Technology and IT is amongst the most electrifying and revolutionary industries that you can get into right now. Being a member of a team working on breakthroughs in technology is to do your bit in the gigantic changes that will affect us all over the next generation. We've only just begun to scrape the surface of how technology is going to shape our lives. Technology and the web will massively revolutionise the way we view and interrelate with the world around us over the next few years.

A typical IT man or woman in the United Kingdom is likely to get noticeably more money than employees on a par outside of IT. Typical incomes are hard to beat nationally. Demand for appropriately qualified IT professionals is guaranteed for a good while yet, due to the continuous expansion in the technology industry and the vast skills gap still in existence.

Workshops get touted as a great facet by many training academies. When you talk to the majority of computer industry trainees that have tried them out, you'll find they generally end up being seen as a major problem due to many reasons:

- All that travelling - lots of visits and normally hundreds of miles a time.

- If you're working, then weekday only workshops are hard to attend. You're usually looking at several days in a row too.

- Holiday days lost - a lot of workers are given only twenty days of leave annually. If over half of it is swallowed up by educational classes, you haven't got a great deal of holiday time remaining for most student's families.

- With the high costs involved, a lot of companies fill the classes up to the brim - which isn't ideal (giving less time per student).

- Many students want to study at a pace that is different to the other class members. This can create a classic case of 'classroom tension'.

- A lot of trainees report that the (not inconsiderable) costs of travelling back and forth to the training centre while covering the cost of accommodation and food can get very expensive.

- It's important to maintain privacy. We shouldn't risk giving up any potential advancement at our current place of work while we're training.

- It's quite usual for attendees not to pose the question that's bugging them - just due to the reason that they're surrounded by fellow attendees.

- When your work takes you away from home, you face the added difficulty that events can become very hard to attend - and yet, the fees were paid along with everything else at the start.

Wouldn't it be better to just watch and gain knowledge from industry specialists one-on-one in videoed classes, studying them when it suits you - not somebody else. Think... With a laptop you're able to learn wherever you happen to be at that time. And live 24x7 support is an online click away in case of difficulty. You could come back to any of the study modules as many times as you feel you need to. You also don't need to make notes as you have the lesson indefinitely. The result: Reduced stress, less cost, and no wasted travelling time.

The MCSA & 'MCSE' serve fundamentally different roles, in spite of the fact that they're generally discussed alongside one another. Training to become a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA) is designed for networking & senior support careers & server-administration. Mainly this qualification is a superb starting point for a technical systems-administrator, who will deal with the inner workings of running a small to mid-level corporate network. The career is actually perfect for someone who likes dealing with technical issues, since there is certainly a good deal of problem-solving in this work. It's a really people-oriented role with lots of variety, since the work largely calls for supportive interaction with all the network users.

In contrast, the MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) job provides a position with greater accountability, where the work centres more around design, planning & project management. So if senior administration, management of a network, Senior Security employment or technical/project management is your ultimate objective, then this is definitely the direction you should think about taking. Personal, creative & leadership expertise are also dealt with within this training, as effective MCSE specialists typically handle many staff and resource management responsibilities.

Commencing from the idea that it's good to choose the market that sounds most inviting first and foremost, before we can even mull over which career training fulfils our needs, how are we supposed to find the correct route? As with no previous experience in the IT industry, how could any of us be expected to understand what a particular job actually consists of? Consideration of these different issues is imperative if you want to uncover the right solution that will work for you:

- The sort of person you are - what tasks do you enjoy doing, plus of course - what you hate to do.

- Are you looking to achieve an important aim - like working for yourself in the near future?

- What scale of importance is the salary - is an increase your main motivator, or is day-to-day enjoyment higher up on your priority-list?

- Getting to grips with what the main career areas and sectors are - and what makes them different.

- What effort, commitment and time you'll put into getting qualified.

The best way to avoid all the jargon and confusion, and reveal the best path to success, have an informal chat with an industry-experienced advisor; a person that will cover the commercial realities and truth while explaining each accreditation.