I started in Information Technology way back 2003/2004. I was still new to everything and had just taken the Comptia A+ certification and thought I knew everything there was to know about IT. Boy was I wrong, and boy did I have a lot still to learn about the IT field. Seventeen-year old me thought that I was the best in the world at computer IT because look at me I’m A+ certified and I’m only 17. A year later, I sat and took the Network+ exam from Comptia. I started to gain a little experience the summer after I graduated high school by working at a shop called Geekz for hire. I worked part time while I went to Community College to learn more about IT. I learned more about computers in my first 3 months at Geekz for hire then I think I would have anywhere else. I worked closely with the owner of the company and we discussed our long-term goals for being in IT as he had just opened the company in 2003. I worked there until 2010 when I went off to EKU for a year. During the time I worked at Geekz for hire I achieved my Microsoft Certified Professional certification on Windows XP. At this time, I was just 20 and starting to understand where I wanted to go with my career in IT.
After a year at EKU, I took some time off school and working to focus on learning more about certifications and where I could go to get them on my own. I took Microsoft exam after Microsoft exam to achieve those certifications, passing most of the exams on the very first try. I spent approximately 200 hours of studying per exam to prepare because these are exams targeted toward the experienced professional, and here I was no experience and passing them on the first try. I didn’t always achieve the best scores on the exams, but for these exams a pass is a pass and that’s what I wanted. I worked a variety of places in the mean time doing help desk and tier 2 helpdesk work. I was gaining work experience because I was at the point where I had the book knowledge to be able to do things, but I needed the experience of doing things hands on to really understand the applications.
I applied for job after job to become a system administrator or system engineer. When it seemed like I was about to give up hope, I applied and interviewed at Nurses Registry and became a system administrator. I worked at Nurses Registry from 2013 until they closed in late 2015. I gained a whole lot of knowledge working there including a lot of experience with technology I had never gotten to use in daily work before. I took my 2012 upgrade exam and my 2012 MCSE exams in 2016 and 2017. I also upgraded my MCSA on 2012 in 2017 to the MCSA on server 2016. I studied, and I read a lot of books. I even set up my own computer lab to prepare for those exams.
After working at Nurses Registry, I went to work as a system administrator at Mikro-Data. I started here in 2016 and I spent my time studying for certification exams in my down time. I also started Wedlund Enterprise in 2017 as a way to jump start my own business. I worked on getting my business sites up and running with my Wedlund enterprise site, Wedlund IT, Wedlund DJ, and Wedlund Reviews all up and running. I work with Bladenode for my hosting needs as I stated in another blog entry. I wanted straight forward pricing for my hosting packages, and up front information on how much I would be paying per year or even per month on my domains.
While my experience is extensively in the Microsoft realm of things I do have a little bit of Linux experience. I enjoy working on computers quite a bit. If I didn’t enjoy IT, I wouldn’t have made my career out of doing this type of work and would have done something else instead. So, this is how I got my start in IT. I hope this helps those of you who are looking for a base, and how to go about getting started in the field.
