Careers With Computers

[reapersivan]

Whatever you do end up doing, remember that it's a never-ending learning process. You cannot just acquire one set of skills/knowledge and expect it to carry you through a career unless you're very very lucky... but only an idiot counts on luck.

My own story... I go out of college after my time in the Army and went to work for Cisco as a tech support guy. I didn't know jack about routers and whatnot - back in the '90s, very few people really did - but I did two things: I made myself an expert in one technology, and spread myself around other technologies to pick up what I could.

Now, 20 years later, the one technology I was (still am, really) an expert in is pretty much a dead letter (not too many people using ISDN anymore...) but my spreading around to other facets of networking has kept me employed, and nowadays I spend most of my time dealing with routing protocols and network hardware.

The point being, be prepared to never stop studying and learning. Hardware, software, networking, protocols... it's all a moving target.

If constant education (usually not formal - lots of reading and self-motivation involved) sounds like something you don't want to do, I would advise finding another field. IT subjects change too much and too rapidly to treat education as a one-time thing.

I would love to always learn about technology but math, one of my best subjects although I hate it would male it kinda boring.

[russemerson]

I would love to always learn about technology but math, one of my best subjects although I hate it would male it kinda boring.

 

I feel your pain.  Though good at it, I never liked math.  Fortunately for me, all the math I need to do is binary and hex, usually only counting up to 255.

 

TCP/IP FTW.  

 

(Edit: I did much more math in school than I ever have done in my career. I suspect most fields are like that... but when you need that small bit of math, you really need it.)

[Guest]

If you aren't sure or serious, don't even bat an eye at it.

You will be working around the clock. Take Carey Holzman, he has been doing this for 20 years, and he usually builds about 5 computers a day, if not more (late 2015 spec).

5*365*20 = 36,500 computers.

And since each computer takes about 2 hr:

He only gets about 10-12 hours of free time, if he doesn't have to support any of his clients that day.

If he does that, it gets down to about 2 hours a day.

[shymi]

A humble opinion from a programmer and someone who studies Computer Engineering in university: if you're going to work something only for the money - don't; if you're going to work something, because it sounds easy - don't; if you want to challenge yourself and you are ready to learn non-stop - you are on the correct path.
I don't know how the universities in US work, but mine(a technical uni in Bulgaria) showed me a lot of things and didn't do any hardcore specializing. I have studied chemistry, physics, maths, alongside with OOP(C#, Java, C++), C programming, SQL, little bit assembler( 68HC11 and 8088) and architectures, algorithms, semiconductors etc.(there was a semester with a patent law and management, but I still try to forget they even existed). The good thing was(and still is), that the institution "gave me a taste" of a lot of things and I could choose which one I liked most. The bad things - well you can guess it from all the subjects I've gone through. There was no specializing and there were only small foundations(which curiously enough strengthened one another after time). So choose wisely and be prepared to learn a lot every day

P.S. A non-tech hobby is a great relieve after a long work day

[reapersivan]

A humble opinion from a programmer and someone who studies Computer Engineering in university: if you're going to work something only for the money - don't; if you're going to work something, because it sounds easy - don't; if you want to challenge yourself and you are ready to learn non-stop - you are on the correct path.

I don't know how the universities in US work, but mine(a technical uni in Bulgaria) showed me a lot of things and didn't do any hardcore specializing. I have studied chemistry, physics, maths, alongside with OOP(C#, Java, C++), C programming, SQL, little bit assembler( 68HC11 and 8088) and architectures, algorithms, semiconductors etc.(there was a semester with a patent law and management, but I still try to forget they even existed). The good thing was(and still is), that the institution "gave me a taste" of a lot of things and I could choose which one I liked most. The bad things - well you can guess it from all the subjects I've gone through. There was no specializing and there were only small foundations(which curiously enough strengthened one another after time). So choose wisely and be prepared to learn a lot every day

P.S. A non-tech hobby is a great relieve after a long work day

I want to do it because I love computers and that really interests me. If the money is good than it's a good bonus

[deafboy]

Post from a while back but can be fairly relevant if you go into the software side of things...

 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1327060/technical-interview-advice/0_100

 

For the most part certs and degrees are just to get your interview...they don't mean much to be besides it looking nice on the resume.  You have to show that you know what you're talking about very well.

 

Do internships as early on as you can.  You might find something interesting only to find out you hate it as a job.

[mluton]

I love computers, but working on computers with problems in company environments isn't fun at all everyday.

 

I've been full time working as an IT Support engineer for 7 years and still to date I do not have 1 IT qualification. I don't see the point, but that's me.

 

Messing around with computers from a young age got me where I am today. Is the money good.............not really in the UK as a IT support engineer.

 

Big bonus's come with the job though, old equipment is always free from customers, think everything in my setup/s is free and my garage is full of stuff.

[SaperPL]

I love computers, but working on computers with problems in company environments isn't fun at all everyday.

 

I've been full time working as an IT Support engineer for 7 years and still to date I do not have 1 IT qualification. I don't see the point, but that's me.

 

Messing around with computers from a young age got me where I am today. Is the money good.............not really in the UK as a IT support engineer.

 

Big bonus's come with the job though, old equipment is always free from customers, think everything in my setup/s is free and my garage is full of stuff.

 

That depends on the company you're working at. If your company uses sophisticated software for managing it's workflow then just being the hardware guy for a help desk isn't enough.

 

 

As for me: I did Applied IT at Automation and Robotics department and took an on-site training at game dev studio, then worked for them after getting bachelors degree while doing the masters. After graduation I easily found a job at even bigger AAA games making studio in the capital.

 

Meanwhile I kind of did and do work as IT Administrator and help desk for my father's mechanical engineering company and do all kind of interesting engineering projects for them as well coding stuff from gpgpu acceleration speeding up construction optimizations through designing and coding interfaces to doing some controller coding.

 

IT has a really broad spectrum of jobs, just remember to pick what you like doing and what you're good at.

[Mightyinvader]

computer engineering requires allot of the hard academic courses in highschool like pre calc, chem etc to then apply to the program in university or college. however if you find those courses a little challenging there are always IT guys, allot of jobs for iT guys in vancouver at least