1. What are your skills and do they fit into the IT industry?

What is it that interests you? What are your abilities? What do you aspire to be? Self -awareness is key to making wise career choices. Knowing yourself and what you thrive on is half the battle won.

2. Specifically pertaining to the IT industry, what is it that interests you?
Do you wish to be more of a creator, provider or user of IT products? Are you the sort of person who wants to know how IT itself works, i.e. the inner workings and how you can be an creator, or you are more interested in how to get results using IT? How much do you know about the different IT career options, such as Networking, Database Administration, etc?

3. IT is fun.

What may be fun to you may be boring to another. Maybe the idea of an IT career excites you? You think it is ‘fun’. This has more to do with the nature of work and the professionals. What kind of a profile in IT excites you? What does the job require? What is your background? What are the skills required? Is it managerial or team oriented? Answers to these questions should indicate the area that suits you. Mind you, while every job may require hard-work and skills, I know of several IT professionals who have spent days together at work, without minimum rest and sleep, to get a project over with.

4. IT is a respected and much adopted profession.

But can you handle the challenges and of IT? Does working with advanced technology interest you? Are you fascinated by the very idea or concepts of Internet or technology and similar trends? You may like being on the cutting edge of technology.

5. IT is different.

The nature of IT offers professionals the opportunity to work in diverse areas over time, and sometimes even on an ongoing basis. It is not unusual to find IT professionals carrying out Tech support, Computer Networking, Training and Troubleshooting all in one job.Does knowledge or the will to learn more drive you? Aspiring professionals must learn as much as possible about IT (or any career direction they plan to move towards) and its sections. A good way to acquire knowledge would be via the Internet (Google and Wikipedia), books and practice. Read IT magazines such as CHIP, Digit and Computers @ home and the IT sections of most newspapers and magazines.

Masters in computer applications (MCA)

For entry into the IT industry, companies looked for graduates in engineering or post graduates in computer science. Graduates in other streams who wanted to hop on to the IT bandwagon but could not do engineering also had a chance to become software professionals by joining a 3-year post graduate MCA (Master of Computer Applications) programme, after completing graduation in any discipline with Mathematics as a subject at Class XII level.

The MCA is a 3-year full-time degree course consisting of six semesters. It covers various aspects of computing, accounting, finance, programming, design and managing networks and databases.

Most MCA institutes require certain educational backgrounds like say Mathematics as a subject in class XI and XII and minimum of 50 per cent in graduation. Admissions are given on the basis of written entrance tests. The most reputed universities and colleges offering the high-profile placement-centred MCA degree in India are:

*Delhi University

*Pune University

*Jawahar Lal Nehru university, New Delhi

*IIT Roorkee

*NIT Trichy

*VJTI, Mumbai

*Banaras Hindu University

*MNNIT Allahabad

*ICSE Indore

*Thapar University
Other colleges offering MCA are NITs, Vellore Institute, PSG Coimbatore, Hyderabad Central University, BITS Mesra, Jalgaon University, and Panjab University etc.
Some institutes also provide post graduate diploma programmes in computer applications (1 or 2 years) which are considered equivalent to an MCA and offer good placement opportunities as well.

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