Getting into IT: what to actually learn first

If you want to work in IT and do not know where to start, this is the order I would put things in.

It is not the order most courses use, and it deliberately begins somewhere unfashionable.

The mistake nearly everyone makes

Almost everybody starts with programming, because that is what “getting into computers” sounds like, and because coding is what gets promoted.

Programming is a fine thing to learn. But most IT jobs are not programming jobs, and starting there leaves you with one narrow skill sitting on top of no foundation. You end up able to write a Python script and unable to explain why the machine it runs on cannot reach the internet.

Start underneath instead.

The order

1. How a computer actually works

What the parts are and what each one does. What happens between pressing the power button and seeing a desktop. Why a machine is slow. What memory is for, as distinct from storage, which is the single most common confusion there is.

Best learned by taking one apart and putting it back together. Buy a broken desktop for $30 and pull it to pieces.

2. Operating systems, properly

Windows beyond clicking around: users and permissions, services, the registry, the event logs, what is actually running and why.

Then Linux, which is the important one. Most of the internet runs on it, most servers you will ever administer run on it, and most schools never touch it. Learning Linux is the clearest signal that you went looking rather than waiting to be taught.

Install it in a virtual machine and use it as your only environment for a month. Learn the command line, with no graphical fallback.

3. Networking

The subject that separates hobbyists from professionals.

IP addressing and subnetting. DNS, and genuinely understanding it, because an enormous proportion of real faults are DNS. Routing. Firewalls. DHCP. What actually happens when you type an address into a browser.

Most self-taught people skip this because it is abstract and unrewarding at first. Do not. It is the most reliable thing you can be strong at, because it underpins everything else and everybody else has a gap there.

4. Virtualisation and servers

Hypervisors, virtual machines, containers. Running services and keeping them running.

This is where a home lab becomes essential, because there is no way to learn this without doing it.

5. Scripting and automation

Now programming becomes genuinely useful, because you have something to automate.

PowerShell if you are heading toward Windows environments. Bash for Linux. Python for everything else.

Learn it by automating something tedious you actually do, not by working through exercises.

6. Security, defensively

How attacks work, so you can defend against them. Authentication, encryption, patching, least privilege, backups that have been tested.

Always on your own equipment, on your own network. That distinction matters legally and it matters to employers.

7. Cloud

AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. Deliberately last, because cloud platforms are abstractions over everything above. People who start here can click through a console and cannot diagnose anything, and it becomes obvious quickly.

With the foundations in place, cloud is straightforward. Without them, it is memorisation.

What employers actually look for

Having sat on the other side of interviews, what stands out is not what candidates expect.

Can you diagnose something? Given a problem you have never seen, do you have a method, or do you guess? This is most of the job and it is what gets probed hardest.

Can you explain it to a non-technical person? IT roles are largely communication. Somebody who understands 70% and can explain it clearly is more valuable than somebody who understands 95% and cannot.

Have you actually built anything? A home lab, a script, a project, anything. It separates people who are interested from people who have said they are interested.

Will you say “I do not know”? Candidates who bluff are a serious liability. Candidates who say “I do not know, here is how I would find out” are exactly what is wanted.

Qualifications

A degree opens doors, teaches fundamentals well, and is required for some employers. Worth doing if the situation suits it.

TAFE, particularly a Certificate III or IV in IT, is practical, faster and much cheaper. Genuinely good value.

In NSW, VET Information and Digital Technology at school is excellent value: a Certificate III, 70 hours of work placement, and it can count towards an ATAR. The school subjects page covers it.

Certifications: CompTIA Network+ and Security+ are respected entry-level. Microsoft and AWS certifications matter if you are heading that way. Do not collect them indiscriminately.

But be clear about what qualifications do. They get your application read. They do not get you hired, because everybody applying has one.

The thing that actually differentiates you

Experience, which is the one thing entry-level candidates cannot get, because every entry-level job asks for it.

The way out of that trap is to build it yourself. A home lab is not a hobby project; it is the closest thing to real experience that you can create without permission. It is what turns “I studied networking” into “I spent a Saturday working out why my DNS resolved internally but not externally, and here is what it turned out to be”.

The second sentence is a conversation. The first is a line on a page.

There is more on that in why experience beats theory.

A realistic first job

Most people start on a help desk or in desktop support. This is normal and it is not a consolation prize.

It is genuinely the best training available, because you see an enormous variety of faults, you learn to talk to frustrated people, and you find out which part of the field you actually like. Nearly everybody senior did this first.

Two years there with genuine curiosity puts you ahead of somebody who spent two years avoiding it.

If you want a hand

This is what the tutoring for kids and teens is for, and it works equally well for adults changing careers. We pick something you actually want to build, and the topics arrive because the project needs them.