IT

Fundamentals

Everyone's Gotta' Start Somewhere, Right?

One of the primary things that all of us a Warren Tech want our students to understand are the answers to these questions:

In the industry that I have decided I would like to study, what is involved?
What are the career paths within that industry?
What will I be doing if I decide I want to work in that industry?

These are all fair questions. Most Computer Tech I and Cybersecurity I students are not coming from a perspective of understanding what actually happens in an Information Technology (IT) shop. Oh sure, maybe their mom or dad has tried to describe what they do, in the event they work in IT. Or maybe their mom or dad even took them to work for a day or two.

But enterprise IT is a big thing with lots and lots of different moving parts!

This is why CompTIA IT Fundamentals is so great. The coursework teaches you about how IT shops are put together, in terms of people, projects, software and hardware.

Plus, IT Fundamentals get you into the CompTIA way of handling exams, and helps you understand what is in front of you, in terms of future CompTIA exams you might take.

In-Class Book Work

We will be going together through a text that walks you through the IT Fundamentals topics and the exam objectives you need to understand to be able to successfully pass IT Fundamentals.

One thing you should be aware of is that the IT Fundamentals exam has recently changed from exam number FC0-U51 to the new version FC0-U61. The text I want us to use will not be available until September 5th, 2018.

*** Please do not run out and buy the study guide for the FC0-U51 exam that is alluded to in the syllabus! It will not do you any good to study for it because it is out of date!! Wait for the 2018 book that I will buy for you and the rest of the class!! ***

We will be using a book called CompTIA IT Fundamentals Study Guide: Exam FC0-U61, 2nd Edition. We do not yet know who the author is. We can only assume it is the person who wrote the study guide for the previous exam, Quentin Doctor. But maybe not.

How 20th Century!

I can hear you asking, "But Doctor Heldman, why are we using a textbook, when we've got all of this cool distance-learning software?"

There are two answers:

You will often find yourself in a position where you have to rapidly come up to speed on a new technology. Study guides are super helpful. Admittedly, distance-learning sites are helpful as well, indeed, probably more so than a book.
The choices we have for IT Fundamentals are not that great:

Cybrary.IT does not offer IT Fundamentals,
Nor does PluralSight,
Nor does TestOut,
CompTIA offers it through their CertMaster software, but it is cost prohibitive,
ITPro.TV has it for free, but they offer the old version (FC0-U51), which is not helpful. And, we tried ITPro.TV for a school year and the students found they were not that crazy about it. So I am switching back to TestOut instead.

So, we're stuck with a text. But that is not at all a bad thing! You need practice reading technical literature. Your IT career will be spent reading a ton of literature about technical issues and problem-solving strategies.

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