Andy Allison
Job Before: Care-giving
Job Now: IT Technician @ Kennet School
Why did you start the Traineeship?
I started the Traineeship because I wanted to change my career from medical to IT as I’ve always had a strong interest in IT but didn’t know how to go about getting a job. I thought I’d have to go to college for years but then I saw your site. The guarantee of a job at the end swung it for me.
What did you enjoy most about the Traineeship?
The aspect I enjoyed the most was the ability to learn at my own pace. the videos were very informative and the dummy tests really really helped me judge my level of knowledge and progress, more of them would be even better. Both Chrys Thorsen and Ben Zev are just brilliant, each demonstrated their depth of knowledge in a way that conveyed their true pleasure to be sharing it with me. Anton covers the Comp TIA material and makes even the mundane parts fun and the security presenter Bryan makes you look at that aspect through a thought-provoking pair of eyes.
What's your current role like?
My current role is as an IT technician in a large secondary school. I work in an office with four other colleagues who all have more experience than me. They’re friendly and always happy to help me. They appreciate that I bring a different skill set to their team and totally appreciated me telling them that I am there to learn from them and will be asking them loads of questions. I have some book knowledge but real life is always different. I’m enjoying it even more than I dreamed I would. When job hunting I knew starting in an office and being part of a team would be the best environment for me as it allows me to gather knowledge in more ways than just research. The great thing about the course is that although the Comp TIA A+ qualification is what you achieve, the other modules give you the ability to appreciate the world of IT related to the roles of other team members and the problems they face, for example, changes in Group Policy or a switch not talking to another switch. My boss is happy to let me shadow him when we put a new switch in. It’s beyond my current experience and responsibilities but because of the course I could discuss the network structure with him and he appreciates my enthusiasm.