madeinuk, my path to IT was pretty similar; bachelors in fine art which amounted to just about nothing career wise, so drifted around a bit, working in galleries in a city NOT known for galleries, and doing other odd art-related jobs, and coffee bar/book store jobs. I would still enjoy a bookstore job, actually. After getting into technical writing, systems training and that sort of thing I finally realized I was pretty good at understanding systems and decided to go whole hog and got an entry level job in IT working with the system I had formerly been training folks on, and my company trained me up for programming (and beyond). I was really glad to find a career where a certificate to even walk in the door was not required, although I think a lot of people go about it that way as well.
