 For some of the viewers who maybe, you know, are thinking about going into IT, how would you recommend them finding out if this is a good career for them or not? Yeah, so something that I wish I had done was just do it. I would just get your hands dirty and then go through various courses. So maybe like web development. I personally don't. I have done it and it's just too much sitting right there and then typing and then the semi-colons. It drove me nuts because I took some web developing things. I tried databases and I was like, this gives me a headache. Networking. I have my master's in cybersecurity. I mean, I was all over the place. GIS. Just go ahead and just do things honestly. And then there are a lot of online learning, low-cost things that you could do such as Pluralsight and you could or you DM me and then just go through their labs and see if you enjoy it and do as much as you possibly can. The traditional college route just teaches you memorization and someone who's just coming from college, it took me a while to get over that. I'm like, what? I have to do stuff. I can't just take tests and memorize all these facts and then I have to apply it. I was really lazy. It took me a while to get over that. It's like, I have to, I have to apply my knowledge. But yeah, just go ahead and do it. Don't spend too much time learning about these concepts or the book knowledge of it. Just dive deep down as many topics as you can and also talk to people in that field. So I'm in IT. I wasn't able to really tell you what being a software engineer is like or I wouldn't be able to tell you what cabling, like they're cable dogs in IT because I can't speak from that. But there's just so many jobs I guess. But yeah, so talk to people and try as many different things as you can for free or low cost. Don't spend $5,000 on a course. Quick break guys. I forgot to mention this during the video, but there's a really good certification that's highly rated. It's the IBM Cyber Security Analyst Certification. And I'm going to include that in the description down below. It'll be at the very top of the description. And then also there is a phenomenal way that a lot of students who go to some of these alternative schools like WGU use to test out of classes. And that's how they are able to finish their degree in less than a year. So I'll leave both of those down in the description below at the very top. Definitely check those out and let's get back to the video. I think that's a fantastic suggestion, especially the course one. I always recommend just in general, you know, I give kind of like general advice on my channel, but I always tell people it's almost like a broken record at this point. I think people get annoyed when I say in my video, but always try to contact somebody in the field that you're looking into. You know, you can get a hold of them maybe via LinkedIn, for instance, and just ask them what they would recommend. So you're going to find that for some career paths, you ask them, hey, do I need a degree to get into this? And they're going to be like, for sometimes they're going to be like absolutely without a doubt you need a degree. Other times they're going to be like, sometimes you need a degree, but you know, it helps, but you don't absolutely need it. And then other times they're going to be like, you do not need to get a degree. Don't get a degree, right? And the only way you're really going to know if that's important is to just reach out and ask people, because something that might have been true 20 years ago is not true right now. There's a lot of degrees that in my opinion were really good 20, 30 years ago in my research, and they're really just not that great right now for certain career paths that you want to go down, for instance. And then I really like your suggestion about just trying stuff out online for kind of like cheap or free. I think that's great. There's like Teachable, Udemy, Coursera is good. Yeah, there's some good sites. Oh, which one did you say? Treehouse? Treehouse, yeah. And then you said Pluralsight, Pluralsight. Pluralsight is really good. Got it, yeah. So those are some great resources. Just get on there and try to do some projects. And then your suggestion for maybe just recording yourself and putting it on YouTube as well, just to kind of challenge yourself. I think that's a great suggestion as well. And if you hate doing it, you probably shouldn't get into it. Yeah. Don't do it for the money, guys. No, there's nothing worse because I've had jobs that I've despised. There's nothing worse than having doing something 40 hours a week that you just can't stand because you're miserable and everyone around you is miserable, too, because you're miserable. Which just, yeah, make sure to try it out. And also, you're right. Talking to people on LinkedIn, I was always afraid to reach out to people. I was always very scared. But honestly, people want to help and it's not something I understood. It was like, why people want to help me? But it actually probably was like a gift to them to be able to help you. Now I understand it a little bit more, but I was so afraid in 18, 19 to ask anyone, like, what am I supposed to do? I don't know. Yeah, just talking to someone, people in the field is the best way by far. And you may think your teachers have a lot of knowledge. I'm not trying to go against teachers, but there's nothing like someone who has working experience in the field to be able to tell you what it's like. Teachers, teach, but they're not going to give you insight on the day to day life and whether or not it's suited for you because they just teach the knowledge of it. So that's an important thing. Yeah, that was a great suggestion. Yeah, one thing I found with certain careers, I've talked to people about this is I'm not saying all counselors, all teachers are like this, but sometimes college counselors will give you advice that sort of benefits the college. Yeah, because they want you to come back and get like a master's or a doctor's, right? And then sometimes same with teachers, sometimes same with teachers, right? They're maybe they're, they honestly think their advice is good. And maybe it was good five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, but until you actually talk to someone who's in the field and doing it, you're not going to get the best advice. And I always recommend talking to several people if you can just to get like a balanced perspective on it as well. Definitely. And different genders too. So I'm a female in a masculine environment. So my perspective will be way different than a male in kind of this in like a male dominated field. So like if anyone wants to reach out to me and ask what it's like to be a female in IT, I'm probably that person. But if you're like, well, what's it like to be a male in a male? It couldn't help you there. So it's important to take that into consideration too. So absolutely. And by the way, if I didn't mention this before, everyone, I'll of course link her YouTube channel down in the description. And if you have any questions on this video, or just comments, criticisms, concerns, any way we could make these videos better, for instance, just comment those down below. And of course, Nicole, you can feel free to answer the comments, you would probably give much better answers than me, of course. But I try to answer every comment. It's been a little overwhelming lately. But I try to get to everyone. But yeah, that is a pretty, pretty good idea. And of course, you could comment on her channel and she would answer them there as well. So next section we're going to get into is going to be the yes or no section. So if it's not, if it's not a yes or no answer, you can give like a very short answer, like, but we're going to try to keep this under a sentence if possible. That's my goal with this section. Okay, you got you. Do grades matter in college for IT? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No. No, just to get rid of that whole concept of grades. No. Actually, I think it's a deterrent. So if you're an F student, it's better. Okay, that was a very straightforward answer. I appreciate that. Thank you. I feel strongly about that topic. How about clubs? Do you think it's worth your time to be joining clubs in college? Is that going to help you with getting a job? It's good for meeting people. So yes. If the people can help you get a job, yes. If it's like the drinking club, probably not. No. Yeah. How about getting leadership positions within those clubs? Do you think that's something that's going to help you quite a bit or not? It will help you because it develops your self-esteem and your ability to communicate with people and those types of skills and that will help you get a job. So yes. Should I just say yes or no? Am I being too lengthy here? As long as we keep it to like a sentence, I think it's fine. Okay, got you. How about internships? Would our internships important? Do they matter? Yeah, they would help a lot in securing a job. And then this is probably kind of along the same line, but work experience is that important? Yes, but you can create your own working experience. And then networking. How important is networking in a field full of introverts? Man, that one's hard. It is so important, but I understand if you don't want to do it at all. Oh, it is important, but I didn't know anyone in my field. So in IT there's so many jobs that you don't, I don't want to say you don't need to network, but get a low competition, high demand job, and you don't need to network. Yeah, there you go. Got it. And then how about skills? How important are skills? Very important. Number one, you need, you need to have skills and you need to know how to use them. Got it. And then this is sort of along the same line of, as you know, getting experience, but just kind of like doing projects on the side, like we were talking about maybe doing YouTube videos, for instance, how important is that? If you have no experience, it's very important. If you have experience, it becomes less important, but unless you're trying to change your niche. Got it. And then is the school you go to, is that important? Is that something people really care about in the IT field? No, not at all. Most of my coworkers don't have degrees. Okay, so I know this is pretty difficult. I sent you the list because this is a lot to kind of just picture in your head, but can you rank from most important to least important? Grades, clubs, leadership positions, internships, work experience, networking skills and projects, oh projects and the school that you go to. Yeah, I can go ahead and do that. Let's see, school you go to. So the first one would be work experience, of course. And then I would say internships, and then your skills would be second, but it kind of goes with your work experience a little bit. So you gain skills at your work experience and internships. And then below that would be projects, and then below that would be networking, and then clubs, and then the school you go to. And then I would say your grades, your grades don't matter at all. So if you're a D student, don't feel bad about yourself. Totally okay. You can still get into tech if you're a D student. Yeah, I would say that. Some of them go together though, so you can gain skills from work experience projects and internships. But the brand name of your school matters none in tech. It wouldn't even, it's kind of outdated. Why does it matter? I don't know. Yeah, is that a good answer? Did I answer that well? That's fantastic. Yeah, that's absolutely fantastic. I found that you asked this question to different people in different fields. You'll get literally the, it'll be flipped opposite. Really? Yeah, yeah. Great matter? I asked, yeah. In some fields, your grades really, really do matter. You'll actually put it on your resume. And then I would say in most fields, they don't. But there are some fields where you legitimately will be on your resume or your CV. So it really does matter. Yeah. And then some fields where the school you go to, the school you go to really matters. Like if you're a lawyer, for instance, a lot of the time the school you go to matters like a lot. So I wouldn't do well in those fields at all. That would just anger me. To be honest, I would be so angry. I was like, because I would also just say this, like your school is pointless and your grades don't matter. That's wild because it's kind of outdated. If you think about it, school is outdated. You can get all this information online. But I guess like in nursing or a medical field, I can understand why the traditional route. So it's not complete. In tech, though, that's kind of my realm. In tech, it doesn't matter. Other fields, I'm just never going to enter them. I'm never going to become a lawyer. All right. So is there anything else that we didn't go over that you think might be important here? I do. So when choosing your niche, if you're interested in finding a job really quickly with little experience, I would choose one where the skills gap is really high. So for instance, cyber security, cloud and data science are in IT, one of the highest job niches with a huge skills gap. So you're going to be able to pick up a job a lot faster than say if you go into networking, which has been around for 20 years, still a skills gap, just not as high as data science, cyber security, and cloud. So I would mess around with those technologies and there's so many niches underneath those that you might be able to find one that you like. Yeah. Everybody seems to be very interested in data analysts, data scientists. I get requests for that all the time on the channel. So there's someone watching this out there who is a data analyst or a data scientist. Send me an email. We can do an interview. That one seems to be in very high demand in the comments section.