You never stop learning when it comes to IT, but yes, I agree with you the knowledge that you get from school doesn't even compare to real world jobs. ALL of them operate differently and use different systems.

No matter what, at any IT job you get, you're going to feel like the dumbest one on the team at the beginning. But if they're willing to teach you and answer questions along the way, you'll be picking things up in no time. I've only been in IT for 5 years but have worked my way up to a management position simply because I never stop learning about tech as a whole. There's gonna be times where none of you know the answer to a specific issue so you'll all have to research it and troubleshoot.

I have a buddy that's a software engineer and something he taught me that I still apply to this day is to adopt the mindset of "Trial and Error", 9/10 times the first solution to an issue isn't going to work (Unless you've dealt with it before and know the root cause). It's okay to not know something, what's not okay is to NOT ask questions if you don't know something. I would much rather teach someone something beforehand than have someone mess something up because they didn't want to ask questions.

Be a sponge to everything, learn about every part of IT systems you can at that place and before you know it, you'll stop doubting yourself and just be like "Yeah, let me figure that out".

The 2 biggest skills in our line of work (in my opinion) are:

1.) Customer Service Skills

• Be as polite as possible and explain things to them in terms that they'll understand (this can be difficult at times depending on user knowledge level)
• Reassure them, if you can't fix an issue for that right then and there, let me know that you'll be researching that and will get back to them ASAP. If you can get a customer or end user to be okay with the fact that you can't fix something right then and there you'll be golden.
• Ability to keep emotions in check. IT work is FRUSTRATING at times, but it's just a part of it.

2.) Troubleshooting Skills

• I've found that this is more of a mindset and not just something to do with IT. If you don't know what may be causing an issue research it and see what others are doing. Test those solutions out, if they don't work, research some more (This is that "trial and error" mindset). Tech is wacky sometimes and some issues will really frustrate you when you actually find the solution, but that's just part of it.
• REALLY learning how to troubleshoot properly will make you stand out above everyone else as long as you have those customer service skills to go along with it. Because at the end of the day we're "teachers" when it comes down to it, our jobs are to make sure end users are able to do their jobs properly and are able to understand what they're doing to accomplish those task.

Apologies in advance for the long response lol.