| The world is your oyster. Where you decide to | | | | certification. Your career path can go in any |
| take your career after this is entirely up to | | | | direction you decide to take it. Let's take a |
| you. There are some things to consider | | | | look at some different paths to follow. |
| depending on your geographic location. If you | | | | |
| happen to live in or near the larger | | | | The Hardware Path: |
| populated cities, competition for entry-level | | | | |
| technical positions can be fierce. More and | | | | You can go from simple computer repair to |
| more IT graduates enter the workforce each | | | | manufacturing high-end workstations and |
| day. By obtaining your A+ certification you | | | | servers. |
| can have a substantial advantage over your | | | | |
| competition in the career world, as well as | | | | The Technician Path: |
| having a good foundation for adding more | | | | |
| certifications too. | | | | The next step is taking the Net+ Exam and |
| | | | installing network cabling, supporting |
| Computer repair and technical support can | | | | corporate end users and managing the |
| however be quite lucrative. Here are some of | | | | corporate desktop. |
| the common fields that your A+ cert can make | | | | |
| you a part of: | | | | Administration: |
| | | | |
| *Field service technicians | | | | Network support, configuring routers and |
| | | | managing user accounts on the corporate |
| *Help Desk and Customer Service | | | | servers. This is also the well known Nework+/ |
| | | | MCSE/NOVEL CNA/Cisco CCNA track. |
| *PC technicians | | | | |
| | | | Development: |
| *Computer Manufacturing (DELL, HP, IBM etc.,) | | | | |
| | | | Design and manage the companies web presence |
| However the opportunities for advacement and | | | | and intranet. |
| alternate fields are virtually endless. Here | | | | |
| are some areas where specialized training and | | | | (.NET, ASP, MsSQL, PHP, MySQL, Oracle, |
| skills are in large demand: | | | | ColdFusion) |
| | | | |
| - Computer Forensics | | | | As you can see from just this small list the |
| | | | possibilities are astounding. This is only a |
| (Due to an increase in computer related | | | | small percentage of the technologies and |
| crimes such as identity theft etc., lead to a | | | | career paths for you to choose from. The |
| greater need for people to analyze data | | | | table below lists various other |
| without corruption.) | | | | certifications that you can combine with A+ |
| | | | to take your career in a new direction. Also |
| - Disaster prevention and recovery | | | | visit Comptia's Related certification page |
| | | | for more information on how to apply A+ |
| (Oh-No!, I forgot to back-up my files. Now | | | | towards advanced certifications by vendors |
| what do I do?) | | | | such as Cisco, Microsoft and more. |
| | | | |
| - Personalized Training | | | | * Hardware: Server+, Manufacturing |
| | | | |
| Teach corporate and home users how to use | | | | * Technician: Net+, MCDSP, MCP/MCSA |
| software applications, prevent data loss and | | | | (Microsoft Track) |
| identity theft.) | | | | |
| | | | * Administration: Network+,CCNA/CCNP,CNA |
| - LSDBMS and VLSDBMS | | | | CNE,Linux Track, MCSE |
| | | | |
| (Large Scale Database Management Systems and | | | | * Development: .NET, MCDBA, PHP/MySQL |
| Very Large Scale Database Management Systems) | | | | (Open-source Track) |
| otherwise know as terabyte data warehousing. | | | | |
| | | | Information technology is an ever changing |
| Other Career Paths: | | | | arena. And while you may have decided on a |
| | | | specific career path, the benefits of the |
| Once you have gone through the IT industry | | | | CompTIA A+ certification will remain a solid |
| right of passage, the CompTIA A+ | | | | foundation for you to build on. |