*This schedule is to be used as a guide and may be changed as necessary by your instructor. 

Student Holiday: Jan 21 (MLK Day)

Last Day to Withdraw:  February 19th

Student Activity Period:  10:45-11:45 Feb 5th (AITP, your student org meets in bld 920, room 503)

Join AITP for free!   https://www.aitp.org/join-now/

Your plan is to transition from student to IT employee. That's why you are taking classes and pursuing a degree. It is not as easy as graduating and then getting hired. In fact, you should be pursuing employment starting with your first classes at TTC. Each class is going to provide you with IT knowledge that an employer will pay you to use at their company. You will find very few, if any, entry level, zero experience jobs when you start looking. That's because companies do not list those jobs on Monster.com or Craigslist.com. You find those jobs by word of mouth. You must engage the local IT community and get to know your future co-workers and bosses. Fortunately, that's very easy to do. There are several meetings each month where you can meet local IT professionals and also learn something you probably won't learn in class. Below is a list of meetings that are available for you to join. Most of them are totally free. Those that are not only charge a nominal fee to offset the cost of drinks and snacks.

You will find that each of these meetings are full of friendly people who enjoy meeting students who will one day be their co-workers. In fact, many are TTC graduates and understand how difficult it is to get that first IT job. They will provide you great information about what to study, what types of jobs you should apply for and also inside information on new entry level jobs that are not posted anywhere.

Mr. Brady (574-6084, building 920 room 602C) is available if you wish to talk about careers, which classes to take, how to engage the IT community. Feel free to email him at tom.brady@tridenttech.edu  if you have any questions or which to talk to him about careers or academics.

Please visit the AITP Facebook page and like us at AITP-Trident-Technical-College Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/Computer-Technology-and-Network-Systems-Trident-Technical-College-274498895734/

Follow Mr. Brady on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tombrady814  Actually, better to follow the people he follows to get some great information on HTML, CSS and software development.

Increase your skills and enhance your resume

Even when you have completed all your degree requirements you will not have the coding experience to get a junior developer job.  You need to work on a development project.  There are two ways to do that.  First, it is free and it's online at https://www.freecodecamp.org/.  You need self-discipline and time to do it.  If you want to do it quickly and have an excellent opportunity to get hired as a junior developer making more than 45k a year you can  go to the Jack Russell code school at http://www.jackrussellsoftware.com/coding_school/ they charge $10,000 and it takes three months but you will be "sit down ready" to work at one of Charleston's many IT companies.  There next class will be in the Spring and I recommend you finish your two year degree before attending.  When you do you will be the most advanced student in the class because of your training at TTC.

Another great free site teaching programming: www.codeacademy.com Great site to join because they have awesome sales on video classes on software development: www.udemy.com

Get involved in the local IT community:
*https://www.meetup.com/chsinfosec/ Want to learn about computer security, this is it! Meets in N. Charleston

https://www.meetup.com/Charleston-Cyber-Security-Meetup/ The other computer security meetup group, meets downtown

* www.meetup.com/The-Iron-Yard-Charleston Hack Night! Hang out, eat pizza and get to meet friendly developers

* http://www.meetup.com/CharlestonJS/  Quarterly meetup about JavaScript.

* http://www.meetup.com/Charleston-Indie-Game-Dev-Meetup/  Learn about careers in Computer Gaming

https://www.meetup.com/Charleston-Build-Guild/events/255155887/  Hang out in a bar with developers

https://www.meetup.com/Charleston-Hackers/  Charleston Hackers. Just coders not people hacking into computers.

https://www.meetup.com/South-Carolina-Creating-Mobile-Apps-without-Coding/  New group that is still working on their first meetup.

Women only Groups (You (women) should join each even if you are not doing software development):

https://www.meetup.com/Empowered-Minds-Creating-Change/  Not a technical group, just women helping women get ahead.

* Women in Tech meeting: http://www.meetup.com/Charleston-Women-In-Tech/  The Women in Tech meeting is is for all IT women. They will have a panel of women in different tech careers, telling their stories and providing great advice. It’s free! Great networking opportunity for women all our degree programs. Also check out the Charleston Women in Tech website https://www.charlestonwomenintech.com/

Get business cards: When you meet other IT professionals they are going to give you their business card, you need to have one to give back. VistaPrint.com  will print 250 cards for free, just costs you for shipping. Use your .edu or gmail.com email address and have your title be software development or information systems or Network Systems Management, etc.