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ipivb

Later this year is when I will finally, for sure, be joining a university. I am almost 21 years old, so it is not too late to start now. I live in America, so I would certainly qualify for a pell grant (and other aid) to cover most, if not all, of the costs.

Until I was 12, I dreamed of being a modeller. When I discovered that programming is actually possible by the average Joe who devotes his time, I decided that is what I want to do... programming. But now when it finally comes down to it... I'd be blind to realize there are not much jobs in that area. I'd be better off trying to start a mainstream band, or become a movie star.

I don't need to be rich. My minimum income would be $20k a year. With $30k a year, I'd be pretty damn set. More is better, but most importantly, I need something that I can actually get a job in.
And that's why I thought IT. As in, the guy who sets up networks and fixes computer problems. Nearly every company needs one of these guys, so jobs are easy to find.
But then there is also the web designer. These jobs might be about on par with IT. High demand, decent pay. The only problem is that it's more of an artistic thing, and I'm bad at any kind of art. Unless I could be more of a web programmer, and have someone else design.
Personally I'm geared toward the IT guy, because it's a good mix of physical, hands on stuff, and computer stuff. I'm just not sure.

What kind of college classes should I be starting with? If I go to college, it's going to be computer related. I'm dead set on that. But I also need a job after I graduate, so my options seem to be limited to IT guy or web designer.

Can anyone please give some input?

Geri · Moderator Reputation: 111 Joined: 05 Feb 2010 Posts: 5636

Companies are always looking for good programmers because most of them are idiots and few of them can do a decent job. While they may not have a place for another idiot, there is always a place for a talented guy who make quality products. If you will become a good programmer, you will have a job with a good salary easily. If just an average, you will starve to death. There is enough average programmer already but there are very few skilled guys.

There are webdesigners on every corner, most of them without a job. It is surprising that most companies are totally satisfied with an ugly website for a low cost. Only some company with online business need webdesigners, the others may hire you occasionally. Or you can work at a designer studio, drawing all day. This is a designer job and not an "IT related" job at all. If you like to draw etc, it is for you. If not, it is not for you.

And yeah, companies need IT guys. Most of the open jobs are IT jobs but usually there are tons of people to do it because you don't have to be so damn highly qualified for it.

So I think your best shot is to learn really hard and become a good programmer, then you will have a good place in no time. Companies are seriously hunting and competing for good programmers. From the above 3 categories, that is the only one where they will actually think they need YOU and not any retard from the street as most of the IT guys and webdesigners can be replaced easily.

AhMunRa · Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 8:46 am Post subject:

From my experience in IT, 10 years, I would suggest general computer knowledge. You can specialize if you chose but you will limit yourself in what you can do. Most companies don't want specialized individuals, they want people that can do most everything. Chances are the shop you get on with will already have infrastructure in place, the best you can hope for is to be present in designing and implementing future upgrades. You can learn programming on your own, in my day to day routine it is far more frequent that I have to program something other than to parse a file or to automate some job that would take me more than a half an hour manually and I do frequently. Don't limit yourself to one platform. My company uses a mixed environment, but 98% of our computers are Windows, we have servers that range from Server 2003, to Server 2008, using Exchange and ADUC. We have a few Linux based servers that I manage that handle our business software, DNS, and proxy. Most of your day to day activities will be user support. Best advice I could give you is to get yourself in the door of someplace doing Help Desk, it may be what you end up doing out of school anyway. Start learning now, there is nothing you can not teach yourself, or learn online about computers/IT from the web. If you have that passion to chase down and learn on your own you will succeed in the field, if you wait for school then it may be the wrong field for you. A year in the field getting hands on experience is worth 3 in a classroom.

Be prepared to continue your education as you know the field constantly evolves as the technology does. Your job can be as tedious or as fun and interesting as you make it. Also there is no guarantee that you will always be able to find a job. This ones for Geri mostly, not just anyone can do it. Telling someone to reboot only gets you so far. We have hired 9 people in the last 3 years to work in IT, we have a core of two people the IT manager and myself. We have hired 1 developer and 8 help desk/support people and all but the developer couldn't competently do the job. The developer actually couldn't handle the stress, good programmer too. When you DNS takes a crap and won't resolve one single address that is business critical and a server reboot is out of the question, not any idiot can figure it out. This has nothing to do with the company as a whole, but more to do with their lack of skills. They just couldn't cut it.

Whatever you chose just remember that you can have fun doing what you love. If you love computers then go for it.

As far as classes, it depends on your education. Did you graduate High School? Can you solve an equation that looks like 3xyz + 3xy2z - 0.1xz - 200y + 0.5? If not you may need refresher maths, in which case I'd suggest Community College to get any courses you would be required to take to get you into your core classes. When I went back to school I couldn't believe the number of kids just graduated High School the previous year that were in the same math as I was and I hadn't been in a classroom in over 15 years.

Otherwise your schools course offerings will determine most of your classes. Also setup your own networks at home. Design them, then build them. You can either use old hardware that you find/is given to you/ or you buy from thrift stores, or just set something up on VM's, that's where the new stuff is heading anyway. Thin clients! Break your network, repair it, play with new OS's, setup proxies, play with them, tear em apart see how they work. Set up DNS, break it, repair it. Hands on is the best teacher.

Geri · Moderator Reputation: 111 Joined: 05 Feb 2010 Posts: 5636

I thought you will post here. Smile

Of course I don't think that anyone can do it but it is easier for you to find a job because you are skilled. However I bet you have tons of incompetent people in your group who aren't worth their salary and it is easy to replace those guys. Also, an "IT guy" is basically not a definition. You can be an administrator (user support etc) or you can handle servers only (like on a huge website where the smallest problems are resulting in loss of money) etc.

A good programmer will still earn more and have a higher reputation because it is damn hard to learn tons of languages and work on completely different projects at the same time.

If you work on IT field, you really have to be amongst the very best to get the attention of any company. Either way, you have to be good at what you are doing or no one will be interested in hiring you.

IT guys can cause less problems under a good supervisor than a bad programmer would do in a project. There are more IT guys but most of them is considered to be a "grunt" and only the big shot all knowing boss is getting some reputation.

AhMunRa · Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 12:06 pm Post subject:

Very true, it's about like any job really. The brunt of the work gets handed to the labor force, and the managers get the accolades for it.

Whatever you chose to do, love it, and be happy. If you like hardware do that. Nowhere is it written you can't be a network monkey and can't write code. Who knows maybe you need a small app to test where packet loss is happening in a network and you right a packet sending program to test your network for that bottleneck.

@Geri you are so right in that if you aren't the very best you will stay under the radar.

Jorg hi · Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 6:22 pm Post subject:

Lol xD! I should start now xD I only know C#, (C++ 'Basic', As in I can program anything, except it will have bad code), VB.Net, SQL. Wtf how can people expect learn 50 languages O_O

AhMunRa · Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 8:59 pm Post subject:

Concepts are the same for most languages only differences are syntax. At work we are migrating to a mix of ASP with C# back end and a sprinkling of AJAX. So I'm getting to learn AJAX.

ZacTheSin · Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 3:49 pm Post subject:

AhMunRa: Best advice ever.

Zcythe · Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 12:15 pm Post subject:

Basically just follow AhmunRa's post. But something that will help you get a job is definitely certifications. Im going for my network + certification and A+. Maybe even get a cisco certification, but the thing is it really only helps you get hired it doesn't really mean you know everything. Some people can be certified and take forever to fix things, when some just random computer guy can fix the same thing real quick. So to me certifications can get you jobs quick, but they really just prove that you know the basics and some advanced stuff.

kls85 · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 12:55 am Post subject:

Why IT field? How about being architect where you draw a building and one day see what you draw on paper become reality. How about car designer? Landscape architecture, Make up artist, and so forth? Game designer or Game tester?

Since you want to be in the IT field, you have to ask yourself why you want to be in it?
Do you want to because it will get you a decent paying job?
Do you want to because you have a interest in it?
Right now most will go with computer courses as nowadays almost everything is computer related thus most will think by entering a computer field means it will get them a job and decent pay. This isn't the smart thing to do as if you're not happy with what your doing, why bother?
Go with a field you have a passion for not because it will get you a job because if the yearly salary is $50K and it's not your thing, you will never be happy with your work environment.
Now if your still interest in the IT field, some colleges will have internships in the degree you apply for. Go to those internships to get a feeling of how your job will be like. If your good, you may get hired.

AhMunRa · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:47 am Post subject:

Excellent advice kls85. Also about the graphic design/drafting. With computers you aren't just studying computers. What if you fix computers for a finance company, you will need to understand how finance industry works, same for medical, or anything related to computers used in a specific industry.

Seergaze3 · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 8:27 am Post subject:

Do what you do best, getting into the IT business is not an easy thing, i hope you got a certificate or diploma on that cause it matters more on if u will get the job rather than if u like the job

if u like drawing/photoshop > go architect
making movies > make advertisement for companies
programming > anti-virus?microsoft?google?
techician > service for fixing things

still its your choice

kls85 · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 12:25 pm Post subject:

ipivb · Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:23 pm Post subject:

Great advice ppl. I wrote this thread when I was drunk but it turned out alright xD

I want to work with computers. But I am not artistic. That narrows it down a lot. Other than that, it's more important to aim for something that I can get a job in, rather than a degree to nowhere. And that's why I think of IT... I'm very comfortable with computers themselves. That's why IT is good, and programming is alright since it does focus mainly around how the computer operates. Web design is not as good because it's more artistic, and something like designing buildings or cars is completely out of the question because I would hardly need to be as computer oriented as I am.

If I set my goals extremely high, I'd like to live and work in Japan. While 99% of Americans go to Japan to teach English... I'm willing to bet that programming is a bit more of a high-demand job there, because programming languages are in English.

Geri · Moderator Reputation: 111 Joined: 05 Feb 2010 Posts: 5636

Unless they use some translator. Dunno where but ages ago I have seen some multi-language C like thing. I doubt it has a high compatibility with compilers but maybe it is working in countries where people are not learning English at all. Still of course the best way is to learn English but you don't need to know it on a sky-high level, only the computer related stuff.