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	Help Desk Support
What is the help desk/technical support course like? What are certifications for Help Desk/Technical Support? What are the job titles associated with this career? What is the employment outlook for this career? What are the possible career paths? What are some related websites I can visit? What is the help desk/technical support course like? This course is set up for a student who has basic computer experience and wants to get into the computer field. Individuals who have these jobs often receive more training and pass certification tests to become Network Engineers. The curriculum in help desk/technical support prepares students to provide customer and technical support in a computer environment. In this program, students learn to analyze and solve customer computer/network problems. Individuals with the skills gained in this program are often the first contact made by customers who are experiencing a technical problem with a product, a web issue or are unfamiliar with a network system. Individuals with the skills and knowledge gained from this program are often called upon to facilitate installation, implementation, maintenance, education and documentation of a variety of network/web related technologies. The help desk/technical support course requires 100-hour study. Courses leading to IT certification study offered in both the day and the evening. Back to top What are the certifications for help desk/technical support? The learning sequence established by this program is designed to prepare students to qualify to take industry certification tests. Taking the exams generally means that students are hired at higher levels upon graduation. Certifications are tests that are put together by the software manufacturer and administered by VUE sites all over the world and in most languages. It is strongly suggested that students sit for the certification tests right after taking the classes. Common certifications for help desk/technical support are A+, CCNA, MCP, MOUS and CIW. Microsoft Tests For more information on the Microsoft testing, please see www.microsoft.html MCP - Microsoft Certified Professional. This is the first exam of the MCSE process. It requires taking the Windows 2000 Professional exam. MOUS - Microsoft Office User Specialist. These certifications test you on all the Microsoft Office products (Windows, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint). CompTIA (Computing Technology Industry Association) For more information on these exams, please see www.comptia.html A+ - This is currently a series of two exams that give certifications in software and hardware. There is an optional third exam which is a Macintosh-based exam. Cisco For more information on these exams, please see www.cisco.html. CCNA - Cisco Certified Network Administrator. This test can be completed after taking the Administration class. CIW For more information on these exams, please see www.CIWcertified.html. CIW - Certified Internet Webmaster. This test can be completed after taking the Network Administration classes. It is strongly suggested that students use study aides for certifications. This would include all the above tests at www.tyark.html. Back to top What are the job titles associated with this career? Graduates of this program are likely to find work as help desk technicians, customer service representatives, technical support engineers, product support engineers, call center support representatives, PC support specialist, or PC systems coordinators. Back to top What is the employment outlook for this career? The job outlook for individuals with a computer technology background is excellent. The Information Technology Association of America has indicated that presently there are 350,000 information technology jobs that are presently vacant. The U.S. Department of Commerce predicts there will be plenty of demand for information technology workers and that 1.3 million jobs will be created in information technology by 2006 across North America. The computer technician field, for which the help desk/technical support curriculum trains students, has been identified by the Information Technology Association of America as one of the eight clusters most in demand in the information technology field. Back to top What are the possible career paths? Many students who start out on the help desk/technical support career path often find their next step is to become a network engineer. This would entail more training and passing the MCSA/MCSE or CCNA certification tests. Once they become network engineers, they often will go into management or into the routing certification career paths. Back to top What are some of the websites I can visit? For testing information for: Cisco, please visit www.cisco.html A+, please visit www.comptia.html Microsoft MCSE or MOUS, please visit www.microsoft-2.html routing information, please visit www.Cisco-2.html or www.3COM.html A good networking magazine source is www.networkmagazine.html Back to top