What is best way to step in IT field for a person to start from scratch, basically for those who are familiar with basic office and email stuffs but nothing else more. Of course not looking forward to enrolling for 4 yrs school. Directly jumping to THOSE consultancies may not be a good idea. How about taking some of these credit classes for certain trainings and get certified to begin with? Like say ccna, servers stuffs n such....

good idea pasaa... study well, do plenty of research in your study, get trained from good trainers in the field of your interest... and keep going, do not expect for miracle in 2-3 months...
good luck!

Nowadays its extremely difficult to get into IT field without certifications.
Option 1) Join consultancies, get one project, sit unemployed after your first project, worse case get fired because they expect you to come out firing from all cylinders. The old BA/QA market is crowded out now unless you're willing to move cross country every 3-6 months and then sit unemployed for the other 3-6 months waiting for a new job. At that point most companies will realize that you're just a hack who doesn't really have skills and drop you from interviews.

Option 2) I got a couple of certifications which led to an internship, which led to a job which led to 4 promotions so far. You'll develop at a full time job, with mentors and challenges and enjoy the stability. Who knows some pretty white chick from HR might wanna date you too.

Go the second route, there's no shortcut to success.

Thanks Tito Satya and aadgfh. I am not really looking for shortcuts here, willing to spend couple of years getting basics and develop the knowledge in a particular field. Just doesn't know where to start, I mean which field. I see some training classes offered in community colleges for reasonable price, just need to step in for something that will get me prepared down the road. I may end up going through those consultancies, but just don't want to shoot in the dark right a way. Are ccna/ networking classes helpful for any sort of IT carriers? I guess the question is where to begin :) ty all for valuable suggestions.

Hi asdfgh, what certifications did you get? if you don't mind telling please , also in what order.. trying to follow your path here. thanks

I did the Machine Learning engineer course from Udacity, plus SAS certifications base and advanced. I also have a masters degree in statistics from a big 10 university. Getting into data science almost certainly requires an a quantitative degree these days as well.

You can learn almost everything in youtube for video tutorial and if you don't find in youtube you can google them. You need to start with a home lab with a simple server or just a computer. Start by installing linux and LAMP or WAMP servers. Create small projects either for PHP if you are interested in web development or JAVA if you like software development. Learn how to work with different dependencies and API and start learning whatever you wanna learn in this field. All you need is dedication and there are lots of resources on web. I will leave some good websites which offers various courses for free below.
https://www.edx.org/
www.udemy.com
http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/
http://pluralsight.comAlso check this one for free universities credit classes
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/200-universities-just-launched-560-free-online-courses-heres-the-full-list-d9dd13600b04

Hardworker is correct. Nowadays anyone can learn anything with a little hardwork ans dedication. The old system of education of going to the classroom to watch a middle aged person drone on and on about some useless shit no one is ever going to use has become a total joke.

Anyway, you can learn what you need to, and then spend a few extra bucks to get a couple of certifications you'll instantly stand out among entry level candidates.

" I also have a masters degree in statistics from a big 10 university" , ok, you are too far out from my league.. hehe... i do have masters too but from a chepo university to maintain status. well as long as self learning goes, i did spend a year on sql and oracle. and almost a year on java and .net ( c#) , don't know where to go after this. they never look for junior level, if somehow they did, it's for internship for sophomores and juniors...

@Mulajasto, If you are in related field , try outsourcing companies like TCS, Tech Mahindra, InfoSys etc. for entry level. These are the companies that are in constant need of resources, specially after that H1B case going on.

thanks Angry guy i'll try that.

Also IT is a big big ecosystem. You have to decide what you want to learn first. If you are good at maths and logics , I would get into CORE programming such as JAVA / Python / C

If you are a ratanthe or artistic you can get into Front end stuff. Front end stuff nowdays is big with OOP frameworks like node/angular/react.
If you are organised you can get into Database and infrastructure.
If you like to break shit up , get into info sec / networking.

All else fails ...learn some QTP / qualiycenter and get on the QA/BA bandwagon.

Regardless of what you chose, start getting familiar with Microsoft products. Like outlook / word / PP/skype etc. I know so many newbs coming from consultancies who have no idea how to change their Outlook signature or write a decent email. Email is your god and it will take you places, know how to word your email correctly. Do not be too formal in emails ...it shows you are a newb or trying to be an Englishmen. Also get familiar with virtual meetings and conference calls ...people new to conference calls are annoying as shit, trying to talk over people and nervous.

And the most important thing, be nice to people but never take any shit. Stay away from desi politics ...if you use consultancy there will be full of it.