Which software package should I learn?

Question

I’m thinking about spending some time and money on furthering my IT skills by either self tuition or attending night school. Which software packages should I concentrate on learning that will open the most doors and be most in demand in the future?

Dreamweaver?
MS Front Page?
MS Excel?

Any other suggestions?

Answer 1

Like others have said, it would help if you could narrow your focus. However, I'd say that you should not bother with Excel or Front Page. Excel won't do anything for you in an IT career, and Front Page sucks as a web designer. If you want to learn web design, Dreamweaver and Cold Fusion would be good. Also, Apache and IIS, plus some knowledge of VB.net scripting would be good.

You may want to start with the basics - learn as much as possible about XP/Vista/Windows server. Look into the MCP certification (http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/default.mspx). Alternatively, learn some unix. Linux is good for that and it's free. You can download and install a distro like Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/). Past that, decide if you're interested in networking, programming, end-user support, system administration, security, or anything else.

Answer 2

bo_fra is pretty much spot on. There's literally thousands of software packages, and those are just the popular ones used in the industry. You really need to narrow down your specialty instead of saying to yourself "I want to be an IT person!". That's like saying you want to be a scientist, but there's many varying fields like biology, chemistry, physics etc.

However, there are also applications like word processing, spreadsheet and database tools which will be used across a wide variety of platforms. If you don't already know your way around mastering these types of software, you're jumping the gun a little on the type of job you want.

Answer 3

Microsoft Office, as a general subject is necessary as a fundamentals to your knowledge expansion in the IT field.

Some further subjects' examples:

Visual Basic are for those into programming,

HTML and Macromedia programs are for those who are into Multimedia and Web Publishing,

whereas
AutoCAD are for those into Engineering.

So it all depends on your demands.

Future is still bright, it's only how you make your choice.

Answer 4

I actually have discovered that the most ideal aspect to do is practice it. training your self will make experience financially yet basically basically be particular you do the little workouts that you need to get a experience of how they paintings and what makes them tick.