Technical training - good for business and career
Whether you are just starting out or have been working with technology and want to expand your skill set, training never hurts anyone. In some situations, your own company encourages it and wants to help you excel. You may be in a situation where your employer wants you to just stay in your chair and not go anywhere, in the company or your career. (FYI: if you are at one of those companies keep reading...)
The internet and time
I graduated college in 2002 with a lot of knowledge about terms and concepts. The first job I hit, I found that was all nice and good but it was not just a "hit the ground running" situation. I graduated wanting to get deep into network administration - you know, sitting there programming Cisco firewalls and access policies. As time went on though, I found myself swinging more towards working with data and how it was stored. Enter a change in career path to becoming a DBA. Where I live, there is not a lot of schooling options for learning about working with SQL Server or databases. I actually took a course in college on database structures, but that was, again, just terms and concepts. I found the internet to have a wealth of information about getting started in becoming a DBA. The SQL Server community is strong in sharing information through blog posts and videos. I spent evenings and some nights reading blog posts from Brent Ozar, Buck Woody and Thomas LaRock, to name a few. The first book I purchased on SQL Server was one Buck Woody wrote. One thing you have to do is spend time learning. The material is out there for you to consume, but it takes time. I have spent a good bit of time outside of my day-to-day work learning SQL Server and other technologies that interest me. You may be at a company that encourages you to learn and train during working hours. (Pythian is one of those employers and puts a large investment into their employees to make sure they are keeping up with the times.)Resources
Blog sites for SQL Server are plentiful. You can check out the Top 30 Blog Sites for a starting point. If you want to learn anything about Microsoft products, most of the Microsoft teams have their own dedicated site for sharing information. A quick search in your favorite search engine will help you find them. If you are more for training by watching, below is a list of sites that commonly have a large amount of content:- Pluralsight (one of the leading training content sites out now)
- Microsoft Virtual Academy (some content a bit dated, but still relevant)
- LinkedIn Learning
- Lynda.com
- CodeCademy (if you want to get into programming)
