We’d like to introduce you to Ian Camacho. He’s a successful IT professional, and he shares his story below about how he made a career change from entertainment to IT by enrolling in the Google IT Support Professional Certificate. He explains why he was eager to make the change, and offers some excellent advice to anyone contemplating a similar journey. 

I am Ian Camacho. I am a Repair Technician / Jr. Service Desk at Smartmatic in Los Angeles, California. My background is in promotional marketing and customer service. I started my career working in entertainment, doing behind-the-scenes work, including script supervision, transcription, writing, and production. I’ve sold a few scripts and short stories, and have several nonfiction articles published in academic journals. I also worked at Capital One, where I had the opportunity to create a patent.  

I have always had an interest in technology but was intimidated by the prospect of working in tech because I worried that I didn’t have the proper training or degree. However, I  wanted to change my career. I needed a stable, better-paying job, and I couldn’t see myself working behind the scenes until retirement. So, I decided to take the Google IT Support Professional Certificate.

I enjoyed my experience with the Certificate because what interests me most is how to improve systems and solve problems. This program gave me a chance to use my mind in new ways.. The learning curve was huge, but I loved every minute of it and came to the realization that I wanted to work in the field of IT instead of entertainment. Initially, I was worried about switching fields as I had no formal computer training and did not want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to go back to school—especially if I realized it wasn’t for me or if it was too hard (plus, who wants all that debt?). Luckily, I learned about the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, and discovered how such programs were sometimes in more demand than a degree.

After completing the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, a recruiter from CareerCircle contacted me and helped me get my first IT job at TEKSystems.

At my current job, I enjoy problem-solving, encountering new challenges, and learning new things. It is really satisfying to take a machine that is not working, figure out what the issue is, and then repair it using the skills I’ve learned. I also enjoy being able to teach others, either through personal interaction or my technical writing—including revising the manuals so they’re easier to understand. Who knows, down the line, I may even teach this stuff for a living! Plus, this job pays much better than work in entertainment, and it’s a lot more stable. Now that I’m recently married, this makes my wife much happier too!

I would recommend pairing this course with the CompTIA A+ certification as they compliment each other well. My other recommendation to learners would be to figure out why you’re studying this program in the first place.. What is it that will motivate you over the long term? For me, I wanted to learn more about technology in order to eventually design more patents and technological inventions. I also discovered that I wanted to improve existing teaching materials for IT because a lot of them are difficult to understand—which is something that leads to high IT dropout rates. I hope to be able to help reverse that trend through developing more teaching materials. All in all, this certificate helped me realize what I wanted to do with my life and it has proved to be a great life decision for me.

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