
Google IT Support Professional Certificate - peterkshultz
https://blog.google/topics/grow-with-google/it-support-professional-certificate/
======
tvanantwerp
I'm not convinced of the quality of this course material. I thought I could
try it out, see if I could fill some gaps in my knowledge. I tried out some of
the quizzes and they were just bad. Course 1, week 2, for example, asks you to
match items to where they go on a motherboard. This quiz is flatly wrong. It
asks you to match a PSU to the rear Ethernet port, and a SATA cable to an IDE
port. Being so obviously wrong about something so basic gives me serious
concerns about everything else. I quickly cancelled the free trial.

~~~
aesthetics1
I went through the first several weeks of course 1, and you are spot on. The
quiz in week 2 is absolutely wrong (did anyone audit this?). I skimmed through
the first 6 weeks and even for a beginner course, this is way too dumbed down.

I checked out some of the material a bit further through the course as well,
and I cannot recommend it for anyone serious about the profession. It looks
good on the surface (reading the course summaries and the objectives), but the
quality just isn't there.

~~~
AustinLin
I was also a bit surprised by the simplicity of course 1, but then remembered
that the course as a whole is designed for folks with no experience. Looking
through the descriptions for the other courses (the actual material isn't out
yet) I'm hopeful they will have the level of depth I think we're all
expecting.

~~~
datguacdoh
Yeah you definitely want to keep in mind that this cert, and especially Course
1, has to be accessible to anyone. So it's building a foundation of common
knowledge for the other courses which absolutely go into much more details.

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dexwiz
IT Support will replace factories in Middle America. These are jobs that are
1)Trained quickly 2) Geographically distributed 3) Cheap. IT Support needs to
be onsite for hardware, but any Software can be distributed in smaller cities
or work from home. Maybe Google will have a real help line one day?

It is also a great path into technology for those who did get CS degrees from
a top school.

Side note: In the video, all the Google VPs and Leads were sitting in bright
offices. The IT staff sat in dark rooms with little or no windows. @2min mark,
the IT staff look to be in a dungeon at night.

~~~
w8rbt
IT is not CS. Not even similar.

~~~
kbwt
It seems to be a common confusion in the EU. A lot of people refer to CS as IT
where I live.

~~~
ClassyJacket
Here in Australia, most people just think "literally anything to do with
computers = IT". So when I talked to course counselors they said if I wanted
to be a programmer, I had to do an IT degree. Not even close.

Software engineering, or maybe CS, is what I wanted. I hadn't even heard the
phrase "computer science" when I started university. The total incompetence of
the course counselors at the core function of their job contributed to putting
me on a path that eventually lead to the ruin of my life.

I did a degree that claimed to contain software development, but was in the IT
category - I never learned of the concept of version control (at all), how to
use makefiles, exception blocks, performance profiling, or a bunch of other
practical stuff.

Now I'm wasting away in an IT support job. I can't blame everything on that,
and most of the responsibility for where I am today is on me - especially for
not turning it around better after I realised my mistakes, but I feel like the
confusion between "IT", "CS", and "Software engineering" definitely
kickstarted a path that wasted alot of my most valuable learning time.

Don't trust course counselors - or other people in general.

~~~
jstarfish
The school could have done you better, but don't externalize your problems.
Most schools' CS degrees won't teach you version control, makefiles or any of
that practical stuff. You learn it for fun, incidentally, or on the job.

I was once in your shoes. Same background, same regrettable life choices, same
potential future.

If you want to develop, do it. Start by looking at the crap software your
company likely pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for and think about how
you could do it better. Start by actually trying to supplant it with something
of your own creation.

I have a generic degree. All those "practical" things you lament missing out
on, I learned by just doing it. But I never had cause to learn what big-o
notation was or how to navigate a b-tree...you know, that non-practical
knowledge a CS degree would have endowed me with. The lack of such has only
stopped me from working at Google. Plenty of other shops are not in the
business of recruiting only those who can write the freshest sorting
algorithms.

Just don't spend the rest of your life in a job you hate, condemning yourself
for being put upon. It takes little effort to invoke large changes.

~~~
ams6110
My CS degree didn't even teach any specific languages. Pretty much every
course used a different language. I'll date myself here but I used PL/1,
Pascal, Modula 2, C, Scheme, assembly, and maybe a couple of others. None were
the explicit focus of the class. The programming language was incidental,
students were expected to learn it on their own. And my first job used none of
those languages. My next job didn't either. In fact I've never used any of the
languages I used in school on the job.

------
danans
I got started at Google years ago in the IT support department. I was an
atypical case because I have a CS degree from an prestigious university, but
at the time, I was caught in the fallout of the dot-com bust, so I needed any
job I could get.

I eventually interviewed successfully to become a SWE, but my experiences
working with the broader swath of people (not just CS/CE grads from elite
programs) in IT really opened my perspective on technology, products, and the
diverse set of people and talents it takes to make an organization function.

I have no connection to this certificate effort (I moved into development eons
ago), but I think that the opportunity for exposure to a technology profession
that this program offers could be the foot in the door for a lot of people,
regardless of their background.

~~~
aesthetics1
It's hard to find anything about working at Google that isn't geared towards
SWE. What job title(s) would someone working for Google in IT support hold? Is
the interview process as grueling as the SWE positions, or is Google looking
for generalists?

~~~
datguacdoh
In IT, it depends on the level, but early on we look for generalists, and then
expect people to specialize over time. The interview process is similar to
SWE, but for new grads the technical bar is lower. The title is Corporate
Operations Engineer, unless you're in our IT Residency Program, in which case
it's IT Resident.

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bluedino
>> the average starting salary is $52,000 according to the Bureau of Labor and
Statistics

That's a decent salary for a Windows or network admin in middle America.
Helpdesk positions are lucky to pay half that.

~~~
leesalminen
We’re not located in the valley and our help desk positions are within 10% of
that number.

I just shared this course with our support team. They’re great at product
support and know it inside and out, but can be lacking on the IT side which is
where I generally have to get involved.

This course looks promising.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
No, but Boulder CO is still one of the few cities in the country growing
economically(I assume that's where you are from your profile). There are many
larger cities in the Midwest declining, and it's here that it's nearly
impossible to get a low-paying "entry-level" position without a degree and
several years of experience. And they certainly don't pay $50k.

~~~
leesalminen
That's a fair point. I guess I didn't realize how bad it was in the Midwest.
That's quite unfortunate.

~~~
freehunter
It's not like that everywhere. Yeah if your city is imploding, you're going to
struggle to find any job, which is of course one reason why the city is
declining and wages are stagnating. But $50k in Boulder isn't $50k in Flint or
Gary, so comparing salaries like that is kind of ridiculous.

More than half a decade ago I was hired out of an internship at a fairly
average company doing fairly average work in a mid-sized Midwestern city
making $51k/yr. I was 23 and the internship was the only IT experience I had.

So take an anecdote as an anecdote... it's not always true across the board.

~~~
AskewEgret
I understand the sentiment you're going for, but Gary has a commuter train
that goes to downtown Chicago in less than an hour. With free (working) wifi.
I've known some guys that have worked in high paying IT jobs in Chicago while
renting a house on the beach in the part of Gary that is surrounded by
National Park Service land (Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore). Rent and a
monthly train pass was around $500 per person. They rarely locked their doors
and one of the guys got his car broken into once in the 3 years they did it,
which would probably be considered decent in SF. Their typical weekend
involved dragging a cooler full of beer and a volleyball net onto the sand.

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geff82
In Germany, this is called "Fachinformatiker für Systemintegration" and is an
official professional apprenticeship for which you do not pay money, but GET
PAID as you are spending 30% of your time in school and 70% applying your
knowledge in a company. If you have 4.5 years of experience on-the-job in IT
you can just apply for the final exams without going to school.

~~~
amelius
Your boss can still pay for your education if you take it from Google.

~~~
dx034
But then you have a Google degree and not one certified by the government.
Google is reputable now but I wouldn't be so sure if the Google degree is
worth much in 20 years.

~~~
gregcoombe
This is a certificate, not a degree, which is a fairly important distinction.
The goal is to teach a set of technical skills that allow you to get a
specific job. In 20 years, your experience will count much more than either a
degree or certificate.

~~~
Consultant32452
Your experience will count much more than a degree or certificate in far fewer
than 20 years. It's probably more in the 2-5 year range, depending on your
degree and experience.

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aestetix
Given the current state of support Google itself offers, there is more than a
bit of irony here.

~~~
datguacdoh
Disclosure: I am one of the instructors for this course and went through
Google's IT Residency Program.

It's unfortunate that the company's external support has such a bad
reputation. But our internal support team is actually highly regarded and
loved by employees. The training here is very much based on the training we
provide to our internal hires.

~~~
softawre
As someone who works for a biggish software company - internal IT is hugely
important when it comes to employee satisfaction.

------
jstewartmobile
Between very-very large scale integration, walled-garden consumer devices, and
the everyday nature of distributed computing, IT is a dead man walking.

When each compute node becomes essentially a disposable quantity, what does
that do to the value of the people who service them?

People will say "What about networking?", as though locality makes a
difference here. I've seen so many local network deployments where a guy in
India configures the switch and firewall, then mails them over here and pays a
local guy who is practically illiterate $75 for half a day's work to mount and
plug everything in. They may have to go back-and-forth for several attempts
since local guy is a hot mess. Even so, at $75 a pop the economics still work
out.

~~~
user5994461
I've seen that at big brand name. The network was dead multiple times every
week for entire hours. It's so terrible.

There would be a dozen contractors in the room. They discuss who works on what
in the morning, then the network is down and noone can do anything for half
the day.

~~~
jstewartmobile
Most megacorps don't seem to care. IT by goon squad has been standard
operating procedure for almost a decade now.

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excalibur
The arrogance here is appalling. "Here is a new cert that nobody in the
industry is familiar with, but it will qualify you for an entry-level role
pretty much anywhere, because we're Google and we said so."

~~~
gaius
I’ll believe it when Google starts hiring grads of this programme, with no
other qualifications or experience

~~~
mc32
We'll have to see if they start hiring their helpdesk/techstop from this
programme. If they hire from this programme, then i think it should be a good
sign of trustworthiness.

~~~
hknd
They already hire from similar progams.

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mandazi
Is this similar to other courses but just branded as Google or is there Google
specific knowledge? Do you get a chance to work for Google after taking this
course?

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skimaskninja87
This certificate is geared towards CS, Mathematics, or Engineering students or
enthusiasts or self taught programmers and engineers. The job: Application
Support Analyst, IT Analyst, Tech Support Analyst... You'll find the job
descriptions on Indeed.com..... If you are currently an "IT major" you may
learn some of this material as part of your major coursework. Otherwise,
calling it "IT Support" would be very misleading for someone like me who has
done Help Desk/Desktop/ Networking/System Administration/ Networking security
for the past 13 years with MCSE, COMPTIA, and Cisco certifications and I'm
giving someone advice as for as which path to follow.

Now with that said, a "job" consisting of these skillsets is more of a TIER
III/IV in IT Support, but can serve as entry level experience for DevOps for
CS or engineering functionaries (CS grads and self taught).Especially someone
like me who already has technical IT experience and it is a requirement that I
am versed in at least one scripting language and some automation scripts and
tools.

My advice....this certificate was formulated as a gateway to DevOps, technical
support, not "IT Support," in the traditional sense. You won't receive calls
about not being able to retrieve emails, paystubs, lost files, identity
management and access. However, if an internal company app or the companies
software product is buggy, that's where you start. "Back-end IT Support" would
be more accurate.

~~~
skimaskninja87
A better description using the OSI Model: This certificate is perfect for
someone who works at the Application Layer or Layer 4 and above.....

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eitland
As many here seems to doubt the market for this thing:

Less than 10 years ago I was hired to do a job that was 80% mindnumbingly
boring. (Think copy and paste to Excel.)

I was paid well above the USD50' that is mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

There was a team of us with widely different background and I think only me
and one other had degrees in IT.

One of my colleagues came straight from a job as taxi driver (got hired after
talking to someone in the company while driving him to the airport).

In case anyone wonders: he turned out to be really good.

------
CodeSheikh
It would be nice if Google can have a real customer support of its own first
where you can reach a human at the end. I have been trying to get help on
Google Voice issues that I have been having for months now, and the only help
I have available is community driven "Google Support" forums.

~~~
arca_vorago
If you have a business account with them you get a rep that you can actually
speak to, just fyi, google has been improving business support vastly over the
last few years. Everyone else though is relegated to those ms-support-esque
forums.

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harlanji
Glad this is a thing. Waiting to see feedback, might dabble a little. But I
have family who would be open to just about any suggestion (midwest+sw US).
Lots of tight knit support groups that prevent the younger ones from
relocating unless they have a handful of siblings or similar. They're bored
out of their minds and without hope in some cases. I tried to get my brother
into A+ type material as a way out of warehouse-type jobs, being that
computers are how I made it anywhere. I understand those don't sound like
great employees, but on the contrary, if it's a legitimately good option it
could do wonders for their morale and they'd be loyal. So kudos to Google for
getting started with this.

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kevin2r
How this certification program compares to CompTIA A+ ?

~~~
datguacdoh
We based this on our internal training for our IT hires based on the gaps we
found when we onboarded people over the last 7 years. We invested a lot in
making the material practical and lab driven vs just rote memorization.

Disclosure: I worked on this program.

~~~
jpera
I am currently taking the course and I can tell you that for 50.00 it is well
worth it. I have been in IT Support for 20+ years and can tell you that it is
constantly changing and although I have a degree I did not learn the majority
of the knowledge I have from college. We have had interns and hires that have
certifications out the wazoo and 4-year degrees but do not know how to change
a toner cartridge or could not describe how DNS and the internet works. I was
super excited when the course went over DNS. Before I started this course
about 3 weeks ago I was showing an employee how DNS works for an issue he ran
into. I also like how the course went over Linux and windows, mac, etc. The
course was not one sided like a lot, of courses, focusing specifically on the
vendor. I also like how they have labs that have interaction. Any good
training should have actual labs with hands-on experience. I personally think
we have too many people that memorize brain dumps to pass but could not do the
hands-on work. I did not run into a formatting issue with the things not
matching up on the labs so I cannot attest to that. I do remember that they
specifically say please take this on a desktop or laptop. It said something
about not taking them on mobile devices or tablets. I also saw that sometimes
when you put in an answer that if you left a hyphenated word out or only put
the first part of the word it would now except the answer. That being said you
can review the material as many times as you want and you can also retake the
quizzes and assignments so there should be no reason for you to not pass
unless you're just lazy. That being said, the course does not go over
everything and nor should it. It is an entry-level course for 50.00 that you
can do on your on time to further your education and career. Back in the day,
CompTIA used to cost 50.00 but now it is 410.00. Most of the vendors have
gouged on pricing in the last 20-30 years. Hats off to Google for trying to
make a difference and not trying to charge people a gazillion dollars for it.

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mickduprez
I signed up for this course even though after a brief look it looks like more
of an entry-level course than a full-blown IT specialist course (which is
understanding considering the course delivery being web-based).

I've been writing code for over 15 years and have seen more than enough
opportunity to expand my business into the IT side of things, a lot more than
contract coding anyway. I've let these opportunities go by as I don't have any
real qualifications although I reckon I could cobble enough together with my
experience to get by.

That being said, if I get a cert' from this it might be the confidence to push
my business further if nothing else.

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north_east_dev
And in true Google style I expect them to slowly ignore it and then drop the
program, leaving anyone who invested in it high and dry.

~~~
meritt
Unless they've figured out a way to attach a DRM policy to the knowledge you
learn from taking a course, I don't think it's possible for them to leave
anyone high and dry.

~~~
gaius
Some certs must be regularly renewed, e.g. ScrumMaster. If it’s de-supported
then the certs evaporate.

~~~
meritt
"Hey Doug, Got a minute? So the university where you learned Computer Science,
well we just found out they recently closed their doors. Since they are no
longer an accredited institution, nor do they even exist, we're going to have
to let you go."

~~~
jtrujillo
This may not cause you to lose your current position, but could be detrimental
next time you are job hunting

------
startupdiscuss
I wonder why they picked Coursera over Udacity or EdX.

EdX seems quite Microsoft heavy.

But Google has released a lot of material on Udacity, and they have other
connections (Thrun).

Just curious.

~~~
hobaak
Google just sponsored Web app developer and Android developer nanodegrees to
thousands of people. [https://www.udacity.com/google-
scholarships](https://www.udacity.com/google-scholarships) I guess they are
giving big players like udacity and coursera even support.

------
27182818284
Glad to see the partnership with Coursera for it. Althought MOOCs haven't
changed the world in the way they were hyped, I still think they have
incredible promise for stuff like this or for stuff like Udacity's training of
new frameworks like React or working with Android.

------
smilbandit
I'm not truly sold on the merit of this program or that it will lead directly
to a high paying job. I do know that there are very few employers who will
consider this cert as a negative. At $50/month it could provide some with that
first step to something more.

------
_RPM
Does anyone remember the movie "The Internship", in which all of interns were
IT Support? It's really funny that that they portrayed them as IT Support.

------
protomyth
Will Google also partner, like Apple, with some of the community colleges in
the US to deliver the training to populations that might need the additional
help?

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TheAdamAndChe
I'm not convinced that there is demand for a large number of IT Support
Professionals, or if there is, there's not enough of a demand for employers to
hire outside of the few tech hubs of the country. I've held A+, Network+,
Project+, Security+, and CCNA certifications for a while now in the third
largest city in Missouri, yet the only positions that have been available to
me have been low-wage temporary contract jobs.

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Nawaz1
How the exams will be conducted for each course in this program?

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killjoywashere
Now if only they'd open-source the REWS training pipeline.

------
gaius
_There’s no better example of a dynamic, fast-growing field than IT support_

Is this why IBM, DXC et al are laying off Western workers like it’s going out
of fashion and offshoring those jobs as fast as they possibly can?

~~~
ams6110
You can't really offshore swapping out a defective network cable or replacing
a hard drive. I haven't looked at how they define an "IT Support Professional"
but I'm assuming it's not just answering a phone and following a decision tree
and saying "I'm very sorry to hear that you are still experiencing a problem"
before each step. Anyone can do that with almost no training.

~~~
cube00
Of course you can, enterprises are already starting to push "bring your own
device". Even if you don't do that, you can still move to the thin client
model where hardware failure just means asking the office manager to swap your
device with a new one from the cupboard.

~~~
icebraining
BYOD doesn't do away with the problem because the users don't know how to fix
them themselves, so they'll still need someone, even if it's a tech at the
mall rather than in their office.

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arthurcolle
it support is where thought goes to die

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wpdev_63
Ole udacity, the ITTech of 'learn on the web' sites.

Money would be better spent on a respectable certification like MCSE.

~~~
freehunter
Wow the MCSE and this certification could not be any less comparable.

~~~
JoblessWonder
Yeah... that is like saying "Money is better spent getting a college degree in
CS!"

Sure, they both might be true but they aren't all attainable for everyone.

~~~
wpdev_63
They're both pretty much exams. The 'MCSE' or any other certification from
Microsoft would be worth more and probably be cheaper than udacity. If your
goal to have something to show to a potential employer, MCSE will hold alot
more weight.

Udacity degrees, certifications or whatever they're called are GEDs of
certifications and should be treated as such.

If you want an actual job where you will be respected at, don't go to udacity.

~~~
freehunter
MCSE certs prepare you for a vastly different job than IT Support. Think
CompTIA A+. IT Support and systems administration are different jobs and
different certifications help out in different ways.

When I got my CompTIA Security+ in college, I got asked by interviewers why I
got that and not the CISSP. The answer is, while the CISSP is a far more
respected certification, the requirements and entry price are also far
different. The CISSP is not an entry-level certification, it actually mandates
a certain number of years in the industry.

MTA is entry-level. MCSA is entry level. MCSE is for established
professionals, it is an expert-level certification, so of course it's more
respected. The people taking it are already well-respected experts themselves.

The MTA is the Microsoft certification that's most comparable to this. Not
MCSE.

~~~
emmelaich
I hope the MCSE has improved, because about 10% of the MCSEs I've met know
next to nothing.

~~~
freehunter
I mentioned the CISSP which has a similar problem... the requirements are X
number of years in the security industry but 90% of the people I know with a
CISSP are project managers.

The problem is boot camps. When you can pay $5k and have the answers drilled
into your head for a week, of course anyone can pass.

~~~
skimaskninja87
Problem is you can't gain the experience without a CISSP, for the most part.
You have to get lucky that you're either promoted or transferred to a security
position. That needs to change at the entry level, so these folks can get the
relavent experience. Then apply to take the ISC2 or CISSP....One does not
necessarily have to obtain an MSCA or MCSE just to get a foot in the door. You
are not applying for a sysadmin gig when starting out. At this point, A+,
Net+, and ITIL are seen as the gatekeepers.

