Centennial College’s Computer Repair and Maintenance Prepares You With Computer and Business Skills

Many people around the world reply on and use home, office or public computers everyday. These machines have an endless number of uses and are essential to a high quality of life in today’s digital age. Due to our reliance on computers, Computer Repair and Maintenance is becoming an extremely important profession.

Responsible for the diagnosis and correction of any hardware or software issues that may arise on clients’ computers, these professionals must acquire the appropriate training to deal with the complex issues of today’s computers. Centennial College in Toronto, Ont. offers a one-year computer repair program that results in an Ontario College Certificate.

If you’re interested in applying, you must hold at minimum an Ontario Secondary School Diploma or equivalent or be 19 years of age or older. You must also have obtained the compulsory English 12C or U credit or skills assessment, or equivalent and the Math 11M or U, or 12C or U or skills assessment, or equivalent.

Once you are accepted and start to train for your computer repair certification, you will find that the program is concise and covers business training as well. This business training is essential, as computer repair professionals must be able to conduct themselves accordingly with clients while possessing as much computer knowledge as possible. On the computer side, the Centennial College computer repair program includes courses such as PC Hardware, MS Office, Network Technologies. On the business side it features Customer Skills, Communication Skills for Computer Repair and Networking and more. In addition, many of the courses you take during your computer repair certification training include practical experience such as installing, maintaining and applying trouble-shooting techniques. Upon completion of the Computer Repair and Maintenance program, you will be able to work in: personal computer support, sales and service, personal computer bench repair, upgrades and maintenance, operation and maintenance of computerized manufacturing equipment, and consumer electronic equipment sales and service.

But what exactly can you expect once you are out in the computer repair and maintenance field? First, you will identify the problem that caused the machine to crash or reduced its performance. After informing your client of the problem you will begin the repair or maintenance of the computer. Many issues encountered in the field revolve around incorrect installation, software corruption or incompatible upgrades. As you fix these issues, you must also be able to communicate with the client and let him or her know exactly what the problem was. You must also be aware of anti-virus software and have the ability to deal with spyware, which is malicious software that collects information from the infected computer-adware and auto-loads ads that come with a software installation. In addition, as a computer repair professional, you may be called upon to install and configure any piece of hardware that a client wants to synch to the computer’s database. These pieces of hardware may include cell phones or PDAs as well as printers or fax machines.