what IT role should I do?

[IndyColtsFan]

That's the issue, you have to be in the big cities to get those jobs. Those places arn't really fun to live in and are unaffordable.

I can speak to Indianapolis - every company I've worked for has employed many developers and it isn't expensive to live here at all. It is also a nice city and very cheap to live here.

Of course if you live in the middle of nowhere, it will be harder to find ANY decent job - that isn't news.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

They are different but CIS is sort of a multidisciplinary field between CS and business, so it's easy to see how they get confused.

If I were 18 again I would not go to college, they don't teach you anything that you will ever actually use on the job. They're very happy to teach you about things related to other things that are themselves useful, but if you learn anything useful there it's normally because you had to figure it out on your own while in the process of solving some assigned problem that already had a standard practical solution twenty years ago.

That said, these days you basically have to go through four years of total bullshit to even be considered for a basic job that requires no knowledge whatsoever, so it may not be your choice to make. You should still look though, prove to someone with hiring authority that you're reliable and smarter than a rock and they may just give you a chance. If you do get your foot in the door just run with it, don't waste your time with college because a foot in the door is all a bachelors' will give you anyway. Well, that and a raging alcohol problem, or herpes, but nothing that will help your career more than four years of real work experience will.

It's folksy, common sense wisdom like that, that makes me really glad we have a Bureau of Labor Statistics.

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

 

[Homerboy]

anesthesiologist

 

[Cappuccino]

do you give out free ipods?

 

[kt]

They are different but CIS is sort of a multidisciplinary field between CS and business, so it's easy to see how they get confused.

If I were 18 again I would not go to college, they don't teach you anything that you will ever actually use on the job. They're very happy to teach you about things related to other things that are themselves useful, but if you learn anything useful there it's normally because you had to figure it out on your own while in the process of solving some assigned problem that already had a standard practical solution twenty years ago.

That said, these days you basically have to go through four years of total bullshit to even be considered for a basic job that requires no knowledge whatsoever, so it may not be your choice to make. You should still look though, prove to someone with hiring authority that you're reliable and smarter than a rock and they may just give you a chance. If you do get your foot in the door just run with it, don't waste your time with college because a foot in the door is all a bachelors' will give you anyway. Well, that and a raging alcohol problem, or herpes, but nothing that will help your career more than four years of real work experience will.

Do not follow this advice.

 

[SketchMaster]

Do not follow this advice.

Agreed.

When I was younger I had the mindset that a college degree was just a club card you had to get to be accepted in the workforce, but there is so much more to it than that.

I did very well for myself without a degree, but I had to work 3x harder than everyone else to get there. The only regret I have in my whole life is not getting over myself sooner and going to college for my own sake. It can be very enjoyable if you look at it as something to experience.

 

[Ruptga]

Maybe I've been exceptionally unlucky with colleges, but that has been my experience and I would guess it is more recent than most of yours.

And like I said, to even be considered for many decent entry level jobs you need a degree, so in that way it is still a predictor of career success. Too many people glance at employment statistics and get the causes and effects mixed up though; degrees are a symptom of being successful, they will not make you successful. To succeed after college you have to do a bunch of stuff unrelated to your classes, like teach yourself some languages and/or platforms that are in demand, and get internships so you have real work experience and connections. If you walk out of university with nothing but your diploma in hand it may as well be your dick that you're holding.

 

[Schfifty Five]

LOL this thread is hilarious.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I can speak to Indianapolis - every company I've worked for has employed many developers and it isn't expensive to live here at all. It is also a nice city and very cheap to live here.

Of course if you live in the middle of nowhere, it will be harder to find ANY decent job - that isn't news.

Indianapolis _is_ in the middle of nowhere, AFAIC. There's a good reason that it's cheap to live there.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Indianapolis _is_ in the middle of nowhere, AFAIC. There's a good reason that it's cheap to live there.

I'll never understand people who say that but then again, I've traveled all over the world and probably have a larger basis for comparison than most people. Even if Indy isn't your cup of tea, Chicago, Cincy, and St Louis are just a few hours away. Indy is a large, large city and has plenty of amenities.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Being serious about it for a moment. Reach high and work hard in school. If you're serious about your schoolwork, you have some amount of intelligence and you can buckle down and do the work, you'll end up with a job that lazier folks who are more intelligent will miss.

In descending order of schoolwork (and smarts) required, and descending levels of interesting work (IMO):

1. Engineering. If you can do the math, want to work in electronics or computers, get an electrical engineering degree. From here you can go in more directions than with just about any other education in the field. You can be a software developer of just about any kind, you can develop low-level software for hardware or chips or subassemblies, write code for robotics, or do hardware design of chips, board assemblies, power supplies. And a million other interesting things. And you can often switch between them during your career.

Or a computer engineering degree. More specialized, more oriented to low level hardware design and coding. Less flexible in the type of work you might do.

But consider this: If you have the ability to earn an engineering degree, consider that there are other equally (or more) interesting fields of engineering. Ones that aren't quite as easily outsourced to India or Russia. Mechanical, industrial, civil, chemical, petroleum.

2. Computer Science. This is primarily a degree for software developers, although it should prepare you for other areas of IT, like systems engineering and network design. What you'll be hoping is that someone will offer you a very nice job right out of college. Because you'll find that some 16 or 17 year old kid (quite a few of them, actually) can write better code, faster and cheaper, with absolutely no formal education. Or that some guy who got his PhD in Medieval French Literature is the best developer you've ever seen. Corporations, though, don't typically hire those guys out of school. You'll hope to move on from doing the grunt work of software development before you're too old.

3. IT. (I'm speaking of corporate IT here, in companies large and small.) For the love of God, don't pay a penny for an education or, at worst, don't put more into it than can be had from a two year program at a community college. Anyone (and I mean anyone) can troubleshoot PC problems, run cables and replace faulty keyboards with only a few hours of training. Upper levels of IT management will generally come from a more technical or a business-oriented background, but some will have worked their way up from the bottom over a period of years.

 

[Imp]

3. IT. (I'm speaking of corporate IT here, in companies large and small.) For the love of God, don't pay a penny for an education or, at worst, don't put more into it than can be had from a two year program at a community college. Anyone (and I mean anyone) can troubleshoot PC problems, run cables and replace faulty keyboards with only a few hours of training. Upper levels of IT management will generally come from a more technical or a business-oriented background, but some will have worked their way up from the bottom over a period of years.

I was at a cushy, corporate job for life place but left for a lower paying job. What I could have done was transfer for a year to the local IT unit to essentially do help desk stuff at my regular, pretty sweet wage. That was my plan, but I couldn't take it anymore.

Ya, seriously, the stuff most people asked was easy: how to use Office, map network drive, computer freezing, etc. Everything could be googled -- why no one did and had to call IT always bugged me. If not, swap a new computer (i.e. reinstall Windows).

 

[IndyColtsFan]

1. Engineering. If you can do the math, want to work in electronics or computers, get an electrical engineering degree. From here you can go in more directions than with just about any other education in the field. You can be a software developer of just about any kind, you can develop low-level software for hardware or chips or subassemblies, write code for robotics, or do hardware design of chips, board assemblies, power supplies. And a million other interesting things. And you can often switch between them during your career.

Definitely agree. A EE degree will let you go into so many fields and open several doors, but be forewarned OP - it won't be easy.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I was at a cushy, corporate job for life place but left for a lower paying job. What I could have done was transfer for a year to the local IT unit to essentially do help desk stuff at my regular, pretty sweet wage. That was my plan, but I couldn't take it anymore.

Ya, seriously, the stuff most people asked was easy: how to use Office, map network drive, computer freezing, etc. Everything could be googled -- why no one did and had to call IT always bugged me. If not, swap a new computer (i.e. reinstall Windows).

You guys are missing something very important. Troubleshooting skills are not nearly as plentiful as you think. I've interviewed dozens of candidates over the years and troubleshooting even simple problems stumps a pretty good percentage of them.

Also, trust me, you don't want many of those end users solving some of their own issues - the ones that actually know a little are the dangerous ones. 🙂

 

[zinfamous]

man, I didn't even know where was such a job as cable bitch. Now I'm kinda jealous.

 

[olds]

OP, what country do you come from?

 

[zinfamous]

I would rather get shot than to do that. That's 2 hours of your life every day, just gone. I'm 5 minutes away from my job AND have a house. You can't do that in a big city.

wut?

I guess no one lives in big cities, huh?

 

[Ns1]

I'm 5 minutes away from my job AND have a house. You can't do that in a big city.

Sure you can - you just need the 3rd piece of the puzzle, money or luck. Either one is fine.

 

[Imp]

You guys are missing something very important. Troubleshooting skills are not nearly as plentiful as you think. I've interviewed dozens of candidates over the years and troubleshooting even simple problems stumps a pretty good percentage of them.

Also, trust me, you don't want many of those end users solving some of their own issues - the ones that actually know a little are the dangerous ones. 🙂

That reminds me... the local IT guy got pissy at me at that job because he didn't tell me my new system was a loaner. It didn't have any of my required software on it, so I called corporate IT to remote install everything. It took like a day? Then he gave me shit about how I shouldn't do that, they used a standard software set for the specific office. Somewhere in the conversation, I mentioned an image... he asked me what that was. Whiny prick continued to give me attitude the rest of the time I worked there.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

That reminds me... the local IT guy got pissy at me at that job because he didn't tell me my new system was a loaner. It didn't have any of my required software on it, so I called corporate IT to remote install everything. It took like a day? Then he gave me shit about how I shouldn't do that, they used a standard software set for the specific office. Somewhere in the conversation, I mentioned an image... he asked me what that was. Whiny prick continued to give me attitude the rest of the time I worked there.

A couple of jobs ago, the "senior" infrastructure engineer was doing an email server migration. Well, one of the users was having issues accessing her webmail. This "senior" person worked on it for 2 days and couldn't fix it. I heard him slamming things in his office and swearing, so I went over and asked him what the issue was. He told me and I said "Send me the screenshot of the error." I literally had it fixed in 10 minutes. Now, to be fair, this "senior" guy had less technical skills than almost everyone else on the team and was only regarded as being senior because he was a suck up and had been there longer than everyone, but that lack of troubleshooting skill is rampant in IT. At the help desk level, maybe you can forgive it but at the engineering level, it is unforgivable.

Of course, people like you and I have actual engineering degrees (IIRC) so our entire education is pretty much about solving problems. 🙂

 

[foghorn67]

I'll never understand people who say that but then again, I've traveled all over the world and probably have a larger basis for comparison than most people. Even if Indy isn't your cup of tea, Chicago, Cincy, and St Louis are just a few hours away. Indy is a large, large city and has plenty of amenities.

Beautiful compared to those other places you listed. Wish I spent more time there. It was a good, crisp autumn day.

 

[Imp]

Of course, people like you and I have actual engineering degrees (IIRC) so our entire education is pretty much about solving problems. 🙂

To be fair, I knew how to do this stuff before I even started college and learned 99% on my own. And I almost flunked out of my engineering degree in the first year.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

To be fair, I knew how to do this stuff before I even started college and learned 99% on my own. And I almost flunked out of my engineering degree in the first year.

Well, much of troubleshooting is common sense and you know the saying - common sense is uncommon these days.

 

[Oyeve]

I'm 5 minutes away from my job AND have a house. You can't do that in a big city.

I live in NYC, manhattan, I have a 15-20 minute walk to my job. I own my own apt. and make 6 figure salary. IT Director. Started as "helpdesk" in late 80s before they even called it that. I started out as a computer hobbyist, in my late teens (mid 80s) I worked as the "mail boy" at some private investment firm. They got some new computers from this upstart company called "Dell" and I learned all i could just by messing with these Dell PCs. I took a huge chance and quit that job to get an "IT" job. I got hired by Morgan Stanley were I lied my ass off about my "IT" knowledge. I had never done IT professionally prior to that. Within 2 months I was managing the small IT dept they had. I left that to manage BMG musics global network were I learned all thing Novell. When BMG folded up I did various managering gigs within IT. Mostly networking engineering and such. Now I am a director at a private company and plan to retire in 10 years when I am 60.


Bottom line, lie your ass off, get into an IT job where you can learn as much hands on as you can. You young IT wannabes have it easier with your google and shit. I had to learn this crap the old fashioned way!

 

[foghorn67]

I live in NYC, manhattan, I have a 15-20 minute walk to my job. I own my own apt. and make 6 figure salary. IT Director. Started as "helpdesk" in late 80s before they even called it that. I started out as a computer hobbyist, in my late teens (mid 80s) I worked as the "mail boy" at some private investment firm. They got some new computers from this upstart company called "Dell" and I learned all i could just by messing with these Dell PCs. I took a huge chance and quit that job to get an "IT" job. I got hired by Morgan Stanley were I lied my ass off about my "IT" knowledge. I had never done IT professionally prior to that. Within 2 months I was managing the small IT dept they had. I left that to manage BMG musics global network were I learned all thing Novell. When BMG folded up I did various managering gigs within IT. Mostly networking engineering and such. Now I am a director at a private company and plan to retire in 10 years when I am 60.


Bottom line, lie your ass off, get into an IT job where you can learn as much hands on as you can. You young IT wannabes have it easier with your google and shit. I had to learn this crap the old fashioned way!

:thumbsup: