Requirements for IT positions or jobs similar.

[chusteczka]

I definitely agree with all recommendations for a community college. The importance of a strong Associates Degree level education is often understated. A community college focuses on teaching the ability to communicate and understand the basics of the world. This is far more important than most people realize.

The benefit of a community college for this level of education over a 4-year college or university is that a community college focuses entirely on teaching the basics. An education in a 4-year college or university focuses on the upper level classes in a major. The basic, lower level classes are always held in decreased priority and less is learned. This is why many people do not realize the advantages of possessing a strong Associate's level education.

My recommendation is to attend community college and take as many classes as possible. I expect you will enjoy it more than you realize.

 

[Wyndru]

No college to get into IT might be a little difficult depending on where you are planning on getting employed. My job upped their requirements to masters since the pool for people applying was too large. Now we have some people with 6 years of college making 30k in tech support positions. They aren't thrilled, but there isn't much alternative atm. I'm in NY though, it might be different where you are.

 

[rasczak]

Tristicus,
My folks didn't go to college either, and they have great jobs. But I knew I had to go to college. Why? Because today isn't 30 years ago. It's a different job market out there than it was when your dad was your age. I don't intend to convince you that you're wrong or change your mind, but I would encourage you to get your bachelors degree. You can't get a job at a video game design company just because you like video games. People get good jobs by proving that they are talented. When you don't have real-world experience, you start proving your talents by going to college. If you "know computers" as well as you think, then an undergraduate program in CS/CIS/MIS should be no problem for you. Yes, you will need to take a bunch of general requirements that probably won't help you at all in the future. As an IT manager, I can tell you that a bachelors degree proves to me that someone is willing to overcome obstacles and achieve a goal. The degree might not prove that you were the best in your class, can write excellent code, understand the in's and out's of the OSI model, etc. but at least it proves that you took the time to invest in your future.

If you choose to not go to college, I wish you the best of luck...your career path will probably be much longer, more tedious, and full of missed opportunities because you don't have a degree.

OP,

What seepy states in pure truth. I am 35y/o and when I left HS I didn't want to go to college. Through the next fifteen years, I've held various jobs, all low paying, retail/cashier crap jobs. When I found out my wife was pregnant, I went to a vocational school and worked to get me MCSE. Dropped out of that (completed the classes, never finished the lab requirements and did not finish taking the MCSE tests) but the knowledge i gained from going to school helped me get my foot in the door of the IT world. I started entry level helpdesk and moved my way up to where I am now as a network/systems admin. The one thing I did not realize was that by not going for my degree, I hurt myself and my family finanancially. i probably lost out on at least $250,000 in income because of the lack of a degree. That's a lot of money to leave on the table. Now I am finally back in school to complete my degree, but at this time in my life it's a struggle trying to juggle a family, two jobs (Yes two jobs, one full, the other 20hrs/week) and school work. Yet, although I know it's a struggle, I am doing it because i want something I can be proud of. A piece of paper saying that I saw a goal, I worked hard for that goal, and I achieved that goal.

If you don't want to listen to your family and friends, then please take the advice of an internet stranger, one who has been down the road you are definitely going to follow if you don't finish school, one who doesn't want to you to fail. Go to school.

 

[KentState]

Maybe starting out now is different than 10 years ago, but I never got a formal degree. I took 2 1/2 years worth of classes at a university, but was offered an entry level job and never went back. Since then, I specialized in databases and lately in data warehousing. I've been a manager for the last 3 years and was even offered paid relocation to come to my current job. Last year my gross income was just over $129k. At this point, employers rarely care about my level of education, but I've never skated by being just an average employee either. I will throw in the disclaimer ***results may vary***.

 

[ivan2]

Major tech corporations need everything a smaller company would have and more. There are help desk and deskside support jobs, there are entry level roles all over the place.

So sell me on your computer work and get yourself in the door. Give it a shot. It's the same thing you'll have to do with anyone else.

By contrast, I've referred people straight out of college directly in before, folks from the forums who've sent their resumes. I know their degree means that they've got a shot. Convince me that you could compete with those folks for the same entry level positions and I'll refer you.

please ask him to fix his firefox :biggrin:

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

OP, what exactly is your idea of an "IT position"?

i hope you don't think that it's putting a computer together by reading a couple of anandtech articles.

 

[Juddog]

I have an associates degree and have missed many opportunities for better paying jobs because I didn't have a bachelors. Even if it's from a Community College, a bachelors is considered the "bare minimum" these days if you want to get into anything decent, unless you want to be a helpdesk monkey the rest of your life.

 

[Uhtrinity]

Our economy is no longer recovering from WWII with numerous uneducated but good quality young men returning from the war. Everyone is now going to school. The competition is at a higher level.

With our prolonged recession, fewer immigrants are entering this country. It is getting harder and harder to find good quality maids and janitors. Your unqualified status will be perfectly suited to clean the dirt off my floor. I have a place for you, give me a call.


Seriously now, I was also "lazy" and thought I knew the world when in high school. 6 years in the military as a ship's mechanic taught me that I would rather live the rest of my life working in an atmosphere controlled office in a comfortable chair with student debt than as a blue-collar worker. Not only did the military motivate me to achieve a solid education but it paid my way through veteran's benefits after my honorable discharge. If you "know" and like computers, consider joining the military as a computer technician. You will either enjoy the experience and stay for a career or hate it but receive the motivation to achieve an education.

Stop being lazy and realize your view on the world is wrong.

I agree with this. There is so much competition and you need to make yourself stand out. For the longest time I worked in IT based off of my 2 year electronics degree and some experience. At the time I fell in the 'knows computers' category.

There are three areas you can work on and most employers (IMO) look for any combination of two. Experience, formal education, and certs. if you have 2 or even 3 of those you will have a much better shot. The last few years I have been formalizing 15 years of IT experience with BS in IT which includes certs. Also realize that your education will never truly end in this field. Currently I work as a tech coordinator and computer lab teacher for a small school district. It has been great experience and frankly I love the variety the job offers.

 

[AreaCode707]

Maybe starting out now is different than 10 years ago, but I never got a formal degree. I took 2 1/2 years worth of classes at a university, but was offered an entry level job and never went back. Since then, I specialized in databases and lately in data warehousing. I've been a manager for the last 3 years and was even offered paid relocation to come to my current job. Last year my gross income was just over $129k. At this point, employers rarely care about my level of education, but I've never skated by being just an average employee either. I will throw in the disclaimer ***results may vary***.

Now is different than 10 years ago. 10 years ago was the tail end of the .com boom when anyone who could spell computer correctly on their resume could get work and anyone who could figure things out on the fly could get promoted. Now the market is flooded with trained people and not enough jobs and the competition is very different.

 

[LurkerSince2001]

Everyone on here is giving good advice about the requirements for an IT job in a company, but maybe you have a different path. So think about it this way: If you don't have a college degree, what other resources do you have and how can you put them to work?

Do you (or your family) know a lot of people who own small businesses, who might need someone to get them started with a website or a small network in their office? Do you live in a place that has these types of businesses and you could make those contacts?

Do you have the initiative to be able to work on your own without having someone else telling you what to do? To seek out opportunities where people need some type of computer service and you can help them get it?

Do you have ideas for apps that you can try programming and sell?

Do you have any rich friends that need a personal assistant to do their computer stuff?

Are you willing to join a company doing entry level admin type work and learn as you go? (this assumes you have enough skills to get a foot in the door).


If you have some resources besides a college degree and if you can figure out how to put those resources to work for you, then OK, you don't need one. But if not, then yeah, go and get at least a community college degree.

(Datapoint in your favor - I am working right now as a programmer making the big bucks. I do have a degree, but it's in Elementary Education. I taught 7th grade Math for 2 years before quitting and going to work as an entry level call center drone. My foot in the door: I could type 29 words a minute and they decided that was close enough to the required 30 to give me a chance. Over the next 10 years, I learned bit by bit through macros/SQL/analysis/etc and worked my way up to the big time as a real programmer making real money. I know several other people who have followed this type of non-traditional path, so it can be done. But YOU have to make it happen by always working harder/smarter/better until you make yourself what you want to be.)

 

[Molondo]

And where did you go to school? I'm talking about a 4 year college/university like people say I should attend. This is with no job at the moment, so barely any time to save, no scholarships (no hope in hell of getting one), no mommy and daddy to pay my way, etc. I could obviously work through that if a job was possible, but you can understand what I mean?

Get a loan, work in the summer. It's not that bad. At least not in canada.

 

[Herbot]

Go into the military and get a technical MOS, stay in 4-6 years, when you get out use the GI Bill to go to college. If you're both smart and lazy, as you claim, you'll get a good career out of the military and also be cured the laziness, not to mention learn good management skills, etc. College is definitely not for everyone, but you might feel differently in a few years.

Seriously, military is perfect for someone like you.

 

[KaChow]

I went the military route. Use this simple list of steps to get into IT without college.

1. Take ASVAB test and get high score
2. Join military in an IT/IS related MOS that requires a TS clearance
3. Do your soldier/airman/sailor/Marine duties for 4-5 years. You get paid, fed, and housed to learn your skill.
4. Get out of military and move to Virginia/Maryland/DC area if you aren't already stationed there

There are lots of jobs for TS cleared people and not enough people to fill them. The pay is good but you need to be able to tolerate working around the government.

 

[Herbot]

There are lots of jobs for TS cleared people and not enough people to fill them. The pay is good but you need to be able to tolerate working around the government.

Yeah, no joke on the TS thing. I have a clearance and it's pretty easy to get jobs around here that pay a lot of money. If he's lazy, though, government work might be his style...

 

[Pegun]

Tristicus: think about this. I have a BS in Computer Science and an MS in Networking and Systems administration. Every job I've looked at requires and MS with 2 years experience, BS with 4 years experience or HS with 8 years experience. Unless you know someone in the industry, get a college degree or go into a sales position. Either way it isn't what I would want, but to each his own.

And again, everyone knows something about computers. I work with guys on a help desk that are developers, who learned sys admin through VBScript or are just code monkey who can't get a job because they dont have enough experience. How do you think you compete in this current job market (which sucks) with the likes of people like that?

 

[mrCide]

I had a similar bad attitude about school when I was younger. I went to college for a semester and really didn't like it. At this point I was pretty proficient in computers like you may think you are (could troubleshoot anything knew windows/dos like the back of my hand, had *nix experience). It wasn't huge but I started with dos/windows 3 which was a lot more hands on than things are these days.

I decided to blow $10k and 2 years at new horizons learning center and got my a+/n+/mcse/mcdba (which was a waste of money, school and trainers were worthless, just studied by myself). Those on top of my real world experience (and a really sexy resume) helped me get my first job. it was entry-level $30k help desk/admin job for a small company.

7 years and a few jobs later my 2 closest friends are working at solid companies making slightly more than I do (both have 4 year degrees and work at the same company they started outta college) but we all do well. I'm an enterprise sys admin for a health care company. I'll also most likely never reach executive at my company because I lack of a degree.

So while you can make it without a degree, you really, really have to know your shit (not to gloat, but i do) and have solid experience or you really need to get a degree to show you're competent.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Goddamn FireFox randomly crashing when I've typed long responses. I'm typing shit in Word from now on.

In short: I don't want to build up copious amounts of debt that I won't pay off, I'm not looking to be a millionaire or make three figures or close to that a year. I realize these things take hard work and dedication, and I'm not lazy at things that I want to learn that will help me in life. What I DON'T want to do is go to a school where I learn what Lincoln did the night of his assassination or how to construct the perfect sentence.

You have to be well rounded, that's why they make you take classes unrelated to your major...it is why

My 2 year CC degree has gotten me pretty far, you'd be surprised what I make, and what I do now 😉 ... only having my 2 year for 2 years now too...granted, I got experience from the get-go.

"Knowing Computers' .. i'll agree with whoever said that everyone knows computers, because it's true now. A lot of people understand the basics of a computer now, granted not all of them can build one/troubleshoot/fix one...but that's not all you would be doing at a business-type job.

If you want to play/work with just hardware, your best bet is to ..generically go for Geek Squad, or become a Dell Contractor and replace broken parts in laptops/desktops.

 

[wheresmybacon]

You'd be suprised. And I'm not talking about how to make a Myspace or install a game. 🙄

Would I? Well, what I can tell you is that I've been in the industry almost as long as you've been alive, and I wouldn't hire you. Resumes like yours wouldn't even make it to me since we eliminate ~ 75% of them just from failing to meet qualifications.

Even our phone support jobs require a 2 year degree or comperable certs and experience.

 

[DT4K]

Saying you want to work with computers is extremely vague.
If you mean you want to work at Best Buy, then yeah, I don't think you need to go to school.

If you want to do anything more complex, you're going to need knowledge and skills and you're going to need a way to show that to potential employers.

It's going to be very hard to get your foot in the door without some kind of evidence of your skills. Whether it's a bachelor's, associate's, or just some specific certifications. So I would highly recommend you get at least one of those 3. In all 3 cases, you will have a chance to work your way up and prove your skills. But having an associate's will give you an advantage over just certs and having a bachelor's will give you an advantage over an associates.

It's easy to think that you can demonstrate your skills to your boss and hopefully be rewarded and promoted, but often times, your boss is not the one who is making all of those decisions. Without a degree, it will be harder to show people who don't know you, that you know what the hell you are doing.

In many cases, the best way to advance your career is by changing employers. And if you're changing employers, you are again going to be at a disadvantage without a degree, since the potential employers obviously haven't worked with you.

But here's the part that really doesn't make sense to me:
You say you like working with computers enough that you want to make a career out of it. If you like it that much, I can't understand why you would not want to study computer related subjects.

I highly recommend you at least go to community college. It will give you a chance to learn different IT related areas and decide if it's what you really want to do and if so, what area you want to work in.

 

[rudder]

Your dad was lucky. You don't really need a college degree to be successful... but if you are looking to work for someone else good luck. I say your dad was lucky because at one time a high school diploma meant something. It's relevance quickly fading away even as your dad graduated high school judging by your age. Now it is worthless... college degrees for the most part are getting that way now. Schools are more interested in graduating percentages.

HR people will take that 5 second look at your resume and throw it in the can when they see no college degree.

 

[bas1c]

Depending on what you mean by "game design" you will need a computer science degree. Unless you are some kind of godly programmer or have extremely good connections, you won't get into a game development company. By godly programmer I don't mean some who knows how to string together a few lines of code in VB or you wrote some small application that was an inefficient POS. I mean someone who knows the ins and outs of different programming languages, design patterns, best practices...basically someone who can jump in and be at a senior level.

Other than that...if you are talking about help desk type IT, if you have the knowledge, connections, and interview skills, you could probably find a way in without a degree. Certs would help also.

 

[AreaCode707]

Depending on what you mean by "game design" you will need a computer science degree. Unless you are some kind of godly programmer or have extremely good connections, you won't get into a game development company. By godly programmer I don't mean some who knows how to string together a few lines of code in VB or you wrote some small application that was an inefficient POS. I mean someone who knows the ins and outs of different programming languages, design patterns, best practices...basically someone who can jump in and be at a senior level.

Other than that...if you are talking about help desk type IT, if you have the knowledge, connections, and interview skills, you could probably find a way in without a degree. Certs would help also.

Geez, I missed that game design thing entirely. There is NO way you will get into a game design company with only high school on your resume and with a crappy gpa at that. The game design world is HIGHLY competitive and the work is nothing like most people imagine it to be. You have to extremely motivated, extremely good and extremely willing to do some very tedious, technical and repetitive work that is completely unrelated to the fun experience of playing a game.

 

[syrillus]

OP, I will tell you that the best part about going to college for me was the fact that I got a job in the IT department at the school (one of the few places that will hire you with little/no previous experience) while I was attending, and got 4 years of IT experience while in college. Without that experience I wouldn't have gotten the job I did when I graduated.

 

[arcenite]

Since no one has said it yet: Go to college. That, or lower your standards.

 

[ScottFern]

I don't believe in the whole work my way up the ranks and it will pay off someday and be gratifying thing. I have had three jobs since graduating with a bachelors in Political Science and then slowly getting my MCSE, and then my CCNA. I have more than doubled my salary from switching jobs. First, getting a 18k increase in salary, and then most recently getting a 13k increase and getting the title Network Administrator.

I often think back to that first company and what if I would of stuck around? Probably be making 20 grand less and no bonus.