping, feel free to ask question. Don't get stuck with one distro, many
> people install Ubuntu, but the market is more geared more toward Red Hat
> so, install CentOS or Fedora. Even better, Arch Linux because they have a
> wiki that is the best to learn really thing. If you really want to learn,
> try Slackware.
>
> Devops is the hot thing, so try to read up on Puppet, Chef, Salt Stack or
> Ansible. Free IT Athens rebuild old PC with Linux on, see if there is
> something in your community you can do some free IT work. Volunteer work
> counts as much a paid job. My first job was an Interm at TV station for two
> years, with no pay, but I learned so much.
>
> You can set up a small home network on the cheap. For $100 bucks you can
> buy like 3 or 4 Pi and setup file server, media server, and workstations.
> You don't need expensive hardward to learn, and labs are so great, if you
> have a laptop install VirtualBox it's free an a great to run other
> os without having to buying equipment.
>
> Amazon use to let you have a free account, it's a great way to learn AWS,
> which is another hot skill to have.
>
> Keep notes, Google is great, but if you are working on a system with no
> internet access, notes are great to help, no one going to look down on you
> for having them, they are more like to look down on you for not having
> notes.
>
> Remember this, there are no stupid questions, so don't be afraid to ask.
>
> On Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 10:22 PM, Antony Natale <antonynatale at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> As someone who is pretty new to the field I can only offer what I did but
>> frankly I feel my success is equal parts hard work and luck. I was working
>> in retail for years, mostly in print  when I decided I was going to pursue
>> my new found passion. I had worked on getting some certifications to try
>> and get some entry level help desk work being my only experience was
>> personal, not work related. After a year of applying I got nothing.
>>
>> A year later I decided to go back to school for an IT degree and started
>> applying again and got lucky and nailed a great desktop support job for an
>> insurance company. Maybe it was the promise of a degree or coincidence, who
>> knows. Only complaint was there was zero linux. So I focused on learning
>> all I could there, and outside of work learned all I could about linux
>> through reading, VM labs, Linux academy, just doing all I can.
>>
>> Finally, thanks to the ALE, a job posting came for a junior admin
>> position saying they would take entry level. I didn't expect to get it but
>> I did and I think its only because I could get through 50 minutes of
>> various Linux related grilling and show how passionate I was about the job.
>>
>> So my suggestion is do all you can on your own, setup labs and vms, etc
>> and shoot for the entry level jobs, and be ready to commit some time to
>> learn because in the end my life is so much better for it. Thanks for
>> getting me the job ALE!
>>
>> Sorry for the novel
>>
>> Sent from BlueMail <http://www.bluemail.me/r?b=10698>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Terror PUP a.k.a
> Chuck "PUP" Payne
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