Posted on 10/13/2008 11:04:02 AM PDT by LouAvul
I'm probably going to change careers. I have a liberal arts degree (BA) from an accredited university back east. I also have a computer repair class, Basic and C++ from the Yosemite Community College district in California; a database management class (Oracle?) and Visual Basic from California State University. (No degree in the computer work.)
I'm thinking I'd like to go into some aspect of computers. I enjoy working with and on computers, but also would like a relatively lucrative career.
What would you recommend re the current job market? Web design? Networking? Or is the computer market already so saturated that my goal is unrealistic?
Whichever you recommend, which would be the most expedient route? Should I take my liberal arts BA and go for a BS in computer science (which would take a couple of years, at least)? Or should I go for a technical certificate such as one might receive at ITT?
Thanx for your help.
Web design is not good for high-paying jobs in general. Programming the back-end is doing well though. If you want to do all, you need to get really good with two things on the Web end:
CSS (cascading style sheets)
AJAX (JavaScript)
On the back end you really just need to be solid in your database skills. From the programming end it’s fairly easy to transition between engines like MySQL, Oracle and MS SQL because the common basics are 95% of it. You’ll only need to learn the little things they do differently, like transactions.
Your Visual Basic skills are useless for programming. You don’t want to work for a shop that uses VB for writing apps, because pretty much by definition they suck. But those skills can be pretty good if you’re an admin of a Windows network, because you’ll be writing little scripts to do everything, and VB Script works well. Suggestion for going that route: learn PowerShell.
For a language, C++ gave you a good grounding. Now you have a few routes for descended languages:
Stay with C++. But you’ll be miserable.
Learn Java. This will help you on back-end www programming for all those businesses that run their sites on Java.
Learn C#. Finally C# is a really good language, and the framework is easy to learn and work with. However, it’s mainly useful in Microsoft shops, but there is a lot of market for it.
Networking? You can get paid crazy money. But you have to have crazy knowledge, a serious ability to keep thousands of bits of info in your head at one time and correlate them. You need general network certs. Cisco certs are expensive and hard, but a Cisco expert can pretty much write his own check.
Get the BS in computer science, it’s a good foot in the door. Plus self-taught people — hate to say it — often don’t take criticism well, they think they’re stuff is always perfect. Everybody makes mistakes that others catch, it’s a fact. Graduates with a BS have been beaten up by their professors enough that they’re willing to take constructive criticism. Remember, what counts is that your program is good in the end, even if it’s because others caught your mistakes.
I wouldn’t bother with a BS in computer science. I would stick with trying to get my foot in the door. Companies are extremely prejudiced towards people with experience.
As for languages, if you are any good as a programmer you will be able to program in all of them.
I might need to program in VB 6/.NET, C++, Javascript, PHP, ASP (C# or .NET) or whatever depending on what day of the week it is. Make sure you know your database stuff Oracle, MySQL, SQL server, etc.
The money is in software development, or high layer networking. You can still make decent money as sys admin. I would suggest boning up on linux/unix and your layer 3 networking skills. If you know software development and like coding, i would go that route.
But if Obama gets elected, you could just sit on your ass and collect paychecks from the gubermint teat.
Get your BS in Computer Science and get a few Cisco Certs Under your belt.
The degree because it demonstrates that you have the wherewithall to stick it out and it demonstrates you are trainable.
The Cisco Certs (CCNA, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP) as they demonstrate a measurable mastery of a pretty difficult field.
Get your CCNA first then the Degree, then other Cisco Certs.
Also, (and this helped me a great deal in fixing network problems) get your MCSA or MCSE. Understanding the Microsoft environment is a good thing.
Good luck to you.
That hasn't been my experience as a CCNA. I do have a great job, but I think you were overstating things just a bit. lol
Now CCIEs on the other hand, what you said applies.
LOL .... tell us another joke. That was good!
Maybe Medical IT? More health care systems and providers are going electronic (although check into it first, since I'm a RN, not an IT person).
A lot of people flame out in the Sys Admin position too. 60K+ a year looks pretty good until they get paged at 4AM because the system went down...and they have to work until the system is back up.
Bottom line, IT isn’t for the faint of heart. The pressure can eat you alive.
There are very good suggestions in this thread rfom people with much more experience than I.
Here’s how I personally see it,
you can now d/l 400 to 500 eBooks and example scripts from illegal torrents.
Of course you don’t have to, but the available resources are used by kiddos all over the world, and you are directly competing with those kids in every single niche in the field that is not geographically determined.
You can also download and install Oracle student software, d/l or buy the Oracle books, and learn Oracle DB programmer and DBA well enough to pass the cert tests.
You can do the same for all of the Linux and Open Source program languages, and most of the Microsoft Porgramming languages.
You can’t easily learn network administration at home, you need a cluster as a sandbox to learn with.
... As someone else said above, you have about enough experience to work for BestBuy GeekSquad right now.
However you can easily and rapidly bring yourself up to speed if you go to universitys’ IT dept websites and d/l syllabuses, then d/l the books and software on your own, and put yourself on a strict study regime.
Just taught myself VMWare ESX and Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft Server 2008 this way. Took me about 150 hours of study time every night for 3 weeks. Still wouldn’t trust myself on MS Server in a production environment, but I can definitely babysit virtual servers in my DBA roles now.
Don't you know? Was it Oracle? Was it SQL?
I won't dismiss the need for good management, but some kinds of programmers are a dime a dozen. I actually have a hard time finding really good programmers.
And note to poster: 1) Learn both Windows and Unix-ish stuff. Letting one camp dissuade you from the other is only limiting yourself. 2) Learn C or Assembly language, so you'll understand how computers actually work. 3) Read Steven's network programming books, so you'll really understand networking. 4) Avoid web programming like the plague that it is.
I should amend that. Some simple things, like basic HTML, JavaScript, etc are really useful. And it's hard to say what the market for web programmers will be like in the future; could be real good, could be bad.
You're kidding, right? Cisco's CCNA is just above entry level in the industry. A local highschool VOTEC has graduates who leave with CCNA, MCSA, and a number of CompTIA certs as well.
CCIE is another thing...
Mark
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