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Old 01-02-2024, 11:42 AM   #1
Crazy Flamer
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Hey Everyone,

My oldest son, who is in his early 20's, is looking at making a career change into an IT related field. He's pretty good with technology and is looking to get into the field, but is wondering what the best route is in terms of upgrading his education.

Currently, he's looking into programs at SAIT and Bow Valley College. Are there any other schools or programs he should be looking in to? Any one option that seems better than the other?

Are there any particular areas he should concentrate on, ie: Information Systems, cybersecurity, network admin? Anything that is more likely to land him a job once he's finished?

Any insight would be helpful!
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Old 01-02-2024, 11:46 AM   #2
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I'm in technology consulting. Security is at top of mind for all of our clients these days, so that's an area that is high in demand and will remain that way. Does your son have interest in coding/programming? There's always demand for developers, so that's also a good option.
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Old 01-02-2024, 11:51 AM   #3
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I'm in technology consulting. Security is at top of mind for all of our clients these days, so that's an area that is high in demand and will remain that way. Does your son have interest in coding/programming? There's always demand for developers, so that's also a good option.
What kind of schooling would be required for coding/programming? He's looking at a 2 year program, not sure if he has interest in being in school for the next 4 years.

Are there any particular programs that focus on security?
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Old 01-02-2024, 12:04 PM   #4
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SAIT has a 2 year software development program as well as information systems security and information technology diplomas.

Machine learning / AI is another area that will likely see lots of growth. Database stuff is also something that usually is in demand.
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Old 01-02-2024, 12:19 PM   #5
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What kind of schooling would be required for coding/programming? He's looking at a 2 year program, not sure if he has interest in being in school for the next 4 years.

Are there any particular programs that focus on security?
Does your son have any other post secondary? I took the 2 year SAIT program (a very long time ago), and already had an unrelated 4 year degree. The 2 year SAIT taught me everything I needed to get started in the industry, but the 4 year degree definitely helped moving up in the corp/pseudo government world.

SAIT at the time had a great co-op program that was very beneficial in getting my foot in the door. We're hiring DevOps engineers like crazy right now. We pay the consulting company $165/hour an not sure how much the consultant keep of that. We definitely don't differentiate between 4 year or 2 year degrees on the consultant side, but definitely do when hiring FTEs.

It's pretty common in the IT industry to get a start in a couple places where you are doing a few different things, and then find a niche or marketable skill to move on as you go.
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Old 01-02-2024, 12:45 PM   #6
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Do you know what is thinking of doing besides IT? IT is big field.

I took the Information Technology program at SAIT with the Software Development major years ago and really enjoyed it. It's been updated since I graduated but it is a great program.
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Old 01-02-2024, 01:03 PM   #7
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As an IT/technology generalist I highly recommended narrowing down his expertise to one field within IT and then expanding from there. I would focus on programming/dev ops or security. Neither of those fields are going away anytime soon and are just becoming bigger and bigger.

But, I am also out of touch with mainstream corporate IT these days. So many acronyms now I need to go back to school just to learn what they all are now. Root cause analysis? Just fix the goddamned problem already!
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Old 01-02-2024, 01:05 PM   #8
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I know 2 years seems like a long time now, but a 4 year degree will open a LOT more doors. Even if he's the best at what he's doing with 2 years of education, he will get filtered out a lot of places. Recruiting practices are really rigid and often nonsensical, unfortunately.
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Old 01-02-2024, 01:27 PM   #9
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As others have said, IT is a broad field and they should specialize. I'd they want to work in IT support, take some Microsoft training courses and start applying. If they want to do something more interesting, they need should specialize into one of security, data engineering, ml engineering, or web development. Jobs exist in all those areas and will for a few more years, until chat gpt replaces us all.


You can send me a pm if your kid wants to talk about it. I'm a machine learning engineer at a big tech company.
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Old 01-02-2024, 02:13 PM   #10
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We're hiring DevOps engineers like crazy right now.
What kind of thing are you looking for or what's needed out there these days? I've been thinking I have a gap in my DevOps experience as for quite a while all my work has been on prem and I've been wondering if I should do some training/certification for AWS or Azure or something.
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Old 01-02-2024, 02:17 PM   #11
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I know 2 years seems like a long time now, but a 4 year degree will open a LOT more doors.
I've always thought that a 4 year degree gives a much better base from which to go into the area you want to go into too.

My kid didn't want to do that but apparently the software development courses at SAIT can be transferred to university so you can keep going to a full degree.. not sure how well that works, but we were told that's an option.
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Old 01-02-2024, 02:26 PM   #12
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As others have said, IT is a broad field and they should specialize. I'd they want to work in IT support, take some Microsoft training courses and start applying. If they want to do something more interesting, they need should specialize into one of security, data engineering, ml engineering, or web development. Jobs exist in all those areas and will for a few more years, until chat gpt replaces us all.


You can send me a pm if your kid wants to talk about it. I'm a machine learning engineer at a big tech company.
I agree with this in terms of exposure. Lots of Microsoft Security + Azure & AWS courses are available for free and the cert exam fees are fairly small.
Would certainly not hurt to have those certs on your resume and may give him an idea of what is interesting before he makes a commitment.
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Old 01-02-2024, 02:32 PM   #13
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I’ll echo what a lot of people here are saying - Security/Programming is the place to target at this stage.

I’d absolutely recommend the 2 year SAIT programs. They’re a great way to get into the technology, and are generally quite good at preparing you for the marketplace.

I believe they run a two security program, and while it won’t be the end of his education (plenty of ongoing training going forward with industry certifications), it’d be a solid way to start.
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Old 01-02-2024, 02:53 PM   #14
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What kind of thing are you looking for or what's needed out there these days? I've been thinking I have a gap in my DevOps experience as for quite a while all my work has been on prem and I've been wondering if I should do some training/certification for AWS or Azure or something.
Definitely get your cloud certs. Both of the ones you mentioned are worth the investment. Not hard at all for someone in IT and will help you in your work. You can't get away from cloud.
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Old 01-02-2024, 03:23 PM   #15
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Getting the 2 year diploma from SAIT is a great start. From there he can get work experience and work on getting certs depending on where he decides his interest truly is.

I went to Lethbridge College over 20 years ago and took their 2 year CIT program. I was certain I was going to be a developer and was going to transfer to U of L to get my degree but after doing my practicum I quickly realized that Tech Op Support was where my strengths were and what I preferred to do and I also needed to get busy working due to life changes that happened mid way through my program. So I gained experience at a mom & pop shop until I found myself at my current company where I've been for the last 18 years. I haven't needed to get any certifications for my job with my current employer but I do take online training courses to keep myself feeling like I still know a thing or two about what I do.

For someone starting out in this era, they will likely need to get certifications to make themselves stand out in the job market.
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Old 01-02-2024, 03:27 PM   #16
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IT is a very broad area but the one constant is you have to show an appetite for a lifetime of learning new things and learning quickly.

He should find out if he has more aptitude or interest in DevOps/Coding/Software Dev or more generalist IT (Networking, Cloud Admin, Cybersecurity, etc.), or possibly something like a business systems analyst that focuses on specific applications (which have their own certifications like an SAP admin, Service Now architect, Salesforce dev, MS Dynamics/Power BI business analyst, etc.)

For generalist IT (excluding software development) there is the option of self-study and writing certifications in things like Azure, AWS, networking, Cybersecurity, etc. versus paying for formal education.

I have noticed a trend that there are too many people graduating with computer science degrees that aren't a good fit for it and they don't have the interest to keep up to date and maintain their personal porfolios and github projects to attract employers. At the same time, there are a lot of people going into cybersecurity that don't have an aptitude for it. I attended the SAIT cybersecurity capstone presentations a few times and the students have always underwhelmed

Quality employers will care about the quality of the school so I'd avoid Bow Valley College, CDI College, etc, like the plague. SAIT used to be a default as IT is kind of blue collar to University Comp Sci but I've heard their programs and fast tracks have gone downhill since the pandemic with a lot of courses being online and instructors dipping in quality. Its still a great starting point however.

Last edited by Hack&Lube; 01-02-2024 at 03:36 PM.
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Old 01-02-2024, 06:28 PM   #17
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Definitely some good suggestions here, but I'll toss one out there if your son isn't necessarily attached to white collar work - PLC programming. There's a huge shortage of good automation specalists and they charge up the wazoo for some of the simple tasks. The catch is that you probably have to be willing to drive down to nowheresville towns like Kerrobert or Pinscher Creek.

Another 2Y education option, btw, is Computer Engineering up at NAIT. It's a pretty good introduction to all sorts of programming (PLC, microcontrollers, enterprise, web) and the capstones are often nearly as impressive as those by four year software engineering students or such
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Old 01-02-2024, 07:17 PM   #18
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What kind of thing are you looking for or what's needed out there these days? I've been thinking I have a gap in my DevOps experience as for quite a while all my work has been on prem and I've been wondering if I should do some training/certification for AWS or Azure or something.
Proficient in Terraform is a big one. Anyone who is a python wiz and has some good knowledge of AWS, we usually hire. A lot of what we do is get our developers off of older development environments and get them using a full CI/CD pipeline to deploy to the cloud. There seems to be a tonne of work in that area, as we have many people with that experience accept our job, only to leave before they are on-boarded or shortly after (usually for permanent jobs).
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Old 01-03-2024, 09:40 AM   #19
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I agree with this in terms of exposure. Lots of Microsoft Security + Azure & AWS courses are available for free and the cert exam fees are fairly small.
Would certainly not hurt to have those certs on your resume and may give him an idea of what is interesting before he makes a commitment.
Any recommendations on where my son could get access to some of these free courses?
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Old 01-03-2024, 09:58 AM   #20
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Any recommendations on where my son could get access to some of these free courses?
Coursera. Not quite free, but pretty darn cheap.
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