Data and Communication Education

Data and Communication Education is for you if you want to work with IT at the foundation of it all — the stuff that makes computers, networks and systems work. Depending on which specialization you choose, you could become an IT support technician, network technician, systems administrator or software developer. It is a broad field where you might end up working with cables, keeping a network running, protecting systems from hackers, or writing the code that programs are built from.

§What do you do in everyday life?

The everyday depends very much on your specialism. As an IT support technician you help users who have problems with their equipment or software, and you set up computers, software and networks. As a data technician in infrastructure you build and maintain the network itself — servers, switches and connections. If you work with cyber security, you find weaknesses and protect systems from attack. If you choose programming, you develop and debug software. Common to all is that you solve problems and get things working for others.

• 01You learn to troubleshoot systematically and find solutions when something doesn't work.
• 02You get your hands on hardware, networks, operating systems, and programs
• 03You can specialize in exactly what interests you most — support, infrastructure, security, or code
• 04IT is everywhere, so you are sought after in almost all industries
• 05You work both independently and with others to solve tasks
• 06You learn to explain technology in a way that ordinary people can follow.

§How you get started

The education is a vocational education so you typically start with a basic course at a vocational school. Then you alternate between school and practice at a company where you work on real tasks and receive a salary during your education. How long it takes depends on your speciality — it can last up to 6 years. You find an apprenticeship in an IT department with an IT supplier or a development house and it is here that you really learn the trade in practice.

§The way forward

With a data and communications education behind you there are many paths to take. You can work as a skilled worker in an IT department with a supplier or as self-employed. Want to go further you can build on with for example a shorter higher education within IT and become a data technician IT technologist or similar. There is high demand for people who can do IT so the education opens many doors.

“The best IT person isn't the one who knows the most, but the one who knows where to find the answer — and keeps going until the problem is solved.”