I really wish I knew how you guys are getting your feet into the IT field without a degree or experience because I sure as hell can't find any internships (or even a PT job) that doesn't require either one.

jst3p:
You couldn't be more wrong. IT Audit and gunning for IT manager? Thinks a degree means anything in IT? Your type makes the worst manager possible. You will probably will get the job too.

You obviously know nothing of IT controls, risk assessments, or Sarbanes Oxley. As an IT Auditor I know the business side as well as the IT world. Any observation I make to the CIO is taken as a means to improve their system controls. I didn't say I would only hire people with degrees, but if you want to be the one doing the hiring these days, you will need a degree. Not my rule, but HR's.

And yes, I will get the job because I look at the big picture.

hej: Also, I'm highly skeptical of this $50k/year "earning potential" for doing PC tech support.

I did it. No professional experience (like dude above, I consider myself an autodidact). The trick was getting in with a company (already my employer). I had been in sales for this company for several years (a regional market for a wireless carrier) and since I was 'good with computers' (and networking) I eventually became the go-to guy for problems when the corporate IT group was slow to respond to stuff. Then we started opening a shiat-ton of stores in this part of the state and they needed someone local to administrate the machines and networks full-time. They started paying me $54k out the gate for that.

Now I'm training my replacement, because I've moved up to another position - I'm now purchasing, distributing, and controlling pricing for all our products, which is actually a much, much harder job, and a more dangerous one, because I'm playing around with millions of dollars every day (I admit the fear makes it a little fun). The person I replaced was canned for making a decision that cost the company over $100,000 (one of several such mistakes he made). And this guy had a degree and experience in the field. Like the IT thing, it's a job I'm having to teach myself on the spot. And that's why I was selected for the position - my predecessor was canned rather immediately, I had proven that I was intelligent and resourceful enough to change gears on the fly. I volunteered to pull double-duty and work both positions until we could find a replacement, and managed to kick enough ass to prove that I could be that replacement. I realize that I'm just straight-up bragging at this point, but when I took over, our regional market was dead worst in inventory rankings out of 25 markets nationwide (meaning, unsold inventory sitting on shelves for 60+ days, weak sales due to poor stocking, etc). After six months, we're the third best out of 25 and I intend to put us at #1 by year's end. I've already been promised another fat raise in the next fiscal quarter due to the fact that I've saved the company over a half million dollars since I took over.

I almost didn't graduate high school on time. I slept or doodled through half my classes and had to take night classes in order to graduate with my classmates and avoid repeating my senior year. I also dropped out of college after half a semester. I really resented schooling because I never learned shiat - and I loved to learn. I was/am a voracious reader, and picking up a book of my choosing and reading about something was far more rewarding than being stuck to a rigid curriculum in the hands of a bored teacher. Once I was faced with real-world challenges, I learned how to deal with them on the spot. I place very little importance on my education and frankly consider everything after elementary school a colossal waste of time.

I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that autodidacts rule. Your ability to learn new things should be held in MUCH higher esteem than what's on your resume. If I had to write a resume or take an interview for any position today, the personal trait I would emphasize the most is the ability to learn, and make sensible decisions.

eggrolls: Every state I know of will NOT provide teaching certification, nor hire you for any educational post, without a bachelor's degree.

The American state of Tennessee will evaluate your experience for non-academic fields such as automobile repair or building trades. You get a teaching certificate if there's an immediate post to fill at a state vocational school.

And then you can qualify for almost any teaching position in the state. Perhaps not in the top running, but certainly qualified to apply.

What if I want to transition out of Network administration? I'm waking up at 11pm tonight to do another freaking overnight maintenance! 10 years of this shiat, stick a fork in me. Don't get me started about the freaking direct connect in conjunction with on call.

eggrolls: LouDobbsAwaaaay: Career Change Option #5: Teacher

Yeah, you could transition to a career that people are transitioning out of en masse to escape conservative butchering of pay and benefits. That's an idea.

No. No, you really can't. Every state I know of will NOT provide teaching certification, nor hire you for any educational post, without a bachelor's degree. And most require additional certification and additional education to advance past anything beyond teacher's assistant. You can't even get a job as a substitute without the proper credentials anymore. The perfect storm of schools trapped by No Child Left Behind preventing qualified laypeople from just stepping into teaching, and unions that forgot the reason why teachers work in the first place in favor of covering their collective asses.

AND the pay sucks. You're absolutely right about that.

My brother got screwed by that a few years back. He did so well as a sub he was hired on full time. He's an excellent teacher but has no teaching degree. The principle loved him but she had to drop him because of policy from higher up. Now he can't even sub any more. It's awesome.

KierzanDax:

Paralegal:
Do you want to work long hours researching arcane legal precedents without that cumbersome money? Are you ready to "take one for the team" and accept blame when the lawyer fails? Do you like watching everyone else get a bonus while you go home and eat tuna from a can? This job is for you!



The paralegals don't do actual research- that's what first year associates are for. Paralegals fill out standard court forms and help with sorting through discovery materials. We try to be nice to them. But yes, the poor farkers do put up with an awful lot of attorney bullshiat for relatively little pay.

/On behalf of all decent lawyers, I apologize to all of the competent paralegals.
//incompetent paralegals can go to hell, you lazy, stupid, freaks.

Pav: What if I want to transition out of Network administration? I'm waking up at 11pm tonight to do another freaking overnight maintenance! 10 years of this shiat, stick a fork in me. Don't get me started about the freaking direct connect in conjunction with on call.

Well, I did it by stretching out into more tasks related to jobs that were more '9 to 5' positions. By doing that I became known to a vendor my company used. After my company was bought out and about to have our offices in my state closed down, that vendor made me an offer. That effectively moved me up the food chain a bit. My particular job still entails some outside-hours work, but not as bad as before.

The other route is to try to work your way into management. At my old job that was really the only route for me to go, but was unlikely to ever happen (I reported directly to a VP, and was too young to have ever been entertained as a serious replacement if he had retired).

trickygringuito:
My brother got screwed by that a few years back. He did so well as a sub he was hired on full time. He's an excellent teacher but has no teaching degree. The principle loved him but she had to drop him because of policy from higher up. Now he can't even sub any more. It's awesome.

I got better than that. My father was a public school teacher. By the time NCLB came around, he was nearing 30 years in. Top of the pay scale, continuing ed certs up the yin yang.
The need for that certification comes around. The principal says "You have to be at the training room this afternoon for the certification class."
He says, "Why, do you want me to teach it?"
As soon as he was done driving the principal crazy, he reported to the training room-where some 20something wet-behind-the-balls "instructor" was setting up to teach the class. More comedy ensued.

In the end, he ended off retiring over NCLB.

GreenSun:
I guess you can compare the computer industry to farming, of all things. In farming, you have basic ideas such as planting seeds, watering them, and giving them enough sunlight so that they'll grow. Still, it doesn't end with that, you also have to deal with other problems like pests, weather/climate changes, and anything unexpected before you can harvest them. It's all about using what you know, solving new problems and adding the solution to your system to prevent your crops from suffering again. It's not like dealing with the law where there's a rule book that you just have to follow and read.

As far as analogies go, that's one of the better ones I've heard lately. Kudos.

Bigglesworth III: I really wish I knew how you guys are getting your feet into the IT field without a degree or experience because I sure as hell can't find any internships (or even a PT job) that doesn't require either one.

All of the IT organizations I've known have hired entry level IT folks without a degree, and even more senior technicians. The more senior candidates needed a bunch of experience, but the junior roles just needed to take direction and have some solid basic knowledge.

Of course, all of these organizations had unofficial caps on how high a person could come up through the ranks without a degree.

Pay for being a teacher is really hit or miss, depending on where you teach. Where I live, when the current contract expires, starting pay for a teacher (21 year old fresh out of college) will be $59,800. This district generally gets a 3 or 4% raise every year (which means you will be making about $100,000 before you retire). All that plus a pension and great medical benefits too, for only 180-190 days per year, which is about 80 to 90 days less then the rest of us.

If teaching is what you want to do, it's really a pretty decent gig these days. I mean 60k at 21 years old? That's really pretty good money for working 75% of a year. That would be 80k to most other year round professionals on salary.

My profession requires a Bachelor's Degree. FARK: I do not have a Bachelor's Degree...


Discuss.

Bigglesworth III: I really wish I knew how you guys are getting your feet into the IT field without a degree or experience because I sure as hell can't find any internships (or even a PT job) that doesn't require either one.

Allow me... Link (new window)

Samwise Gamgee:

I'm unsurprised to be reading from other people going the same route I did here in Fark.

<csb>

I hated high school with a passion. Scheduling prevented me from taking trig but I promised the AP calc teacher the next year I'd learn trig over the summer to take his class. I did, and passed the AP. I almost didn't graduate because I couldn't bring myself to do idiotic english assignments (my english major mother was not amused). I had to take a night class where all they did was give me grammar worksheets. I blew through all of them in 3 weeks. They gave me credit and told me to not worry about coming back.

I quit the higher education scam after one semester at a university and just jumped into front line PC support. 12 years later and I'm making 6 figures doing vendor support for major corporations. Still no degree, just the certifications I learned myself while on the job.

Don't jump onto sammyk too hard, he's definitely right about it never ending. Everyone knows how the computer world evolves. If you aren't motivated to continue educating yourself, you'll fall behind. I'm still going for more certs, and renewing the old ones that are still relevant. Although I never did get my A+ or Network+...

</csb>

List fails without gun repair.

/is it just me, or did that always sound a little out of place on those "Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do!" commercials?

Evil Twin Skippy: I'm an autodidact.

KIIIIIINKY!

/hedleylamarr.jpg

Hey it's an autodidact party!

I do computer support, make well over 50k a year, no degree, barely a HS diploma... but 30 years experience, 10 as a contractor for the military in the late 80's through 90's installing computers, running network cables, and setting up servers. 5 years at Dell, had 20 applicants total for the job, 19 had degrees right out of college, I was the only one without a degree, but I had experience, they hired me on the spot and said they were thankful for someone without a degree and had experience.

ShowhermyO-face: Evil Twin Skippy: I'm an autodidact.

KIIIIIINKY!

/hedleylamarr.jpg

That's Hedy!

ArmanTanzarian: Bigglesworth III: I really wish I knew how you guys are getting your feet into the IT field without a degree or experience because I sure as hell can't find any internships (or even a PT job) that doesn't require either one.

Allow me... Link (new window)

That actually helped. I'm going to read up on that. Thanks!

FTFA - Career Change Option #2: Paralegal
Are you interested in a law career, but want to avoid the four-year bachelor's degree and three years in law school? Good news...

Forget paralegal, go for lawyer! Last I knew all that was required to be a lawyer in CA was to pass the BAR (high school diploma may or may not have been required). Now granted most people would need 5-7 years of education to pass the BAR but hey, details right?

Word of the day: Autodidact

Fark has been great for adding cool new words to my vocabulary.

/i cant be the only one who never heard the word before
//you are
///liar

sammyk 2011-09-26 05:24:24 PM Please don't say IT! Please don't say IT! FARK! Stop trying to unload failures from the rest of the business world on us. You have to study harder than what's required for a BS and guess what it never ever ends. If you are too lazy to get a degree you will fail in IT!
=========================================================

No, you won't. And based on my experience (which is 16 solid months of 'I don't give a shiat that you have a degree, I want experience before I'll hire you')... CS degrees are the most worthless piece of shiat ever invented.

$50000 flushed down the toilet.

Study and get into computers yourself and somehow find work on your own to get experience, and you're in. A degree means shiat.

/Not to mention, almost every single position specifically says 'degree in computer science OR relevant experience'.

Draskuul: I'm fine with a degree being useful to get your foot in the door. What pisses me off far more are companies that insist on degrees no matter the qualifications and experience. One company in town requires a four year degree for all IT staff, all the way down to the cable monkeys.

Even if you have a degree, if you see a company that has a hard line requiring a degree then I take that a sign to run away. That is a company letting HR do all their hiring and not the department staff that really knows what they are doing and what they need. You're bound to end up working in a college dorm environment with people who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

Wise words - may I quote you on that?

/seriously - I'm the guy who tells the kids to become plumbers and auto mechanics

letrole: eggrolls: Every state I know of will NOT provide teaching certification, nor hire you for any educational post, without a bachelor's degree.

The American state of Tennessee will evaluate your experience for non-academic fields such as automobile repair or building trades. You get a teaching certificate if there's an immediate post to fill at a state vocational school.

And then you can qualify for almost any teaching position in the state. Perhaps not in the top running, but certainly qualified to apply.

Not really. I googled the TN.GOV's dept of Ed website re: qualifications for a teaching certificate. The only exceptioned paths to getting teaching certification without a college degree are:

The Health Science educator must document three years of full-time successful employment within the past five years in a state approved health care facility: (ex: hospital, nursing home, rehab center, dental or medical office, home health, day surgery center etc.). He/she must also have an associate or higher degree and hold current licensure or certification in an allied health occupation, or current licensure as a registered nurse in Tennessee.

The Trade and Industry educator must document a minimum of five years of appropriate and current work experience during the past eight years in the field for which application is made. He/she must also be a high school graduate or the equivalent as determined by the General Education Development (GED) test.

The Cosmetology educator must also hold current licensure to instruct in Tennessee as issued by the respective state licensing board in addition to the other requirements for Trade and Industry educators.

To sum up:

You can teach health if you have an AA in a related field AND three years related experience, or are an RN.
You can teach shop with a five year resume.
Cosmetology with a 'license to instruct', which is evidently different from a state teaching certificate.

These are the ONLY exceptions the site gives. You still need a BA to teach everything else. And even a PhD wouldn't guarantee you a certificate, either. Not a lot of opportunity there.

Gaseous Anomaly: I don't understand this "career transition" concept. I've never run across a job that didn't require significant prior experience in the exact same job.

/e.g. 5 years each Java, C#, and JCL

This is about getting the unemployed to run up school debt getting some certificate or other, and thereby get the economy moving again.

letrole:Or use telnet to send an email.

HELO!

50k doing tech support?

That's easy. Get a job doing PC tech support at the state government level. Do not screw it up. Work there for 20+ years.

Guarantee you'd be at $50k after 20 years.

/well now, maybe not so much, but from 1990-2010 no problemo. Pretty sure I work with a few of them.

The world needs ditch diggers, too.

13 years in college baby!

Best way to spend your late teens to early 30s...

Protip: Graduate school for engineering is not only free, they actually pay you.

Over 100 posts and no one even found the subliminal message embedded in that webpage.

It says: "Buy a lottery ticket".

jst3p: The trick is you have to be good.

Yep, that's the key in computing. My last company had guys who started out answering phones or interning in the NOC who made it into development and became senior developers in less than five years. One of them went straight from high school into the Army (where he didn't learn a single thing about computers -- nobody does) and never took a single college course. He was a superstar. Nobody cares what kind of degree you have. However, if you get into development and want to keep advancing, you'll end up teaching yourself most of the undergraduate CS curriculum and more, so guys who drop out of school thinking "hurrrrrrrrr I hate this egghead crap, nobody needs to know this crap" don't do any better in the "real world" than they did in school.

cgraves67: You may be able to get a job teaching without a bachelors degree in education if the state you live in has lax standards or you have an existing degree and experience in the subject you would be teaching.

Allowing the education degree was actually a relaxing of standards. You used to need a subject degree to teach secondary (English, Math, etc) and a generally relevant academic degree to teach primary. The Ed degree was introduced as an easier alternative at the cost of there not being much beyond teaching at a primary/secondary level in hopes of getting more teachers to join up and stick around. More recently a lot of states have relaxed standards even further to allow teaching of secondary subjects that you didn't really major in, or rather the definition of "relevant major" keeps getting pushed wider and wider.

Same general idea, the system needs teachers and there aren't a lot of people that want to do it long-term. And convincing more people to give it a go seemed like a better idea than reforming the conditions in the teaching environment that chase folks off.

Vangor: debug: Where I live, when the current contract expires, starting pay for a teacher (21 year old fresh out of college) will be $59,800. This district generally gets a 3 or 4% raise every year (which means you will be making about $100,000 before you retire).

Where is this? This is 20+ years into teaching for some districts before the rampant pay freezes. My district has not received a pay raise in 4 years.

Camp Hill School District in PA. Of course they also have one of the highest property tax rates in the state and despite the cutting of funds, they choose to cut staff and programs rather then take a salary freeze this year. I think they will get 4.4% salary increase.

Autodidact is helpful, but talent is key. I've managed to remain gainfully employed in my industry for almost 20 years. I also managed to skip the typical lower rungs of my industry's ladder.

Here's how!:

1) LUCK

2) Education. Learned meself the PC shiat. Not a genius, not a total nerd, can't code (too impatient), Mom bought me an 8088 XT in summer of '89, and I never looked back. I am the Company Nerd for a company of around 80 employees in eight locations around KY. Its the Guru Theory: You know a thing or two about something that everyone else is terrified of = YOU'RE A GURU!! I kinda hate its like that, but its kept me employed. I have like 9 hours of college credit, a GED, and my ACT in April-89 was a 26, 32 on science component. Was later re-calced to a 28 after they changed the test. So, I claim 28 :-)

3) MORE LUCK. A good friend of mine followed a more traditional route into our industry, he got me my first interview, and in almost 20 years, I have worked for all of TWO employers in my field. Which leads to the last thing:

4) TALENT. I has it. I have a talent for learning by doing, This is as much luck as anything, but recognizing what you're good at helps you put it to use.

I'm not rich, but I am one of a very few from my HS days that is doing exactly what he always said he would. Those cats all got fancy degrees, and not a one of them is using their ol' paper in their current life. One guy got a degree in Urban Planning or some such. He sells toilets.

COLLEGE IS A JOKE

hej: Also, I'm highly skeptical of this $50k/year "earning potential" for doing PC tech support.

there are lots of folks making over $50K doing desktop support at my company. Starting pay is about $36K but can easily cross 50K in 5 or 6 yrs with promotions, raises etc and I live in the midwest..

eggrolls: You can teach health if you have an AA in a related field AND three years related experience, or are an RN.
You can teach shop with a five year resume.
Cosmetology with a 'license to instruct', which is evidently different from a state teaching certificate.

These are the ONLY exceptions the site gives. You still need a BA to teach everything else. And even a PhD wouldn't guarantee you a certificate, either. Not a lot of opportunity there.



Isn't the BA only needed to get a certificate? I know a fellow who did this route. He started out teaching masonry at a low security prison and went to a high school two years later teaching health and pe.

I would say without any experience, every single one of those jobs not only require a degree, but probably several years more of post-graduate education to even get your resume looked at.

Example: teacher. In the state of CT its 7 years of education. A masters degree + 1 year for a MA in education. There is no "fall back on being a teacher". I know several bright people in their late 20s subbing and tutoring while chasing after these coveted positions.

Paralegal: Not only does this require a degree, it likely requires a law degree... to interview for the receptionist, and then work your way up to Paralegal.

Accountant: Dont make me laugh.

I suppose some of the tech positions you can still be favorably viewed for having the right experience, but the question then becomes how do you get the right experience?

Its irritating so often to read these articles and hear all the cool story bro's from boomers and Gen X's who taught themselves the skills and worked there way up. Not only does that get your resume thrown in trash before the interview even begins these days, but an automated program scanning resumes would remove it before the uninterested HR person even looks at it. Nobody cares what you did in the 1990s anymore. It has no relevant bearing on todays world.

Sorry to say this.. but, you're old.

/and I do have a pretty awesome job

sammyk:

I still worry what would happen if I ever needed to change jobs, but in the end I don't feel like dropping $50k on a piece of paper.

Been at it for 20. Your over the hump. If you get in career slump dump 4k into the latest vmware cert or whatever. A degree would be pointless for you. I don't have one either. I go with experience in interviews.

Warning! My CSB!
I couldn't agree more. I have always made more than my friends and family that have college degrees. I've had multiple MS Cert's for the past 15+ years (I'm 40 now). After high school, in 1991, they were racking up $40k in debt while I took my first "real job" at $29k a year with a crazy benefits package at 19 yrs old. Now most of them make about $60-$80K a year with a run of the mill benefits package. I'm over the six figure mark with a benefits package that pays damn near everything, six weeks vacation, 32 paid holidays, gym membership, massages every month, martial arts, hydrotherapy, yoga classes, weight loss clinics, wellness classes (whatever the hell that is), etc, etc, etc. $45k in surgery for a family member cost me a total of $40.00 in co-pay, and a host of other things for myself and all family members.

I've received a raise five times in the last seven years while most of my friends and family members have been laid off or been grateful they weren't (They tell me this while sitting in my eight person hot tub, biatching about bills and their job, and a hand full of them telling me how important a college education is....*insert facepalm here*..... ). I have more in my savings account than most of them have in their retirement accounts. My automated income/side jobs pull in more annually than some of them have in savings and retirement combined. I'm proud of what I have done and accomplished, especially without college degree.

Well, there's my csb, now I'm off to Tia Chi class, an hour massage, half hour in my hot tub then chill with my wife for the rest of the night :) Life is good. Peace out!

/Go Bruins!

23FPB23: Autodidact is helpful, but talent is key. I've managed to remain gainfully employed in my industry for almost 20 years. I also managed to skip the typical lower rungs of my industry's ladder.

Here's how!:

1) LUCK

2) Education. Learned meself the PC shiat. Not a genius, not a total nerd, can't code (too impatient), Mom bought me an 8088 XT in summer of '89, and I never looked back. I am the Company Nerd for a company of around 80 employees in eight locations around KY. Its the Guru Theory: You know a thing or two about something that everyone else is terrified of = YOU'RE A GURU!! I kinda hate its like that, but its kept me employed. I have like 9 hours of college credit, a GED, and my ACT in April-89 was a 26, 32 on science component. Was later re-calced to a 28 after they changed the test. So, I claim 28 :-)

3) MORE LUCK. A good friend of mine followed a more traditional route into our industry, he got me my first interview, and in almost 20 years, I have worked for all of TWO employers in my field. Which leads to the last thing:

4) TALENT. I has it. I have a talent for learning by doing, This is as much luck as anything, but recognizing what you're good at helps you put it to use.

I'm not rich, but I am one of a very few from my HS days that is doing exactly what he always said he would. Those cats all got fancy degrees, and not a one of them is using their ol' paper in their current life. One guy got a degree in Urban Planning or some such. He sells toilets.

COLLEGE IS A JOKE

You sound douchey.

Damn. I was hoping this would tell me how to switch from my $100K job to a $250K job.

What's up with all you farkers being IT nerds? It's like you guys were born in the Fark servers.

I'm currently getting my degree in computer science and have about 2.5 more years to go. This thread has made it clear that I need to rack up experience on my way out but what should I be doing or looking for? A lot of the internships that I'm looking up require a hell of a lot more than what I currently know (my skill base isn't much at the moment).

Current skill level: basic C++ and Java, can assemble and disassemble hardware, and I'll assume that knowing Calculus I probably doesn't mean shiat.