Oct. 22, 2023, Post by Curtis
There are many highly skilled and well-paid System Administrators in the world today that never got a college degree. While having a computer science degree is helpful, it's really your experience, skills, and eagerness to learn new things that will not only get you a Sysadmin job, but will let you thrive in it.
The 4+ years that you would spend at college, plus the years of your life that you will spend paying for that degree, could be better spent getting real-world experience in a lower-level IT job, while studying on the side. You will be getting paid to learn instead of paying to learn.
Typically when your managers and colleagues find out that your studying on your own time, they will make an extra effort to include you in projects that will help you develop the skills to move up. In the IT culture, eagerness to learn is usually rewarded.
System Admin and IT in general is a great career path for people with no college but are willing to self-study.
Real-world experience is the number one thing that hiring managers are looking for. You could have a bachelor's degree in system administration, but with no experience, you will find it difficult to get anything other than an entry-level job. However, with that degree, you should move up much quicker, but it illustrates my point of the value of experience.
If you do not have an IT job right now, go out and get one!
Anyone can get an entry-level IT with no certifications or experience. Examples of Entry-level jobs are Help Desk and Computer Support Specialist. I even wrote an article on just how to do that. Get A Help Desk Job With No Experience.
The sooner you start working the sooner you start learning and getting the work experience that you need.
Make sure people at your job know what you are studying. If your manager knows you are learning Powershell or Linux for example, they will probably make an effort to get you some projects that include those. But realize, even the menial tasks of a low-level IT staff will help prepare you for a better job. Many aspects of all IT jobs aren't technical at all. Important skills you will learn are:
Another great way of getting this valuable experience is to look for volunteer work and also look for freelancing opportunities.
There are as many different types of Systems Administrator jobs in the world as there are different types of systems. So it's important to have an idea of which types of systems you want to work on. This will help streamline your learning process so that you're not all over the place. You want to learn the least amount of skills possible to get your first System Administrator job so that you can get your first System Administrator job as fast as possible. That's when the learning will kick into high gear.
Some general categories of different Systems Administrator jobs:
If you don't know what type of System Admin you want to be, I would start with the low-hanging fruit. Search through the job descriptions of System Admin jobs in your area and see which qualifications come up the most often. These are the skills that you need to target but they will vary in different geographic locations.
The typical skills that are commonly required:
You will need at least a couple of certifications to land a job as a System Administrator. These certifications tell hiring managers that you have at least a rudimentary understanding of the concepts and more importantly, that you are willing to learn things on your own time and that you are ambitious.
The most important thing that a certification does for you is gets your resume noticed.
Some of the most valuable certifications for System Administrators are:
Building labs at home is the best way to get the hands-on experience that you need to truly understand these skills. Learning how to pass a test with multiple-choice questions is not the same thing as setting up servers from scratch and getting them to work together in a complex network.
You can buy an older server for less than $1000 and you can virtualize everything you need inside of that server. You can also build a server from used parts if you want to get some experience with computer hardware. Even better, you can build your home lab on a cloud. This will give you the extra experience of working with cloud computing.
What your home lab should include:
The best thing about having a home lab is that you don't have to be afraid to try things out. Breaking your home lab is a great way to learn the exact skills that you will need on the job.
You want to start applying for system administrator jobs as soon as possible. Not before you have at least a year in Information Technology and 1 or 2 certifications, but soon after that. There are several reasons for this.
It's easy to get discouraged when you are getting turned down for jobs, but it is important to keep at it. Nowadays with it being so easy to apply for a job, hiring managers are getting flooded with applicants, meaning that it is harder than ever to stand out from the crowd. It is normal to submit your resume to hundreds of companies before getting hired and making the leap from an entry-level information technology job to System Administrator is a big move. It won't be easy but it will defiantly be worth it and it can be done!
As you look for jobs you will notice that there is a huge demand for System Administrators out there. If you acquire the fundamental skills required to be Sysadmin, you will get hired. Simply put, they need you!
As a Sysadmin, you are positioning yourself down a career path that has a lot of growth as well as optionality. Once you get some experience as a Systems Administrator you will find it easy to move into other IT roles if you desire. For example, having Sysadmin experience will look great if you want to go into cyber security, data analytics, or just about any Information Technology field.
Becoming a system administrator without a college degree in computer science or data science requires a willingness to learn, hard work, and a focused plan of attack. With dedication and the right mindset, anyone can achieve success in this rewarding and growing field.