ACP AdvisorNet Staff ⋅ New York, NY ⋅ 10 years experience

Isaac,

Thank you for your question and ACP support! Deciding on the right school, can hold many factors and gaining information (from different resources) is a great start toward your decision.

An ACP feature that can assist you on deciding your best educational fit, would be our ACP Community page. This feature is a great resource for you because it can allow you to directly message ACP Advisors and Veterans that have experience, within the IT field. As well, it can also, allow you to find Mentors and Veterans, within your area. Possibly, you can use this tool for seeking out Advisors or Veteran's career paths that you admire and ask them, what were the best (educational) steps to get there?

Hope this helps and thank you for your time!

Best,

Kate

Stephen Grey ⋅ Arlington, MA iland ⋅ 12 years experience

Hi Isaac,

Thank you for your service. You can also go to large vendors of technology such as VMware (www.vmware.com), Dell/EMC (www.dell.com) or Cisco (www.cisco.com) and complete their online certifications. Having skillsets within these will make you an attractive candidate for open positions. Most of these certifications are free and would be a nice compliment to the courses David mentioned. Also, public cloud and cybersecurity are very popular skill sets in the IT hiring these days and you may want to look at those. I hope this helps.

Regards,
Steve

David Limato ⋅ Fremont, CA Hewlett Packard ⋅ 15 years experience

Hi Isaac, You know, Community College courses and or University Extension Programs can go a long way into boosting your IT proficiency in a short period of time. Extension programs typically last 6 - 8 weeks and are one or two classes per week. Extension Classes I have seen run around $500 to $800 depending on the course. Community College courses are usually much cheaper.

I don't have experience with New Horizons so can't speak to how good they are.

You can contact companies directly and ask for information on their certificate programs.

If you have basic CS fundamentals you can look into VMWare Certificate Programs.
By fundamentals I mean, OS Experience such as Windows or Linux fundamentals. Mac even as the MacOS at its core is very similar to Early Unix Systems.
If you are more interested in the Hardware Networking Side of things Perhaps Cisco Certification.
Try and contact their training programs directly. You can even ask if they offer a Veteran Discount.

I encourage you to reach out to people that have gone through one of those programs and see what
is a good place to start. Feel free to look me up on Linked In, if you see one of my contacts that has the career path you wish to follow I would be happy to make the introduction.

Best Wishes to you and Thank You for your Service!
Dave Limato

Isaac Ehi ⋅ Dallas, TX U.S. Navy, Petty Officer Second Class ⋅ 4 years served

Thanks Kate.. will do