i have a couple of questions 1. do you need a college diploma to go along with the certs to receive employment from IT firms or whatever? 2. how do you/what do you do to gain experience in IT so that you can be able to get those $100K or more jobs? 3. what careers do people with IT certs can do? i know to be a Cyber Security Specialist you need a degree. i have more questions but i will ask later.
Yes, I am Microsoft and Novell certified. I don't have A plus as that certification did not exist when I came along. These are old certifications (and so am I). In the 90s when I was starting my professional career... it was all about the certifications, with actual relevant work experience. A College degree certainly didn't hurt, but there were tons of IT jobs and many didn't place much emphasis on having a degree. Nowadays, that's changed. One, there's a lot more to the IT field, and getting a college degree and concentration in a certain direction is a good way to go. For instance... In my opinion it's not enough to simply major in computer science. If you want to go the IT security route which are among the highest paid IT jobs... you should be in a program that's concentrating on security. You should also plan to have obtained at least the first certification in the area of which your interests lie before you hit the job market.
My thought is that it could be just because of the competition. So many people with degrees are competing for the same jobs. That said, if ever there was an area in which you can land a good job w/o a degree... I think IT is still one of those areas. So, I'd say a person w/o a degree, but has certs stand a decent chance of landing a job even if its entry level such as help desk.