Hey everyone,

ive just finished my diploma in computer networking at east perth tafe. I am now unsure in what i should do regarding study/work. I know that having a uni degree is probably better as far as employment options go but what would my options be like not going to uni. I have looked at a few courses at murdoch and curtin but they all seem a little broad. these are two i have in mind if i was to go down the uni path.

http://www.murdoch.edu.au/Courses/In...-and-Security/

http://futurestudents.curtin.edu.au/...ems-networking

Basically im just asking for any advice or tips from anyone here in the IT industry and what i should be looking at, or should i start applying for work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Matt

milk the exemptions you will gain from tafe, you should get around 18 months exempt from a 3 year degree.

if you under 20- complete the degree. if your over 21- weight up how long it will take your career to gain experience over a degree qualified individual,

id prefer to employ someone with a ratio of 2 years experience over 1 year of degree time.

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im currently 19, 20 next feb. um yeah i hear that all the time, experience is better than qualifications. i have allready had close to 2 years of part time experience with a network management company. would i get exemptions with those two courses? are you in the IT sector?

if your under 20, id recommend finishing the degree, you should complete that by the time your 21-22, by then you can get a further 2 years experience and deserve a better salary.

the days of walking off the street with limited qualifications into a 65k+pa job in IT are gone for a few years, so many qualified guys are looking (just check seek, theres bugger all advertisements compared to a year or so ago).

in a downturn, definately skill-up.

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thanks mate, ill take that into account. im going to go into murdoch uni on wednesday and see if i can get some more info and talk to someone their. do those courses look allright?

Agree with Tuna on the condition you keep working part time to keep up the experience. At your age Uni is the best bet, and it will keep you out of the shitty current shitty job market. Hopefully in 2 years time the market will have turned and you'll walk out with a Uni degree and some experience.

I on the other hand was lucky and finished tafe then walked into a full time job. Now a couple of years later i'm running my own business.

In my previous position i did a fair bit of hiring and firing for desktop support/consultants. My best advice is have appropriate training for the position you want to do. IE you will struggle to get a role in service desk/basic desktop support with a uni degree as your way over qualified. In my case i tried employing someone with a uni degree, great guy and did the job perfectly, however 6 months later landed a job as a network admin and i was back at square one.

Then the reverse, no point applying for Network admin/Server admin etc without a uni degree, or large amount of experience, as no one will hire you. Those rolls tend to either go to experienced/qualified people, or internal staff who have risen through servicedesk/desktop support and to junior admin.

As to your coarse it depends on where you really want to work, small to medium businesses will be looking to more hardware/software/networking qualifications, they will see something like internetworking and security well over kill for there needs. Where as a larger company will most likely have a dedicated security team.

It's also a personal choice, what stream do you want to work in?

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Osama Bin Hooning
Senior Terrorist Operative
Perth-Wrx

to be honest, a degree is a degree, all the main perth uni's are internationally recognised which gives it credibility.

your probably better talking to current students about lecturer's before evaluating courses, i found that a different lecturer between two different uni's were totally different on how they marked an individuals work (for better or worse).

if your only in it to get the paper, make life easier on yourself!

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elemist is 100% correct.

if you want to be a programmer, you need a degree.
if you want to talk all day on helpdesk, dont get a degree.
if you want admin/project/deployment work, loads of experience/degree.

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well im wanting to be in the network/management side. but i have been told security is one area which is highly looked at. Im not really into the software/programming side which is ashame cos i know it is good pay, its just not my thing, dosnt interest me. yeah the past 2 years ive been support desk as well as some onsite work with some of our clients. would hopefully like to enter a large company and work as their network admin/support. Any preference over Curtin or Murdoch? or same same. Would companies even look at a tafe dimploma? is uni work more written than prac? i liked tafe as a lot of it was prac which i think is far better learning wise.

tafe is more hands on, and will definately give you 'confidence', but you need to talk the talk if you move into network admin/administration.

remember most purely technical guys dont get a look in for management or senior roles (unless its a small company), mostly because they cant communicate/interact with other management nor can they write any documentation to justify what they can do, sitting through uni will give you plenty of ideas on how to put to writing the most mundaine of tasks, and make it sound all the more credible for doing so.

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