How do I become a computer engineer?

How long would it take to become a computer engineer and an IT professional.?

• Answer:

  Unlike some professions, such as doctors and lawyers, there are no official requirements to become an IT professional. In fact, most IT professionals did not study computers in college. Many programmers or network engineers did not graduate from college. However, the very best programmers and network engineers generally went to college and studied a technical field like math, science or computers. In general, you can call yourself a programmer if you can claim at least six month's on-the-job experience with some programming language, such as MS Access, Java, C#, or else with some web-based programming language such as Cold Fusion. Of course, the hard part is getting someone to let you get six month's experience on the job! There are many ways get this experience: you can study programming at home or school, you can take certification exams for some programming languages, you can design web pages for your friends. Probably the best way is to convince your boss to let you design a computer app to automate your existing job. Your first app won't be very good, but your boss probably won't know, and once you have that experience on your record you can switch to a high paid job!