Career advice

[Techicolors]

Currently at CC mostly because it's cheaper, but i think i'll transfer out to a local uni near me just for a better learning environment. at the moment i declared computer science as my major but i have a feeling that i may not be cut out for it. i looked into what kind of interviews they give you in the field and they go way technical, it's kinda discouraging. plus spending roughly 4 years getting the degree from a school that isn't the likes of MIT, Stanford etc. 

 

another option i've heard of is coding bootcamps. looked at the lot and majority cover web development, though i wouldn't want to do webdev all the time. pretty much all of them are quite costly, but the pluses are that i can network with others. and the cohort will help you get a job (which is more-or-less the end goal). honestly this option or going to uni are pretty equal cost-wise, which is holding me back in doing any of these options

 

i also heard of a self-taught route. read a couple of success stories of people breaking into tech with no degree nor prior knowledge. i've actually been doing a little learning, but i ran into a huge wall. 

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

So you want a career in IT? What area of IT?

[Techicolors]

2 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

So you want a career in IT? What area of IT?

software development. at first it was tech support but i heard it's not a very good career for advancement 

[linustouchtips]

go for a a plus certification like i did they got online classes for that then you can go from there im trying to get gud at network

 

this stuff https://certification.comptia.org/certifications/a

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Technicolors said:

software development. at first it was tech support but i heard it's not a very good career for advancement 

SalesForce is in demand and pays pretty well. You can get started learning for free at trailhead.org there, and work towards getting Developer and/or Admin certifications.

[Spaceman_Wil]

I was in this exact situation about 7 years ago. I had a significant interest in design, both software and web-based and so I signed up at my local CC to get a degree in Computer Sciences. I hated going. I was bored and just wanted to get out and work. So I got a job doing exactly that in a small company. They were paying me ~$15/hr fresh out of High School, doing what I wanted, no degree or formal training. I loved it. I looked at my life and thought, "Man. I am making great money and doing so well. If I can do this well with just hard work alone, why stress myself over a degree?" It was a good experience and I learned a lot working with that company. Then I got hired doing IT for Chicago Schools and I learned a lot there too. I hated it, but I learned a lot. Now, I am a Manager of IT with much larger company. I have all the freedom in the world and I am paid ~50k a year. To me at least, it seems like a lot for someone with no degree, no real formal training, and 9/10 flying by the seat of my pants.

 

Going into the job I have now, the person hiring me was completely straight with me in terms of pay. He told me "I know you have the experience, I know you can do the job, but because you don't have a degree, I can't offer you as much as I would someone with a degree." After some sleuthing, I have found out I would have been making 70k/yr had I stayed in school and got my degree. So before I would've said, man that would've been nice but oh well. I make plenty and I can afford the things I want. Now, I am engaged, closing on a house (Next Thursday, woot) and I burn through money like a wildfire. I live frugally, I haven't eaten out in months, I've had to sell some of my guitars and part out my pc, and I really wish I could make more money to properly support my fiance so we could both have a really comfortable life, but right now in particular it has been pretty hard.

 

On-top of the financial aspect, even though I myself do not having a degree, when someone mentions they don't have a degree or dropped out, I judge them. Immediately.

 

All in all, as soon as I can afford it, I am going to go try and finish my degree and I really hope my rambling might help you out a bit. I know they say college isn't for everyone, but man it should've been for me.

 

[Jtalk4456]

my personal advice, finish school, mostly for the reasons spaceman said. Also it's a great time to get experience and learn things. When you're in the job paying for living, barely making it, it's hard to find the time or energy to self teach yourself. I'm at that point right now. Between work and having kids, it took almost a year to self study to get a+ which is entry level stuff. Get the degree because it will help you get interviews and it will demand a higher pay, even if you don't use the knowledge there. While you're in college, take the time and self study everything you can. Learn it all, figure out what specialization you like or dislike. Use those years and buckle down, so when you get out, you don't start out making 10-15/hr and work your way up. You can get out of college with a bunch of self done projects in your portfolio and jump right into making good money

[AntiTrust]

52 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

snip

My brother broke into the industry as a self taught programmer, makes really good money for his age. 

 

But I've never seen someone more dedicated to their 'job' or craft than him, he literally programs all day at work, then goes home and programs 'for fun' for a few hours pretty much every day. And being self taught (he does have a diploma in Visual Effects) he is a bit limited at his options for switching companies. Its much more important for him to build a reputation as a good programmer because he doesn't have a formal degree in it, and his advancement opportunities may be a bit more difficult without one. 

 

Also - don't forget that the point of going to college is actually to learn as well as earn a piece of paper. Your degree might get you in the door, but your talent and skill is going to actually advance you. 

[Techicolors]

49 minutes ago, linustouchtips said:

go for a a plus certification like i did they got online classes for that then you can go from there im trying to get gud at network

 

this stuff https://certification.comptia.org/certifications/a

 

forgot about A+ is it required to have one in IT/software dev?

 

50 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

SalesForce is in demand and pays pretty well. You can get started learning for free at trailhead.org there, and work towards getting Developer and/or Admin certifications.

whats salesforce?

 

33 minutes ago, Spaceman_Wil said:

snip

thanks for that. sucks to hear that you're paid less because you have no degree. but i too want to get out and land a job

 

9 minutes ago, AntiTrust said:

Also - don't forget that the point of going to college is actually to learn as well as earn a piece of paper. Your degree might get you in the door, but your talent and skill is going to actually advance you. 

yeah i'll probably have to fill in the gaps with internships 

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Technicolors said:

forgot about A+ is it required to have one in IT/software dev?

 

whats salesforce?

A+ isn't required in most fields, but it is good to have altogether.

 

Salesforce is a software development platform.

[Mira Yurizaki]

I'm too lazy form a coherent blob of text, so here's a bunch of my thoughts in bullet point form.

• Finish up school. Having a degree greatly increases your chances of applying online and at job fairs when you don't really know anyone.
• Find internship programs and don't be afraid to go out of state to find them. I've worked in places where interns came from across the US. If you're worried about housing, don't be afraid to ask them.
• Go to any career fair  you can find. At the very least, look around, see what's available. If anything else, if you find a company you might be interested in, talk to the people there. Make connections or an impression.
• If you have peers or classmates that you work with or see that have internships or jobs, don't be afraid to ask them if who they work for is looking.
• Where you went to at the end of the day is a conversation piece, nothing more. In California there's two levels of state schools, the CSU system which is the less prestigious one, and the UC system which is more prestigious. There's a joke in the tech industry in the city I live in that you go to a CSU school to get a job, you go to a UC school to become a professor. So don't feel like you need to go to MIT or Stanford or whatever other well known tech school to get anywhere in the world. To put things in perspective went to a CSU and I landed a position at Qualcomm, got an interview with Amazon, and interest from Apple for an interview after submitting an application.
• When writing a resume, put the relevant classes you took and the projects that you worked on, and just leave it at those skills. If you have job experience, put those down too. However, keep in mind some skills should not be put down because either they're not relevant or they're just not impressive. One of them for instance is knowing how to use Microsoft Office. That doesn't mean much when it's something you should already have for school.
• When you have an interview lined up, it's good to do some basic research about the company you work for. It shows that you're actually interested in working for them.
• In my experience, the technical part of interviews don't tend to be super technical, but you should at least know the basics of what skills they're looking for.
  • If you're given a coding assessment, it's more to figure out how you tackle the problem rather than if you solve it perfectly. The first coding assessment I had I made a minor goof, but the proctor was impressed anyway because of how swiftly I tackled the problem with confidence.
• The rest of the interview process is just to see how well you fit with the company and the group you'll be working with.
• And one more thing: Don't give up. And don't be picky.

[Techicolors]

32 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

In my experience, the technical part of interviews don't tend to be super technical, but you should at least know the basics of what skills they're looking for.

• If you're given a coding assessment, it's more to figure out how you tackle the problem rather than if you solve it perfectly. The first coding assessment I had I made a minor goof, but the proctor was impressed anyway because of how swiftly I tackled the problem with confidence

do you know any good places to practice interview questions? i know leetcode is one

 

also if you don't me asking did you have any internships / side projects while in school?

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

do you know any good places to practice interview questions? i know leetcode is one

I haven't bothered looking for any. The only other place I can think of is Glassdoor if someone left a blurb about a company.

2 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

also if you don't me asking did you have any internships / side projects while in school?

I had an internship on basically the last half of my last semester at school. So it was really more of an extended interview at that point.

 

I didn't have any side projects at school. I felt the ones I did in class were good enough.

[RobFRaschke]

I got a generic IT degree about 10 years ago before many places were offering more specialized degrees. Worst $54K I've ever spent. I hated entry level IT gruntwork, I wasn't properly qualified to get a higher end job without additional certifications, and the schools were churning out so many people with these same generic IT Admin degrees that jobs were impossible to actually get unless you were willing to put up with the crap gruntwork for minimum wage and with shite hours.

 

I ended up making really good money at a local computer repair shop for a while, before getting really burned constantly fixing the same spyware and viruses on every computer because people were stupid with their porn and limewire.

 

It was around this time I realized that what I actually loved about tech was the hardware side, not the software/IT side. Too far in school debt and with real life sneaking up on me, there was no way I could go back to school, get an electrical.engineering degree and start all over again trying to come up in one of the hardware manufacturing/design companies.

 

I'm not doing an immitation of Puddles, I'm hoping people can learn from my mistake. Take time to figure out what it is you actually like doing, take internships, get work experience before you're too far into a program to turn back, and then once you're sure, RUN in that direction. Put everything you have into it, half-assery will get you nowhere, and much faster than you'll realize it.

[Techicolors]

13 hours ago, RobFRaschke said:

snip

i'm kinda afraid that after spending a few years on a major, it turns out i don't like it but i have to keep going or else it's a total waste. and the student debt is the biggest con for me. 

 

22 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

my personal advice, finish school, mostly for the reasons spaceman said. Also it's a great time to get experience and learn things. When you're in the job paying for living, barely making it, it's hard to find the time or energy to self teach yourself. I'm at that point right now. Between work and having kids, it took almost a year to self study to get a+ which is entry level stuff. Get the degree because it will help you get interviews and it will demand a higher pay, even if you don't use the knowledge there. While you're in college, take the time and self study everything you can. Learn it all, figure out what specialization you like or dislike. Use those years and buckle down, so when you get out, you don't start out making 10-15/hr and work your way up. You can get out of college with a bunch of self done projects in your portfolio and jump right into making good money

been self studying, but it's been a burnout (and slacking off). honestly need a support network to hold me out and learn, hence school 

[Jtalk4456]

2 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

been self studying, but it's been a burnout (and slacking off). honestly need a support network to hold me out and learn, hence school 

Exactly why i said do it during school. supplement what you're learning in class with what you want to learn and that will help you decide what you like quicker and avoid unneeded debt

[Bawna Tho]

I COPIED THIS AFTER WRITING IN ANOTHER POST SO NOT SURE IF IT IS RELEVANT BUT SURE:

 

There is a massive over-abundance of IT Technicians. Any person who can google and follow basic instructions can put together a PC. I see it every day being an IT Technician. I know that seems a bit ironic but I got lucky with an easy entrance into the career path. Now seeing the current job market for this role I personally believe the following maybe best;

 

Programmer; Relatively low skill ceiling. It is about repetitiveness, skills solving and a lot of googling (Has been for me at least) Also, there is a LOT of tools online that can teach you what to do. Web Dev not so much because of the likes of Wix etc.

 

I guess under programmer can come a job in making and maintaining Databases for businesses. From what I understand this will have a pretty high skill ceiling cause it's just hard haha (Insightful I know) This can be BIG BUCKS

 

What I am looking to do is network consultancy in which I will quote and fit things like Patch Panels, Switches, Set up servers with Roaming profiles, data shares etc. for companies that are updating or just starting. The progression I am looking for is to offer a contract where the network can be managed and "insured" after installation at a price. 

 

The not so glam is being a custom builder. There is not too much you can get away with these days, as I said before there are a lot of people that can build a computer and put a labour charge with it. You would need a very outstanding service to be on top of this market. Also, the market changes such as GPU's and RAM will REALLY affect this business hence why companies that can stock pile GPU's can tend to get it easier. 

 

I believe you need to take a step back, dabble in each of the different fields of IT (There are a lot more than listed here) and see what you like. The skills won't come overnight and you will have to work and long to get to a level where you can deem yourself a professional. You can work for a company but also build up recognition or go balls to the walls and try go solo straight of the bat. BE CAREFUL YOU WILL NEED DIFFERENT INSURANCES.

 

Feel free to ask anything

[AskTJ]

Do you know anything about software development? If no, take a look at languages you can learn. Python, .NET, Game Design, whatever. Once you have chosen one language, stick to it and learn it as thoroughly as you can. Buy courses online to get video tutorials and sometimes interactive lectures. This is what I am doing with PHP.

[Techicolors]

1 hour ago, Bawna Tho said:

I guess under programmer can come a job in making and maintaining Databases for businesses. From what I understand this will have a pretty high skill ceiling cause it's just hard haha (Insightful I know) This can be BIG BUCKS

devops?

 

50 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

Do you know anything about software development? If no, take a look at languages you can learn. Python, .NET, Game Design, whatever. Once you have chosen one language, stick to it and learn it as thoroughly as you can. Buy courses online to get video tutorials and sometimes interactive lectures. This is what I am doing with PHP.

just webdev, HTML CSS JS and some React. 

[AskTJ]

1 hour ago, Technicolors said:

just webdev, HTML CSS JS and some React. 

Okay, same as me. Are you interested in the design, or the server side?

 

If you're interested in design, I suggest - HTML, CSS and Bootstrap

 

If you're interested in the server side - PHP and Angular

 

I have learned HTML, CSS and Bootstrap, and am learning PHP right now.

 

Watching and interacting with lectures on bitdegree and have some other lectures on my Dad's account on udemy.

[Techicolors]

1 hour ago, AskTJ said:

Okay, same as me. Are you interested in the design, or the server side?

 

If you're interested in design, I suggest - HTML, CSS and Bootstrap

 

If you're interested in the server side - PHP and Angular

 

I have learned HTML, CSS and Bootstrap, and am learning PHP right now.

 

Watching and interacting with lectures on bitdegree and have some other lectures on my Dad's account on udemy.

fullstack dev i think, so front and backend

[AskTJ]

28 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

fullstack dev i think, so front and backend

My dad does that, but is a senior full stack. C#, Angular, JS and Azure are his best. Senior full stack pays well. $600 + per day while on contract.

[arnavvr]

On 6/20/2018 at 2:36 PM, Crunchy Dragon said:

A+ isn't required in most fields, but it is good to have altogether.

 

Salesforce is a software development platform.

So is Salesforce the company and Salesforce the development platform two different things?

[Guest]

Get a degree anywhere. It matters. I hate it too but companies don’t expect you to be an expert. Get some internships for some job experience. 

[Techicolors]

4 hours ago, fpo said:

 I hate it too but companies don’t expect you to be an expert

what do you mean?