[davis449]

I've been in IT for 15 years. I believe everyone in here's advice about going for A+ training and certification is solid. ItsHectic gives good advice, too, but if you're not quite at that level, I would start more basic. I think what he's suggesting is kinda overkill if you have very little experience. That said, NOTHING replaces experience, so I feel you should get your hands dirty. Time to build one of your own or, at the very least, buy a cheap used one and start loading some operating systems and getting the feel for how everything hardware and software goes together. The man who mentored me at 17 gave me an assignment right off the bat the first week I was under him during my 2 year internship. He gave me 1 work week to completely disassemble and reassemble a PC as well as produce a complete with drivers Windows NT Workstation 4.0 SP 6a install (no plug n play on that bad boy) while simultaneously doing grunt work as assigned. I could ask him questions along the way when he had time to answer them. That type of learning taught me more over my career than both my degrees EVER did\could. Good luck and PM me if you want more info. or just want to ask questions. I'm alway happy to help.