Investing In Computer Graphic School - Time And Money Well Spent

A computer graphic school allows you to take one step into the world of computers and it allows you to take two steps into a secure future. The fact is that graphic design in all forms is very much in demand. These schools provide you with a range of benefits including the ability to get a career in some of the most enjoyable fields today. Design arts courses and degree programs prepare you for jobs that are demanding but also are interesting and unique. Is this where you should invest your time and money?

Is This Education Yours?

You can obtain a degree in many fields but for those that are creative but also enjoy allowing that creativity present itself on a computer, the computer graphic school may be the best place for them. Some of the very best schools are found here, on the web, in fact. This means that you can go to school when the time is right for you and then still keep your life moving along no matter how busy you get. You can still develop a career that can take you around the world.

What does it take to become someone that does well in a computer graphic school?

• You must have a personality that can see a problem or an interesting story and design their solution or their own story around it. Creativity is very important for those that want to work here.

• Computer savvy or at least enjoying them is another trait to have. Most of today's computer schools have various programs designed to provide careers of all types, but they all require the use of computers and to the fullest level, too.

Beyond these elements, you will need the right school. A computer graphic school should educate you in terms of all of the necessary courses, including learning about the latest software, using it and even designing your own. For those that are investing in this type of school, the only thing holding you back from getting the dream job that you want is your own limitations. Online or locally, computer graphic school prepares you for a career that you will adore.

Mr Raymond James owns and operates computer schools training

Five Questions To Ask A Computer Training School Before Signing Up

As with any field, there are good technical training schools, and bad ones. When you sign up with one of these schools, you’ve made a significant investment in time and money. You deserve to know everything about the school and your job prospects after leaving that school before you put down your hard-earned money. The problem is, sometimes it’s hard to know the right questions to ask.

The point of this article is not to bash technical training schools. That’s how I got my start in IT eight years ago, and today I’m a CCIE™ and own my own Cisco training company and my own consulting firm.

Before I ever put down the first dime, though, I asked some tough questions. So should you.

What are my true job prospects and legitimate salary levels after I graduate from your school?

We’ve all heard the ads on the radio… “Did you know the average salary of an MCSE is $80,000?” “Are you worth $65,000 a year? If not, call us!”

I’m an optimist, and I often tell people that no field rewards individual achievement and drive like IT does. Having said that, none of us start at the top, and darn few of us start at that kind of salary.

I’m sure that there are some people who broke in at $80,000, but I haven’t met very many of them. Be very wary of technical schools that use the famous/infamous MCSE Salary Survey as a marketing tool. They tend to represent those salaries as starting salaries.

Ask your technical school what the average starting salary of their graduates is. And keep in mind that salary is not the most important factor to consider when looking for your first job in IT; it’s the experience you’ll be able to put on your resume later on that you should weigh heavily at this point.

In short, be very careful about schools that brag about starting salaries. It’s not where you start, it’s where you end up.

How up-to-date are the courses you’re offering?

Make sure the school you’re going to attend has made efforts to keep their courses relevant. Ask what changes have been made to their curriculum in the last three years. No field changes faster than IT. If the answer to that question is “none”, look somewhere else.

I want to work in IT security. Have you placed anyone in this field lately? If so, can I talk to them?

Technical schools are jumping on the security bandwagon, with a couple of schools running ads about training you to work in Homeland Security. If that’s your goal, that’s great, but keep in mind that you have to get a security clearance for any job like that.

And how do you get a security clearance? You have to be sponsored.

And who will sponsor you? Your employer.

Can you get employed in a Homeland Security job without having the clearance in the first place?

Hmmm. Probably not.

Hello, Catch-22.

Again, I’m certainly not saying you can’t eventually get an IT security job; if that’s where you want to go, you can eventually get there. The key word there is “eventually”. Ask the school you’re thinking of attending whether they’ve actually been able to place graduates in such jobs. Ask to talk to them. If the school’s managed to do so, they’ll be glad to put you in touch with such graduates.

What textbooks does your school use?

Some technical school chains use only books that someone in their organization wrote. I’ve heard some of their own teachers complain about the quality of these books. The technical school I attended used off-the-shelf books, and the quality was very good.

If you’re looking into entering the IT field, you probably know someone who’s already in it. Use that resource for everything it’s worth. Ask that person what they think about the books, or for that matter, what the local reputation of the school is. IT is a small world, if the school has a good or bad reputation, most of the IT personnel in your city or town probably know about it.

The fifth question is a question to ask of HR representatives. Every technical school lists companies where they’ve placed their graduates on their promotional material. Pick up the phone, call these companies, and ask to speak to someone in HR. Ask that person about the reputation of the school. Five to eight phone calls will give you a good picture of where the school stands with local employers.

Making the decision to attend a technical school can be the best decision you’ve ever made; it certainly was for me. Make sure to ask the right questions before writing a check or taking a loan to attend; the answers to those questions will indicate to you whether this school is truly the school that can help you achieve your dreams.

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of over 100 free certification exam tutorials, including Cisco CCNA certification test prep articles. His exclusive Cisco CCNA study guide and Cisco CCNA training is also available!

Visit his blog and sign up for Cisco Certification Central, a daily newsletter packed with CCNA, Network+, Security+, A+, and CCNP certification exam practice questions! A free 7-part course, "How To Pass The CCNA", is also available, and you can attend an in-person or online CCNA boot camp with The Bryant Advantage!

Five Questions To Ask A Computer Training School Before Signing Up

As with any field, there are good technical training schools, and bad ones. When you sign up with one of these schools, you’ve made a significant investment in time and money. You deserve to know everything about the school and your job prospects after leaving that school before you put down your hard-earned money. The problem is, sometimes it’s hard to know the right questions to ask.

The point of this article is not to bash technical training schools. That’s how I got my start in IT eight years ago, and today I’m a CCIE™ and own my own Cisco training company and my own consulting firm.

Before I ever put down the first dime, though, I asked some tough questions. So should you.

What are my true job prospects and legitimate salary levels after I graduate from your school?

We’ve all heard the ads on the radio… “Did you know the average salary of an MCSE is $80,000?” “Are you worth $65,000 a year? If not, call us!”

I’m an optimist, and I often tell people that no field rewards individual achievement and drive like IT does. Having said that, none of us start at the top, and darn few of us start at that kind of salary.

I’m sure that there are some people who broke in at $80,000, but I haven’t met very many of them. Be very wary of technical schools that use the famous/infamous MCSE Salary Survey as a marketing tool. They tend to represent those salaries as starting salaries.

Ask your technical school what the average starting salary of their graduates is. And keep in mind that salary is not the most important factor to consider when looking for your first job in IT; it’s the experience you’ll be able to put on your resume later on that you should weigh heavily at this point.

In short, be very careful about schools that brag about starting salaries. It’s not where you start, it’s where you end up.

How up-to-date are the courses you’re offering?

Make sure the school you’re going to attend has made efforts to keep their courses relevant. Ask what changes have been made to their curriculum in the last three years. No field changes faster than IT. If the answer to that question is “none”, look somewhere else.

I want to work in IT security. Have you placed anyone in this field lately? If so, can I talk to them?

Technical schools are jumping on the security bandwagon, with a couple of schools running ads about training you to work in Homeland Security. If that’s your goal, that’s great, but keep in mind that you have to get a security clearance for any job like that.

And how do you get a security clearance? You have to be sponsored.

And who will sponsor you? Your employer.

Can you get employed in a Homeland Security job without having the clearance in the first place?

Hmmm. Probably not.

Hello, Catch-22.

Again, I’m certainly not saying you can’t eventually get an IT security job; if that’s where you want to go, you can eventually get there. The key word there is “eventually”. Ask the school you’re thinking of attending whether they’ve actually been able to place graduates in such jobs. Ask to talk to them. If the school’s managed to do so, they’ll be glad to put you in touch with such graduates.

What textbooks does your school use?

Some technical school chains use only books that someone in their organization wrote. I’ve heard some of their own teachers complain about the quality of these books. The technical school I attended used off-the-shelf books, and the quality was very good.

If you’re looking into entering the IT field, you probably know someone who’s already in it. Use that resource for everything it’s worth. Ask that person what they think about the books, or for that matter, what the local reputation of the school is. IT is a small world, if the school has a good or bad reputation, most of the IT personnel in your city or town probably know about it.

The fifth question is a question to ask of HR representatives. Every technical school lists companies where they’ve placed their graduates on their promotional material. Pick up the phone, call these companies, and ask to speak to someone in HR. Ask that person about the reputation of the school. Five to eight phone calls will give you a good picture of where the school stands with local employers.

Making the decision to attend a technical school can be the best decision you’ve ever made; it certainly was for me. Make sure to ask the right questions before writing a check or taking a loan to attend; the answers to those questions will indicate to you whether this school is truly the school that can help you achieve your dreams.

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of over 100 free certification exam tutorials, including Cisco CCNA certification test prep articles. His exclusive Cisco CCNA study guide and Cisco CCNA training is also available!

Visit his blog and sign up for Cisco Certification Central, a daily newsletter packed with CCNA, Network+, Security+, A+, and CCNP certification exam practice questions! A free 7-part course, "How To Pass The CCNA", is also available, and you can attend an in-person or online CCNA boot camp with The Bryant Advantage!

Computer Training School Tutorial: Know Your Instructor

Making the decision to attend a computer tech school can be one of the best decisions of your life. Another great decision is to tap a hidden wealth of knowledge that is right before every student at schools such as ECPI and ITT, but very few students take advantage of it.

When you're attending a computer training school, you must avoid the mentality that some other students will have - "I gotta go to school, I gotta be here, I can't wait to leave and go home". When you're preparing for a career working with computers, you've got to take advantage of every learning experience you can get, and that includes getting to know the most valuable resource at your school - your teachers!

Your teachers have busy schedules, but it was my experience that every single time I asked for help or had questions outside of class, my teachers went the extra mile to help me. I’m sure yours will do the same for you, but you have to let them know you want that help!

At your tech school, you must develop the skills and work ethic that you will use to succeed in the IT field. By staying after class, working overtime in the computer labs, and getting to know your instructors, you'll be astonished at the additional knowledge you can pick up. Almost any good teacher is going to have real-world experience, and you need to draw on that knowledge. Having lunch with an instructor is another great idea, as it allows you to get to know them away from the classroom.

Part of success in any field is making contacts for the future. You may not be in the IT field yet, but you should already be getting to know people with IT experience - and who better than your teachers? Besides, they hear about job openings all the time from friends, and the more you stand out from the crowd, the more likely you are to be remembered for such opportunities!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of over 100 free certification exam tutorials, including Cisco CCNA certification test prep articles. His exclusive Cisco CCNA study guide and Cisco CCNA training is also available!

Visit his blog and sign up for Cisco Certification Central, a daily newsletter packed with CCNA, Network+, Security+, A+, and CCNP certification exam practice questions! A free 7-part course, "How To Pass The CCNA", is also available, and you can attend an in-person or online CCNA boot camp with The Bryant Advantage!

How to Choose a Computer Training School

Since the birth of the internet, the computer industry has been filled with potential jobs. It not only has become one of the leading industries in the world, but it has provided many students with the opportunity to do what they love best.

Although computer jobs are popular, they are anything but easy. In order to get a great job in the computer field, one must have a lot of experience, CBT, and education. Luckily, there are dozens of different ways to get a degree. However, with so many different routes to take, it can be difficult to choose a computer training school. As long as you have the tools to pick your career path, it should be smooth sailing.

The first thing you need to ask yourself is what kind of computer field you want to go into. With hundreds of different careers in the industry, it is crucial to narrow it down to a few options. There are programs that include web design to basic programming. Nonetheless, you need these tools to make your mark in the world. However, it may be smart to find out what careers are “hot” in the market. Some positions are quite hard to find, while others make millions of dollars a year. If you want to make money, it is important to find the jobs that will get you there.

After you decide what type of career you would like in the computer industry, it is smart to research the training schools around your area. You can do so by searching the term on Google or going to specific sites. Many people prefer http://www.computer-schools.us/, where they can type in their area and see the opportunities available. Surprisingly, many students are actual professionals already in another industry, who are looking to expand their skills. Training centers can be found either online or offline, depending on the amount of time you want to spend training. If you want to get your computer training done quickly, it is recommended that you devote most of your time training and perhaps finding an internship in the process.

For those who want prominent training but don’t know where to look, then New Horizons learning center may be the place to go. New Horizons is one of the largest IT training companies in the world. With great flexibility and convenience, students are able to get their certification quickly on their own time. It is great because New Horizons offers three types of programs. While there are in person training sessions with a traditional teacher, there are also online courses. This web training is the newest trend, as e-learning has become one of the biggest education markets in the past decade.

If you are unsure about this specific program, there are many other great CBT programs such as Global Knowledge. Global knowledge offers hundreds of programs for professionals and newcomers alike. This company has trained fortune 500 companies, as well as businesses worldwide.

Overall, there are hundreds of different options when choosing the right computer training program. With the internet now expanding to e-learning, CBT has become fairly easy and convenient. You can easily get certified if you devote just a few hours a week to the program. No matter what you decide to do, it is important that you have the drive and the passion. After researching the program you want to take, and figuring out the type of career you want, it is essential to work hard and study the long hours. With such an extensive career, it is vital that you know all of the information taught to you. This is anything but an “easy” get through it program, where you can sleep the entire time. If you put in the effort and the hours, you will surely come out on top.

Natalie Aranda writes on training and technology. For those who want prominent training but don’t know where to look, then New Horizons learning center may be the place to go. New Horizons is one of the largest IT training companies in the world. With great flexibility and convenience, students are able to get their certification quickly on their own time. It is great because New Horizons offers three types of programs. With the internet now expanding to e-learning, computer training and CBT has become fairly easy and convenient.

Computer Training - Finding A School

You've made up your mind that you're going to attend a school and get some kind of computer training, whether it be computer programming, web design, networking, computer repair, or even just data entry. The question is, what school do you go to? How do you even go about picking a school? What should you look for in a school? How can you tell a good school from a bad one? The last question is sometimes the hardest one to answer but hopefully, by the time you're done reading this, you'll have a good idea of what to be on the lookout for.

The first thing you will notice about any school is how much it costs to go there. The price ranges, depending on the course of study, can be all over the map. Some schools can charge as much as $5,000, like the famous Chubb Institute for one of their programs. Other schools may be as cheap as $1500 for the same program. Does that mean Chubb is better or are they just overpriced and you're paying for the name?

Fortunately, in most cases, you get what you pay for. Chubb has a reputation of having the best instructors to go along with the best programs and that's the first thing you look at, the school's reputation. Dig up all you can about the school. Ask people in the community. Visit message boards. Do as much research as you can before making your decision. Of course, there is going to be good and bad said about everything, but the good should outweigh the bad if the school is top notch.

The next thing you have to do is see if the school itself will satisfy your needs as a student. You may not know what those needs are so here is a short list.

For starters, you want to make sure that the tuition includes all books and supplies. You don't want to sign up for a course that costs $5,000 and find out that books and lab time are extra. Get all the costs right up front when you visit the enrolment office.

The next thing you want to ask is if the instructors themselves are certified by the state. Unfortunately, because most computer schools are private schools, state certification is not required. This doesn't mean the instructors are not qualified but it does leave room for doubt. If the school hires anybody off the street who just happens to say he can teach, you could be in for a very unpleasant experience.

After that, you need to ask about lab time. In most computer courses, there is a lot of hands on work. You need to make sure that you will have access to the lab during hours that you can attend. The last thing you want is to find out that lab hours are from 2 to 4 each day and you have a part time job during those hours. Ideally, you want a lab that's open all day and night. Many schools will have this option.

Finally, you want to ask about job placement services. This is probably the most crucial area of any school. No matter how good the training, it is difficult to land that first job without a good placement center that has access to major companies. This is where a school like Chubb has a big advantage over many schools as Chubb is a company by itself and they hire many of their own students if they are qualified.

By looking at the above things when choosing a school, you have an excellent chance of finding a computer school that is just right for you.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Computer Training