Re-training to work in IT

Marquee
2.7K
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7.2K
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almost 17 years

Does anyone have any feedback about ICT Graduate School?


I’m seriously contemplating doing their 1-year Master programme in July. A friend of mine did it and raves about it. He’s now employed with ANZ, loves his job and gets paid well. I’ve been wanting to get into IT for a while, but I have no technical skills other than generic self-taught DOS/troubleshooting etc. The appeal of ICT for me is that it’s a one year course that gives you good foundations and has an internship programme at the end of it (read: good employment opportunities).

Others have suggested DevAcademy but their online reviews are terrible and I know of a few people who struggled to get a job after completing their (much shorter, but similarly priced programme).

In short, do you know anything about ICT and would you recommend it for someone who wants to re-train and enter a new field without being able to go back to Uni for four years?

Marquee
6.9K
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9.3K
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over 13 years

What do you want to do? "IT" is incredibly broad. I'd consider doing AWS or Azure certification as something more cost effective and potentially more practical for real world scenarios, ultimately getting that first job in an industry is tough and it's more about who you know than anything. If you go into an institution like DevAcademy or ICTGraduateSchool it's about whether or not they have industry connections and get you in front of employers.

I went to summer of tech a couple of months ago with my old company to hire a few interns, the amount of recent or near graduates vs entry level jobs was astronomical - the crazy thing is as hard as it is to get started once you hit that 4 or 5 year experience mark you'll be fighting off employers. There's a huge skill shortage of experienced professionals yet companies don't want to take on entry level staff to give them that experience that they need.

Marquee
2.7K
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7.2K
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almost 17 years

That's actually quite useful, thank you.

I don't know what I want to do in "IT" and I'm conscious of the fact that "working in IT" can mean any number of things...but I just want to get a foot in the door, learn some technical base on which to build further once I gain employment in the sector.

From my research, ICT >>>>> DevAcademy in terms of grad placements and in terms of topics covered (1 year vs 10 weeks and it shows).

Thanks for the feedback!

Trialist
0
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3
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about 4 years

I heard something about this school. A little time has passed, have you tried to be there? How good is everything there? I looked at their accounts on social networks, there are a lot of subscriptions.

Marquee
2.7K
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7.2K
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almost 17 years

No I haven't.
I spent a lot of time meeting with friends who work in the sector and those who knew it spoke highly of it.
Those who didn't know it said getting a masters in a year would be very handy and open lots of doors.

I'm still seriously considering as the programme doesn't start until July.

Marquee
2.7K
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7.2K
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almost 17 years

Ok, so for all those who are keeping tabs - Australia didn't work out (see other thread)!

So I've enrolled in a Master in Software Development with Vic which I'm greatly enjoying.

The programme is really full on (you cram ~3 years' worth of learning into a single year) so I'm finding the learning curve very steep. The learning is mostly hands on, you cover a given topic and then are let loose to try and implement it.

Because of how difficult, I'm finding it, I'm now looking for a Java turor, someone who knows the language well and can explain things in simple terms. 

Keen for 1-2 sessions per week, $25-30 ph - please message me if that's you or if you know someone!
Thanks!

Marquee
2.7K
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7.2K
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almost 17 years

*BUMP*

Anyone?

Chant Savant
2.5K
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12K
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almost 17 years

I like coffee does that help?

Marquee
6.9K
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9.3K
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over 13 years

The javascript society of NZ Slack and the develop nz Slack might help more than here. There's quite a lot of community evangelism going on and help. Plenty of talented developers hreturned to nz during covid and don't have a lot to do.

First Team Squad
2K
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1.9K
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almost 17 years

Ryan wrote:

The javascript society of NZ Slack and the develop nz Slack might help more than here. There's quite a lot of community evangelism going on and help. Plenty of talented developers hreturned to nz during covid and don't have a lot to do.

He's wanting Java help not JavaScript. Java != JavaScript. 

Marquee
6.9K
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9.3K
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over 13 years

siac wrote:

Ryan wrote:

The javascript society of NZ Slack and the develop nz Slack might help more than here. There's quite a lot of community evangelism going on and help. Plenty of talented developers hreturned to nz during covid and don't have a lot to do.

He's wanting Java help not JavaScript. Java != JavaScript. 

The Javascript society of NZ is just an umbrella group for a wider community - Javascript being a gateway language. Most conversation and expertise in that slack is not Javascript, it just so happens that the Javascript community is the most organised and has a lot of corporate backing and so that community is much larger and more engaged than most in a variety of languages.

I was talking about him engaging with the wider tech community not just a single ecosystem.

First Team Squad
2K
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1.9K
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almost 17 years

Ryan wrote:

The Javascript society of NZ is just an umbrella group for a wider community - Javascript being a gateway language...

Thanks for the clarification.

NewZealandPower, I'm not sure how far you are into the course and how much knowledge you have, but maybe something like https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-java could be a good start for the basics. There are lots of good resources around once you have an idea of what you need to look for, and it's quite possible to build up a lot of knowledge with online resources and without any one on one tutoring, etc. If you are learning Java in the context of making mobile apps, then some of the Android courses on there could be useful too.

Marquee
2.7K
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7.2K
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almost 17 years

Thanks for the suggestions, peeps.

I will now look around and see if some of those groups mentioned might be able to help me out.

The first paper ends on Thursday so then I'll get about 10 days before the next paper starts and urgently need to do some catching up!

Re-training to work in IT

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