How do I get started in information technology?

[hobartsmith]

I'm in grade 12 and I want to know what education I need to get into an IT career.

I live in Toronto, Canada and there are only 2 Universities (outside the city) that offer a Bachelor of Information Technology.

There are three colleges in my area that offer diplomas for Systems Technology, Systems Technician, Information Systems Business Analyst, and Networking.

Is it better to get a diploma from college or a degree to get started in information technology?
Is there any other way of starting an IT career?

[DirtTwister]

The first step is to define what you mean by Information Technology.  It means different things to different people.  It is best to get an understanding of what you want to know, in order to know what to learn.  IT can be anything from an infrastructure person, system admin, business analyst, to a heads down programmer.

Once you know what you think you want to do, it is good idea to expose yourself to that type of work.  That can be anything from asking people you know if you can sit in with them at work some day, to knocking on doors and just asking.  Interning somewhere is an excellent way to expose yourself to the work.  Volunteering is also very good.  It's a matter of not being afraid to ask.  The worst that can happen is that they say no and you get discouraged.  Expect the no and don't get discouraged. The yes's will come.

The problem you have when you go to get a job is while the degree is a good foundation, they will really want to know what you have done and what kind of experience that you have had. So going out of your way to intern, volunteer, or to work on your own in addition to your school work will go a long way.

Really the specific kind of degree you have really doesn't matter as much as what you learned while achieving it and how you have applied what you learned.

The best learning is doing.  To maximize that you need to be learning, applying what you are learning to what you are doing, and then figuring out what you need to learn next.  It's an iterative process.  

There are a couple of key things that I believe are important:

1. You should plan on the fact that learning never stops.
2. The more you learn the more you will realize that you don't know.
3. Try to work with or network with people that are better then you.  You can't help but learn and get better if you work with people that already are what you are striving to be.
4. With computers what you need to know changes over time.  It's constantly evolving.
5. You need to be able to black box things.  Sometimes you have to realize that at this point in time you cannot understand how something works and you need to accept that it does what you want it to do and just treat it as a black box.  You can always come back later and learn more about it if you need to.

There are other ways then going to college.  If it's programming that you want to do, then you need to be a self learner, teach yourself, and write programs.  That's the best way to learn to program, is to write programs.   If you don't go to college you need to be actively doing what you want get a job doing, so that you have experience.   If you spent 4 years actively gaining experience in the field you want to be in you will still be at a disadvantage to someone who was fresh out of college, but could win out if your experience/demonstrated knowledge met the companies needs.  

First step is truly defining what your goal is.  Information Technology is too unspecific.

Bruce