Old and needing a career change...

[sflybuss]

I'm currently a guitar teacher and a stay at home father. I'm looking to make a career change and I'm sure I would be happy with an IT job. I'm in the Northern Virginia area which puts me close to D.C. so I know the jobs are out there. I guess my only dilemma is where to go for the education.

Being slightly older than most getting into the field I want to avoid the 2-4 year college run. I've looked at ITT, CHUBB, Phoenix and New Horizons.

The latter (New Horizons) seems to be the best fit for me. They are more certification based (which I know isn't always looked at with high regard)and they seem to have good credentials.

One program I'm looking at (I'm still deciding between Network or Database) starts with CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+ and then move into MCP, MCSA and CCNA. Also they guarantee an internship which I feel is very important. I haven't been able to find any bad press on them which is a plus as well.

I guess what I'm looking for is if anyone has heard bad things about them really and how hard is it to get a job with certification alone. I do have a Bachelor's though it is in a music related field.

S.

[SoloCamo]

Hey and Welcome to TechIMO!

I'm only 19, however, i'm in the same situation as you. I want to get into the IT field, but at the moment and for the forseeable future it's going to be a rough one to get started in.

The CompTia exams are the base of the base for certs and will only help you look better than the average joe...barely. Most business seem to look for two things, Experience (which is always #1) and college education. Certs alone are the hardest to get your foot in the door with.

Tons of members here on the forums do indeed work in the IT field and i'm sure will be more than happy to give you some more advice.

Good luck!

[sr71000]

Are you looking to get into the programming aspect or hardware aspect (like design/engineering) or into the it field (server management, computer repair...stuff like that)

[sflybuss]

I'm not sure. I guess once I start taking classes I'll have a better feel for what each area of expertise entails.

So far I think I'd rather be the person that maintains servers/ hardware over the person that builds/ programs. In the end I probably don't know enough about each field to nail it down right now.

I was thinking once I started the A+ Net+ and Security+ certs that I'd have a better idea.

S.

[excuzzzeme]

Age is no barrier to learning or changing vocations. So dismiss any concerns over age. I currently have several people over the age of 50 in my classes.

FWIW- I am also disabled! I am often in a wheelchair but yet I can teach.

Starting with A+ is the only way to go. Net+ will give you a good foothold on networking basics that you will need later on. From that point on you can go almost anywhere in your quest. It is OK to change your direction as you learn more. Never stop the education as IT is an ever changing field. Although I am an MCSE I still continue to educate myself on all the latest technology. You should seriously consider going to a 4 year college as many employers now want a bachelors at minimum. You can do well without a degree but you will have many more opportunites with one.

Unfortunately, having a degree does not mean you are a better employee. I have found many techs w/o one that are more knowledgable and better skilled.

Good luck in your quest.

[sr71000]

A+ would be fine to start with. That's a good place to start for a tech/it type of job. That has absolutely NOTHING to do with programming/software engineering though. If you want to get a feel for that I suggest picking up some very basic programming skills and start teaching yourself. It's not as hard as it sounds and I know we'd be more than happy to help you. Depending on what language you pick I'd be more than happy to help you out as well! I thoroughly enjoy teaching what little i know and hope to someday teach at the college level...maybe.... lol. Get a little bit of both and see which you like better. It's all about what you enjoy. The IT field is a lot more troubleshooting, remembering settings and programs and stuff like that. I've found, at least from my experience, that programming/software engineering is much more theoretical problem solving. Sitting down and doing some good thinking about a problem. It really can be a lot of fun if you enjoy tackling problems requiring a lot of thought. If you want to pick up a little bit of programming I strongly recommend C# personally. It may not be the EASIEST language but it is deffinately one of the easier ones imo. I recommend it because it allows you to start writing real programs earlier than some other languages while not dumbing down the language, so you still get a feel for what real programming is like! Hope that helps!!

As was said about age. I have a friend on campus with a law degree, a full time career and three children and he's now coming back for a computer science degree! Age is of little importance if you have the drive to succeed. Plus, when you get stuck you have good ol techimo to ask for help as long as you don't start asking us for complete answers we're always happy to help!!

[usslindstrom]

Yup. I think you'll like it.

Take SR's advice, and if you're ever in doubt - use the forums here. I do on a CONSTANT basis, and always love the support that people offer.

Depending on which route you want to go with the field will be key. I suggest looking at all aspects. For example, some of the guys you'll meet absolutetly HATE deling with end-users, while many others (including myself), absolutely thrive in it.

You may want to go the programming route, or more on the repair side of things. Me, I'd like to eventually be the All-in-One encompassing network guy in the end.

Whatever route you choose, either the egg-head way or mechanic way - it honestly wouldn't hurt to get the A+ out of the way. (In my opinion, there's nothing more embarrasing than one of the database guys that have absolutely no clue on the basic stuff if something goes wrong *And you'll see that kinda' stuff alot*)

But everything eventually blends together anyhow. I mean, I've focused mostly on the tech-support side of the house, and am starting to get into scripting. (Mostly cause' I'm the laziest guy in the world) - but you never know where the field is going to lead ya'.

On that note, BE PREPARED to become essentially a full time student. In the field where everything changes all the time, you're constantly going to have to learn to adapt and change to meet the requirements of your customers/end users. SO, never stop for a second to not read the tech news, or some geek magazine or another, cause' you don't wanna' be phased out... But that basically brings me back to my original point. Get the A+. Once you have a solid foundation, you can pretty much just build from there.

GOOD LUCK MY FRIEND.

[sflybuss]

Thank you everyone for the kind advice. I've been to other forums where the mood is uninspiring to those who wish to get started in IT.

I have been working through an A+ study guide. I feel that though I may not end up doing much with hardware it is teaching me a lot of the terminology I hear every day and never understood. I'd hate to think that once I were working in IT that I wouldn't at least understand the concepts of harware.

I never thought of doing anything with programming but on your recommendation I will check into it. Who knows? Maybe I'm a whiz.

Thanks again everyone for taking the time...

S.

[Rootstonian]

Programming has treated me quite well. But I'll warn you, not all are cut out for it. Not to sound TOO arrogant LOL, but it DOES take a special mind to write programs and not all can do it. My Advanced COBOL class started with 30; down to 12 by end of semester. Assembler Programming had WORSE statistics.

Programming is a lot like solving puzzles or doing word problems in math. A lot of it is really just creating useful information from tons of data, for example:

1238597742020191714
5879621141615182020
3254587712017141519

Garbage, right? LOL...but if I told you the first 9 bytes are a social security number and the next set of 5 2-byte fields are quiz scores from Calc 101, then you can make some useful information from this data.

In COBOL:

10 WS-STUDENT-QUIZ-GRADES.
05 WS-SSN PIC X(9).
05 WS-GRADE1 PIC XX.
05 WS-GRADE2 PIC XX.
05 WS-GRADE3 PIC XX.
05 WS-GRADE4 PIC XX.
05 WS-GRADE5 PIC XX.

COMPUTE AVERAGE = (WS-GRADE1 + WS-GRADE2 + WS-GRADE3 + WS-GRADE4 + WS-GRADE5) /5.

DISPLAY 'AVERAGE FOR STUDENT ID ' WS-SSN 'IS ' AVERAGE.

Fun Stuff!!

[surreal]

Fun Stuff!!

Loads of fun!

Hardware is the way to go.. BTW, you're never too old to go to school, just do it.

[Rootstonian]

Do I detect a note of sarcasm surreal? ROFL!!!

[sr71000]

sfly...if you don't understand roots code it's ok. I'm a decent programmer (well..according to my grades) and since I haven't learned any cobol or anything like it I have no idea what his code really does exactly. lol. Don't get discouraged if it looks scary at first...it's not that hard to pick up

[him61]

I'm also looking towards being an "All in one" guy. I'm doing A+ Cert now, plan on getting a bunch more in the future. I'm learning to program too. I'm self teaching myself Photoshop and 3D Design ATM... Eventually (And I know how tough this will be), I want to make my own video game.

And BTW, roots, I tried to get into assembly a while back, and I was completely baffled.

I'd look into some books concerning what you were thinking of doing at a local library. IT positions are not so plentiful these days, but as I understand it, programmers are what will be needed in the future.

[Rootstonian]

Assembler was MY language. It was about as close as you could get to the machine without writing code in Binary. I felt "at home" with it. It's just a little terse....

If you want to get into programming/ITS field these days, I suggest Java programming and/or Database Administrator. Or a programmer that used BI (Business Intelligence) tools.

Companies will ALWAYS have networks and databases; any skill set in one of these areas will get you a career!

Good Luck

[usslindstrom]

Yeah,

Roots' right. Everything now-a-days seems like it caters to the programming guys. Be it ".net" or VBscript, or anything in-between.

But either way - just take the changes as they come. For instance, even for us "support" guys that take a simple job as installing an application for an end user, it's about to change as well, since most production networks are looking at "Software Virtualization servers" where there's no actual installation for the computer at all. The important data is just streamed accross the network - with no registry changes or any footprint at all on the computer it's being used on. Just uncheck the thing from the server side of the house, and it's like it never existed in the first place on the client's computer.

Just goes to show that it's an industry that you have to be willing to accept the changes that make it better for the end user's experience.