Re-Skilling Across The Open University in Order to Get Into IT

Ian Kelly, a 34-year-old IT specialist, is preparing taking subsequent step during career.

From his LinkedIn profile, Kelly took an HND in computing just like a mature student for the university of Plymouth and held a form of posts just like a sound engineer, operating at smaller and larger gigs all around the country. he says : “I gave that up, did a few travelling and reassessed what i needed to carry out. ”

He came to firmly London and in the leadership recruitment theme from scope, got a job inside the Olympics in hr, then moved to firmly city hall, before landing a job at Lehman brothers in technology simply like the investment bank went bust.

By currently it was actually 2009. the UK was in recession and Kelly faced a year from work. he recollects that no work came up as a result of the credit crunch : “I wasn’t positive what i was just hunting for, however i actually have continually needed to firmly work in it. ”

But, like lots of individuals making an attempt to firmly break straight into the trade, Kelly faced the challenge of lack of experience - most jobs needed a few level of experience : “If you don’t have the experience, you can’t get a job. Therefore i was just attempting to find something for getting a few experience. ”

Kelly finally got an chance operating for your own Thomas Poplington trust. He started being a recruiter for volunteers. however whereas there he too managed the it along at the trusts resource centre in Balham, that had six computers. “Once a month i maintained the computers and began gaining to a tiny degree of experience, ” he says. Kelly needed to firmly work full-time, however he secured another part-time job being a technician at Joseph Clarke faculty, operating 15 hours every week supporting 150 users.

Throughout Christmas 2010, he set he required out to get coaching : “I wished out to do a CCNA CISCO network associate, however the two-week coaching courses have become expensive, and there's most likely a steep learning curve because we are part of a two-week course. Therefore i selected the open university’s CCNA course, in the CISCO academy, that lasted regarding seven months. ”

Kelly says he couldn't take 2 weeks off out to do some of the expensive intense coaching courses. however he is well known regarding his spent several weekends and evenings studying. He uses on-line material, flash movies and on-line quizzes to compliment the coaching.

The open university use theses quizzes as a part of its assignments. Kelly says : “You too get access out to a tool referred to as packet tracer, that lets you simulate networks connected to PC, which allows you to configure and observe setting up a network. ” He took this one step more and really acquired a CISCO 2950 24-port switch on eBay : “for a number of hundred quid you might want to lift a few used kit on eBay, log into it, and acquire hands-on experience, an example would be putting 3 routers, one on high of one other and figuring out how out to wire them up. ”

In the open university course Kelly too had access out to a networks lab at Kingston university with real routers and switches, where groups of students worked just like a cluster out to plug-in the routers and configure the check networks.

Passing the CCNA means that maintaining an average of 83% within the whole assessments, which is certainly quite high, Kelly admits. however the course has equipped him with skills he's currently applying at work. for example, he's by using the CCNA skills at Joseph Clarke college out to upgrade the network out to gigabit Ethernet.

The coaching has too helped him secure another job : “My brother told me the media trust was advertising for the it post in august 2011, whereas i was just finishing off my CCNA. this was my break out to get into an organisation with decent technology like exchange server. ”

He's currently supporting ninety staff, who will be significant users of your new toy. And if one thing will would like changing, instead of having out to follow step-by-step directions, he delivers the knowledge out to perceive how out to fix bound problems, an example would be re-hashing the access list connected to CISCO router.

Kelly can be keen out to expand his coaching. He says : “I would you like to sign in out to a CISCO network skilled ( CCNP ). it's type of somewhat level, that goes beyond the CCNA foundation. ”