A ridiculously large number of organisations only concern themselves with gaining a certificate, and completely avoid what it's all actually about - getting yourself a new job or career. Always start with the end in mind - don't make the vehicle more important than the destination. It's an awful thing, but thousands of new students begin programs that seem magnificent in the sales literature, but which provides the end-result of a job that doesn't satisfy. Try talking to typical college leavers and you'll see where we're coming from.

You'll want to understand what industry will expect from you. What precise exams they will want you to have and how you'll go about getting some commercial experience. It's definitely worth spending time assessing how far you'd like to progress your career as it will present a very specific set of certifications. Take advice from an experienced industry professional, even if you have to pay a small fee - it's usually much cheaper and safer to discover early on if a chosen track will suit, rather than find out following two years of study that you aren't going to enjoy the job you've chosen and have wasted years of effort.

Both DBAs and DB developers are usually decidedly methodical and orderly people, who have a great attention to the details, and enjoy operating within smaller teams, or alone. First-rate communication skills certainly are an advantage, since there'll be recurring inter-action with senior management. Database Management is an extremely important occupation, as Security needs increasingly more vigilance in this area of work. A very high level of personal ethic and commercial dependability will be needed - & in a lot of areas you will need some form of security-clearance. People from business and accounting jobs often make excellent DBA's, and frequently the role is a stepping-stone to a rather more advanced status within the business hierarchy.

An area that's often missed by people mulling over a new direction is 'training segmentation'. This is essentially how the program is broken down into parts for drop-shipping to you, which vastly changes the point you end up at. Typically, you will purchase a course staged over 2 or 3 years and receive one element at a time until graduation. This sounds logical on one level, until you consider this: What would their reaction be if you find it difficult to do every module at the required speed? And maybe you'll find their order of completion doesn't work as well as some other order of studying might.

In a perfect world, you want everything at the start - so you'll have them all for the future to come back to - as and when you want. Variations can then be made to the order that you attack each section if another more intuitive route presents itself.

Commercial certification is now, very visibly, already replacing the older academic routes into the IT industry - why then is this? Corporate based study (as it's known in the industry) is far more effective and specialised. Industry has realised that specialisation is what's needed to cope with a technically advancing marketplace. Microsoft, CompTIA, CISCO and Adobe are the big boys in this field. In a nutshell, students are simply taught the necessary specifics in depth. It's slightly more broad than that, but principally the objective has to be to concentrate on the fundamentally important skill-sets (including a degree of required background) - without attempting to cover a bit about everything else (as academia often does).

When it comes down to the nitty-gritty: Commercial IT certifications tell an employer precisely what skills you have - the title is a complete giveaway: as an example - I am a 'Microsoft Certified Professional' in 'Planning and Maintaining a Windows 2003 Infrastructure'. So an employer can look at their needs and which qualifications will be suitable to deal with those needs.

Ask any capable consultant and they'll regale you with many awful tales of students who've been sold completely the wrong course for them. Ensure you only ever work with an industry professional that asks lots of questions to find out what's right for you - not for their pay-packet! Dig until you find the right starting point of study for you. It's worth remembering, if in the past you've acquired any accreditation or direct-experience, then you will often be able to pick-up at a different starting-point to a student who's starting from scratch. Always consider starting with some basic Microsoft package and Windows skills first. This can often make your learning curve a much more gentle.

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