-: I have the IT Database Specialist degree
that was created about two years ago now.
So, I was, I believe, the second quote unquote "wave"
of people to graduate from it.
So, there was, you know, the basic database concepts
which is learning how to query with SQL.
There was database administration,
which is like working with a server,
creating the database client, and all that.
There was data analysis and reporting,
which is numbers, statistics,
and then making those reports I was talking about earlier,
like an invoice or sales report, whatever is needed.
Reports can be many, many, many different things.
The internship is probably the best
because, you know, that gets you the hands on experience
with whichever company you work with.
If you can find someone you can job shadow with,
that's awesome but you'd have to look around
because finding the person who's in charge
of the database stuff is maybe not the easiest thing.
You know, that's up to that company.
But if you can, if you can mess around
with the database stuff at home, 'cause I mean
that's what I did, I had my own little SQL server
that I could make stuff with
or break it as much as I felt like it,
without having to worry about damaging anything,
if you can mess around with all that stuff,
which keeps the knowledge in your mind,
and you can say, "Hey, I've done all these things
"just of my own free will, my volition,
(chuckling)
just for fun, I think that looks good to people
'cause it shows that, you know, you care
about actually knowing the thing and continuing to know it
or maybe even continuing to learn it.
The problem solving parts, that's basically,
most IT is creative problem solving
because whatever software you're using,
you're gonna be limited by whatever the developers
have decided on that piece of software.
So, you might be able to do that one thing
that you thought you could do one way
because, for whatever reason, they decided,
ah no, you can't,
so you have to come up with a creative solution.