Hi Alisha_Girl, well first off, anything can be learnt. How how long depends on person to person and their interest and experience. In my case, I got the training in Beginner and Intermediate level Java for about 2 months during which I did some few self study and practices between slacking off...lol...I graduated MS in Infomation Systems Technologies, and for some reason, I hated hated programming. Anything programming I would try my best to avoid it...I was more interested in Networking and Database back then. But life as u see it, what you expect is always not what you get. So I decided to join programming bandwagon and here I am working as a Java Web Developer for a year now...But during that course what I realized was an interest in the programming language...It was not as bad as what I had imagined before and avoided...Being able to create applications out of collection of words that is not a sentence, that looks out of place and incomprehensible, upper case lower case letters at random locations, no clear convention for punctuation etc (at least it looks like that at first...lol), is amazing and an adventure in itself. Normally we use computer to complete tasks but with programming we command the computer to do the task...lol...Though I had hard time at first, being fired and relocating and what not, now my boat seems to be sailing smoothly....My point is, since it seems like you are still looking out for choices to get into IT field, you can give it a shot at programming because job market for Java and other programming is not good, but VERY good.. If you can make it through training diligently, your boat will sail smooth too...Training for programming might seem overwhelming at first as compared to BA and QA training, but down the line it will be worth it I guess...more money...It's a like a bigger moneyplant with prospect to grow bigger...lol...

I don't know much about consulting in Dallas but my firm is in Tampa, Florida. They have a nice group of recruiters there who will flood ur mailboxes with the requirements. They did a great job placing me so I want to believe the company is good. They provide free fooding, lodging and training though I don't know about females, esp if single.  After I was ready to move out of the their apartment after being placed in a job, two girls joined the company and moved in the apartment but they were with their husbands who were also there for training. Let me know if you are interested........