I.T Job - abbreviations

Gayjin said:
The degree of "IT Management" is a paradox to me. Does anyone taking that course think that they are going to walk out of uni into ANY role that has leadership?
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Certainly not,I don't think anyone ever expects that. Most, like myself are looking for good graduate positions/schemes.

Also on the point of being vendor agnostic, that's entirely true. We spend the majority of our time in Linux, except for database work where we were constantly in Windows running Oracle, MySQL, and SQLServer at the time.

The course is mixed bag of IT and Management( So as to manage an IT Team/ Department, but also be able to understand and help with some IT work as needed), as I pointed out all ready.
I brought up the topic/complained a fair bit as we're being trained for leadership role, but it's obvious you don't get that after finishing. More direct IT work would certainly make getting the foot in the door easier, then work your way up, and prove you can manage.
 
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I felt compelled to post when I read phrases such as "you can learn SCCM in 15 minutes" and basically "working in a school isn't rock science"

Well having worked as a technician in schools for 5 years after spending 3 years at college where I got taught I could build a network using XP Professional as a server!! I'll tell you it's no walk in the park, you've got 200+ staff and depending on the size of the school 1000-2000 students and around 1000 PC's, not to mention tablets, phones, laptops, servers, switches, patch panels, printers, fax machines, interactive whiteboards, projectors, hideous bespoke software to cater for. You're constantly learning and adapting, fixing, tampering, changing. I went from little to no server knowledge coming out of college to eventually working my way round things like SCCM, AD, GPO's, DNS, DHCP, *insert more acronym's here* heck, I even managed to get SCCM rolled out to primary schools! (Didn't take 15 minutes)

I'm also now doing a degree in Computing and IT, which is seemingly irrelevant to anything I'm doing day to day bar the Cisco module. I'm afraid you don't learn the kind of things you need to be a good technician in ANY establishment, private or public sector till you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to actually get stuck in and get your first customer through the door.

You're always constantly learning, you'll never know everything. Everyone has to start somewhere. :D
 
You can think again about the "job is in a school should be simple" bit.

I'm a senior technician and look after 5 schools and it really isn't simple. Depending on the size of the school will depend on how busy you are.

The benefits of working in schools is that you learn all aspects of IT (from desktops to server to networking) you will be responsible for everything whether that be "I can't find a file" to "the server has stopped working"

Don't forget you will be responsible for everything plugged into a computer/network too, interactive white boards, projectors etc...

I'm not moaning about the job as I love it and love to learn all of the areas mentioned.

Look at NatalieS's post, that basically covers it.
 
Gayjin said:
It's shades of grey though, I agree that a manager shouldn't HAVE to know the granular details of how to configure system X, but he should at least - as you said - have a reasonable conceptual overview of what is going on.

For instance, one of my current managers is totally lost without the rest of us. He actually doesn't have a clue. He can barely work a printer, holds a radio like a telephone and I have no idea how he got the job. He can't function with suppliers unless half the team is sitting in the room.

The degree of "IT Management" is a paradox to me. Does anyone taking that course think that they are going to walk out of uni into ANY role that has leadership?

Also, the reason AD etc isn't covered in a lot of uni courses, is that they are largely vendor agnostic for bias (or lack of) as well as cost reasons. I don't think it is necessarily a good thing, but then what do you have? A uni degree where you can choose your vendors and languages. Can see that getting messy.
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I'd say it is a good thing. You shouldn't be going to uni to learn how to use AD, that's a MS cert or on the job learning, and a 4 year degree is a waste of time and money. You go to uni so you can learn to built an alternative. Sure, learn about LDAP, give a nod to AD, but ultimatly it should be about knowing how the software works from a conceptual level as opposed caring how to admin a specific implementation.

Maccy said:
Fairly niche tbh, used a lot in testing.
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I would think SOA is pretty popular, no? I'm still not entirly sure what AUT is though. wtf is an application under test? :P
 
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Yeh I would assume SOA is popular.
Application Under Test - we use it a lot in documents to refer to name of the application that's being tested (obviously!) because they usually have long, complex names.
 
Maccy said:
Yeh I would assume SOA is popular.
Application Under Test - we use it a lot in documents to refer to name of the application that's being tested (obviously!) because they usually have long, complex names.
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Oh, duh. Silly me.
 
NatalieS said:
Hahaha, she's IT Support? Why can't you talk techy with her?
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Because she isn't technical. Over the years she come from a science background and merged into IT because jobs had to be protected. My colleague learned on the job and ended up been on an IT Helpdesk. however two years ago these posts were also made redundant and the 'helpdesk' disappeared. Only a year ago the post come back but under a different name called 'the service desk' lets just say my colleague never got the job so stopped as an ICT support woman.

It's basic things like, change toner, reset passwords, add members to software groups, press f12 to image via SCCM, support users with application problems and there isn't much technical to be honest with you.

IT has changed in my work place over the last 3 years because the hardware has become so stable there has never been a part of hardware in 6000 systems had to be replaced. Rather amazing if you ask me. We have a very stable network now with very little issues in the background.

We also support a lot of mobile laptops + apple devices + cisco wireless solutions. It's huge really!

We also use an application for reporting problems called 'Spiceworks' it's nice and we have it 100% up and running with automatic reporting set up with automatic emails. Our network is a dream at present considering the amount of users.
 
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Ahh, I know of schools merging science technicians with IT in the past, doesn't work at all. Having said that I've been called to jobs by an IT teacher that comes from a technician background who doesn't check whether the machine is plugged in and what not. *facepalm*

I do the basic stuff varying to the more complex network admin tasks, varies really! Our network is relatively stable so usually just sit playing on my phone. ;)

But yes, apparently technically minded women... especially ones who enjoy a game or two are a rarity. ;) I could ever imagine working in anything other than IT, because I love to geek it up, and get on better with men as I have that kind of mentality. (Was hilarious when I first started at my recent job... the blokes terrified of offending me!!!)

That and I can't stand working with women. :P
 
NatalieS said:
Ahh, I know of schools merging science technicians with IT in the past, doesn't work at all. Having said that I've been called to jobs by an IT teacher that comes from a technician background who doesn't check whether the machine is plugged in and what not. *facepalm*

I do the basic stuff varying to the more complex network admin tasks, varies really! Our network is relatively stable so usually just sit playing on my phone. ;)

But yes, apparently technically minded women... especially ones who enjoy a game or two are a rarity. ;) I could ever imagine working in anything other than IT, because I love to geek it up, and get on better with men as I have that kind of mentality. (Was hilarious when I first started at my recent job... the blokes terrified of offending me!!!)

That and I can't stand working with women. :P
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Sounds like you doing well then! I just sit about most of the time waiting for users to get stuck... either that or I unpack deliveries. :)

It's actually boring but pays fine so not going to complain. We launching a new service on Monday with Microsoft Lync so looking forward to that. :D
 
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