I couldn't draw, so I became a sysad!
how I stopped being a slacker, so I could be a slacker with a career.
The Early Years
Workforce
- Amusement park ride operations ( aka, 16 year old's power trip)
- Pizza Chef... ( Chef might be a bit much )
- Retail in major electronics ( Went out of business, NOT my fault... )
- Car Stereo installer ( actually a pretty awesome gig )
- Grunt in an oil field ( actually a pretty terrible gig )
- Shop Manager at transportation company ( mostly washed cars )
Schooling
- Graduated from high school in 2003
- Started community college in 2004
- Manged to turn a 2 year degree into a 10 year almost degree
Digital Arts and Animation
so you want to work in games!?
10 years in community college, time to find a job!
Are you a programmer?
Enter The Open Cloud Academy from stage left...
What I heard
- Career ready in 8 weeks
- Created by Rackspace (everyone wants to work there!)
- Move out of my parent's house!
Problems...
- What does Rackspace do?
- What the hell is Linux?
Motivation??
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Got my buns in gear!
- Quit my job... (I'm only a little crazy)
- Took 2 weeks to get CompTIA A+ Certified
- Took 3 weeks to get CompTIA Network+ Certified
- Started with the OCA in the next 2 weeks
I'm in! Now what?
Pilot Program is just a friendly way to say "lab rats"
- Drinking from the fire-hose...
- 8am - 5pm training ( read as 7am - 9pm )
- I've never been more successful
What I got...
CompTIA Linux+
RedHat RHCSA
An experience that changed my life...
A Community of Peers That Drives Me to Be The Best
And then?...
I got hired!
Worst. Sysad. Ever.
Working at Rackspace
- For the first 6 months I kept waiting for someone to figure out I didn't know what I was doing...
- They still haven't figured it out...
So Mr Bigshot, what's it take to be a sysad?!
I'm so glad you asked!
The skillz to pay the billz
- Linux
- Apache
- Mysql
- Networking
- PEOPLE!
Linux
- Package Management
- Command Line Tools
- LVM/Partitioning
- PEOPLE!
Apache
- Installation
- Reading Logs
- vHosts
- PEOPLE!
MySQL
- Installation
- Reading Logs
- Replication
- PEOPLE!
Networking
- Configuring IPs / Routes
- DNS
- iptables
- PEOPLE!
PEOPLE!
DID YOU GET THAT YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SPEAK PEOPLE!?
Thinking Open Cloud Academy might be right for you?
Here's the lowdown, it's done in two phases.
Phase 1: Self Study!
- This is where you decide if this is right for you
- The OCA offers advice on which books to buy, what videos to watch free on youtube, and even free instructor lead classes at the facility open to anyone.
- The goal is to get your CompTIA Network+, this will cost you around $250
Phase 2: Instructor Lead Class
- Monday - Friday, 8-5
- 8 weeks
- Test voucher for RHCSA
- Phone screening with Rackspace
- $3500 ( Possible Financial Assistance )
Potent Notables
- Older than 18, younger than over 9000
- Network Track Also Available
- Over 300 people have been through, just over 40% hired on at Rackspace, over 70% employed in their field of training.
- Enrollment is done on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month on location at the Open Cloud Academy