One fatal mistake that potential students often succumb to is to choose a career based on a course, instead of focusing on the desired end-result. Training academies have thousands of students that chose an 'interesting' course - instead of what would yield the career they desired. Don't let yourself become part of that group who set off on a track that on the surface appears interesting - and end up with a plaque on the wall for an unrewarding career path.

You'll want to understand what industry will expect from you. What exams they will want you to have and how to gain experience. You should also spend a little time setting guidelines as to how far you wish to progress your career as it may force you to choose a particular set of certifications. Seek out help from a professional advisor that has commercial knowledge of your chosen market-place, and who can offer 'A typical day in the life of' outline of what duties you'll be performing with each working day. It's sensible to discover if this is the right course of action for you before you jump into the study-program. There's little point in starting your training and then find you've taken the wrong route.

Ensure all your qualifications are current and what employers are looking for - don't bother with studies which lead to some in-house certificate (which is as useless as if you'd printed it yourself). To an employer, only the top companies like Microsoft, CompTIA, Adobe or Cisco (for example) will make the right impression. Nothing else will cut the mustard.

Potential Students eager to start an Information Technology career normally have no idea of what path to consider, or what sector to get certified in. How can we possibly grasp the many facets of a particular career when it's an alien environment to us? Maybe we don't even know anybody who is in that area at all. Consideration of many factors is essential if you need to uncover a solution that suits you:

- Your hobbies and interests - these can define what areas will give you the most reward.

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

- How highly do you rate salary - is it of prime importance, or is job satisfaction higher up on the scale of your priorities?

- Considering all that IT encompasses, you really need to be able to understand what's different.

- Our advice is to think deeply about the amount of time and effort you're going to invest in your education.

In these situations, the only way to research these matters is through a chat with a professional that has years of experience in IT (as well as the commercial requirements.)

Always expect an authorised exam preparation system included in your course. Students regularly can get thrown by practising exam questions that are not from official sources. It's not uncommon that the terminology in the real exams can be completely unlike un-authorised versions and you should be prepared for this. It's a good idea to ask for testing modules so you can test your comprehension whenever you need to. Simulated or practice exams help to build your confidence - then you're much more at ease with the real thing.

Should you wish to go after work in Database development, the MCITP DB-Developer certification is suitable. This particular accreditation teaches the correct way to set Databases up - design, rationalisation and so forth, but it will not go into detail on the way to produce programs for databases. You might want to look into the Programming area of this web-site if you're interested in this area of databases. In reality, you'll identify a much greater interest where jobs are involved within the Administration part of the picture. Nonetheless, if for example the developer path will suit your needs, it would be advisable to incorporate the 'MCITP' DB-Developer in to a wider Programming training path. It may also come to be more relevant to you in a few years time to do a further MCTS in the SQL-Server 2008 version.

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