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Google IT Support Professional Certificate

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Re: Google IT Support Professional Certificate

#161

Post by Coursera »

tvanantwerp wrote: post #105

I'm not convinced of the quality of this course material. I thought I could try it out, see if I could fill some gaps in my knowledge. I tried out some of the quizzes and they were just bad. Course 1, week 2, for example, asks you to match items to where they go on a motherboard. This quiz is flatly wrong. It asks you to match a PSU to the rear Ethernet port, and a SATA cable to an IDE port. Being so obviously wrong…

Thank you for flagging this issue. We are extremely proud to have worked with Google on creating this certificate, which makes it possible for anyone without a technical background to gain the skills they need to start a career in IT. In our enthusiasm to launch a first-of-its-kind certificate, this error slipped through Coursera's review process. We have already removed the assessment with the error and will release a fix for it very soon. We sincerely apologize for this subpar learning experience in a certificate program that otherwise has been carefully designed and beta-tested over several months.

- The Coursera Team

Re: Google IT Support Professional Certificate

#162

Post by technion »

w8rbt wrote: post #106
Spooky23 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those IT people are dinosaurs. Many of these folks are around, but the job openings are slim because they are attriting away. 80% of traditional IT hocus pocus can be automated or performed by an office manager or admin.

This! A small dev team with an AWS account and a git repo will run circles around the IT team in terms of speed, compliance requirements and scalability. Traditional network infrastructure, virtualization, security, DBMS, etc. are all on the verge of extinction.

You said it yourself - "a dev team".

Now take, for example, a legal firm. One of the major LOB vendors in this space has a product that only runs on Oracle on Windows, with an extremely snowflake-like build. You can call them a dinosaur, but since they are a legal firm that wants to be competitive they will use this product.

Supporting this product involves a somewhat constant string of repairs, involving things like "logon to a user desktop and reregister DLLs". It takes a helpdesk team to run these things. The new "cloud" edition is literally a Microsoft RDS server that you run on premises, and on which you run the client software. Thereby facilitating remote access, making it a "cloud" product.

Do we argue that legal firms don't matter because soon every company will soon just be a development team? I don't think that's feasible.

Re: Google IT Support Professional Certificate

#163

Post by skimaskninja87 »

This certificate is geared towards CS, Mathematics, or Engineering students or enthusiasts or self taught programmers and engineers. The job: Application Support Analyst, IT Analyst, Tech Support Analyst... You'll find the job descriptions on Indeed.com..... If you are currently an "IT major" you may learn some of this material as part of your major coursework. Otherwise, calling it "IT Support" would be very misleading for someone like me who has done Help Desk/Desktop/ Networking/System Administration/ Networking security for the past 13 years with MCSE, COMPTIA, and Cisco certifications and I'm giving someone advice as for as which path to follow.

Now with that said, a "job" consisting of these skillsets is more of a TIER III/IV in IT Support, but can serve as entry level experience for DevOps for CS or engineering functionaries (CS grads and self taught).Especially someone like me who already has technical IT experience and it is a requirement that I am versed in at least one scripting language and some automation scripts and tools.

My advice....this certificate was formulated as a gateway to DevOps, technical support, not "IT Support," in the traditional sense. You won't receive calls about not being able to retrieve emails, paystubs, lost files, identity management and access. However, if an internal company app or the companies software product is buggy, that's where you start. "Back-end IT Support" would be more accurate.

Re: Google IT Support Professional Certificate

#164

Post by skimaskninja87 »

skimaskninja87 wrote: post #163

This certificate is geared towards CS, Mathematics, or Engineering students or enthusiasts or self taught programmers and engineers. The job: Application Support Analyst, IT Analyst, Tech Support Analyst... You'll find the job descriptions on Indeed.com..... If you are currently an "IT major" you may learn some of this material as part of your major coursework. Otherwise, calling it "IT Support" would be very mislead…

A better description using the OSI Model: This certificate is perfect for someone who works at the Application Layer or Layer 4 and above.....

Re: Google IT Support Professional Certificate

#165

Post by skimaskninja87 »

emmelaich wrote: post #135
freehunter wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MCSE certs prepare you for a vastly different job than IT Support. Think CompTIA A+. IT Support and systems administration are different jobs and different certifications help out in different ways. When I got my CompTIA Security+ in college, I got asked by interviewers why I got that and not the CISSP. The answer is, while the CISSP is a far more respected certification, the requirements and entry price are also far…

I hope the MCSE has improved, because about 10% of the MCSEs I've met know next to nothing.

Half the folks don't have a knack for methodical troubleshooting. Doesn't matter whether they are certified, experienced, or not. Some folks don't have the common sense to simply tell someone, "I'll find out later" AND put forth the effort in finding the answer themselves.

Re: Google IT Support Professional Certificate

#166

Post by skimaskninja87 »

freehunter wrote: post #157
emmelaich wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope the MCSE has improved, because about 10% of the MCSEs I've met know next to nothing.

I mentioned the CISSP which has a similar problem... the requirements are X number of years in the security industry but 90% of the people I know with a CISSP are project managers. The problem is boot camps. When you can pay $5k and have the answers drilled into your head for a week, of course anyone can pass.

Problem is you can't gain the experience without a CISSP, for the most part. You have to get lucky that you're either promoted or transferred to a security position. That needs to change at the entry level, so these folks can get the relavent experience. Then apply to take the ISC2 or CISSP....One does not necessarily have to obtain an MSCA or MCSE just to get a foot in the door. You are not applying for a sysadmin gig when starting out. At this point, A+, Net+, and ITIL are seen as the gatekeepers.

Re: Google IT Support Professional Certificate

#167

Post by datguacdoh »

AustinLin wrote: post #144
aesthetics1 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went through the first several weeks of course 1, and you are spot on. The quiz in week 2 is absolutely wrong (did anyone audit this?). I skimmed through the first 6 weeks and even for a beginner course, this is way too dumbed down. I checked out some of the material a bit further through the course as well, and I cannot recommend it for anyone serious about the profession. It looks good on the surface (reading the…

I was also a bit surprised by the simplicity of course 1, but then remembered that the course as a whole is designed for folks with no experience. Looking through the descriptions for the other courses (the actual material isn't out yet) I'm hopeful they will have the level of depth I think we're all expecting.

Yeah you definitely want to keep in mind that this cert, and especially Course 1, has to be accessible to anyone. So it's building a foundation of common knowledge for the other courses which absolutely go into much more details.
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