Personalise my view
Andy assembles his own path to greatness
Andy Kajewski, a proud Gubbi Gubbi man, had featured on the radio during his high school media studies and worked in the mines. However, he was having some real difficulty identifying his true passion until he enrolled in Certificate III in Information Technology (ICT30120) at TAFE Queensland Toowoomba.
JobTrainer funding saw Andy study three days per week at no cost, and will have him qualified to begin pursuing his passion in computer hardware soon enough…
“Getting new friends. That’s the nice one. There’s a whole other group of people in there, so yes. It’s pretty cool,” Andy began, sharing what he was enjoying about training with TAFE Queensland – he’s currently pausing his studies due to family reasons.
“They’re (TAFE Queensland classmates) helpful, which is good because I was the only one that didn’t have any experience coming in – the rest had a few minor experiences. They used to take apart their parents’ old computers or they knew a little bit of Python and JavaScript and all that. I was a complete newbie, but everyone was helping, supportive, which was really good. That’s what I like about TAFE Queensland,” continued Andy.
Andy found out about the JobTrainer-funded Certificate III in Information Technology (ICT30120) via his jobseeker provider, Max Employment, and, had some familiarity with TAFE Queensland training as his mum had completed her nursing qualification with TAFE Queensland.
Andy was attending the TAFE Queensland Toowoomba campus three days each week and staying with family and friends during this time.
“During the first month I was learning about Python, so I had to learn the basics of coding and all that, which gave me headaches a few times. It’s pretty much learning a new language because you got to learn all these integers, syntax, strings, and all that… But Miss is pretty good. She’s real supportive, sometimes she’ll get busy, but you got other students there that help you, that understand. It’s pretty much just a team effort with everyone. Some people might know some things and others might not know other things. So it’s just everyone’s helpful, which is the important thing around here,” offered Andy.
“And the facilities are incredible. It’s a lot better than what I had in high school, out in the countryside. So it’s way better.”
Andy’s long-term job goal is to specialise in computer hardware – taking computers apart, fixing, cleaning, servicing and reassembly, and this six-month qualification will put him on the path to get there.
When asked what advice he’d give to others who are contemplating training with TAFE Queensland, Andy replied, “Give it a try. You never know what you’ll miss out on if you don’t do it. It doesn’t matter if you’re 20, 30, 40, when you finally figure out what you want to do, just go for it. We’ve quite a few 30- and 40-year-olds in my class.”