The Value of Real-World Experience?

This topic came up in class a few weeks ago about the value of real world experience vs. knowing only what comes from a textbook. This is applicable whether you are a trainer or by someone applying for an IT job. You have to have real world experience – you can, in many cases, get by without a certification – but you can’t do your job without having hands-on experience.

We all know someone who got their job because they had a paper-certification and could “talk-the-talk”, but relied on others to get their job done for them. Not too many years ago I had to work with someone who had a paper-cert (zero real-world experience) and was incapable of performing the most basic of computer tasks e.g. installing a printer and sharing it later. This is a basic task – no one was asking them to subnet a class B network into 18 different subnets. The kicker here is that the person we both reported to thought that this individual was just the greatest thing, probably because they could sell a deep freezer to an Eskimo in the winter. But I digress; the point is that we need to have real-world experience to do our jobs effectively and to seek advancement.

The question then becomes – how does a person new to the IT field get experience? This can be difficult as it is in any field where one is trying to get ahead, or just get into the field. One place is to offer your services to a non-profit agency. They are usually cash-strapped and cannot afford to pay much for an IT person to come in and work on their system(s). This also holds true for churches as well. You might also look as internships – an excellent place to get gain experience. These all can be used to enhance your current skill set and make some contacts as well.

There is only so much one can glean from a book or listen from an instructor in the classroom before you must work with a production system. Understanding theory is important, but theory and the realities of a production network are many vastly different. The option of wiping a troublesome system, as you may have done in the classroom, is not a viable option in most production environments. Just tell your boss that since you are having issues with DNS you want to wipe and reinstall the Domain Controller just as you did in class…your boss will be laughing all the way to the door as he escorts out. Knowing how to troubleshoot only comes with time and experience!

While classroom learning is instrumental to entering the IT field or further education, it cannot be used as a substitute for hands-on experience.