I know this is open to much debate, and that there’s no clear answer, but I’d like at least some things to think about on this topic.
I’m thinking of making a career change, and computers come up frequently when I think of that. I’m technically/geekily oriented, and I like finding out new tools and putting them to use in a creative way.
It occurs to me that IT might be more varied and intriguing than programming, but that’s just an ignorant outsider’s view.
What categories of computer professions are there, would you say? What would be the things to think about before picking classes to go in the direction that you know something about?
From my experience, if you choose IT you will be more usefull. I chose Software Engineering (Programming with a lot of crap attached) and I ended up in a Job which is supposed to make use of none of it (but which I have managed to make a name for myself with macro writing, beyond my job requirements) The Tech department at the place I work at is full of people with bags and bags of IT knowledge (mainly with networks), loads more than me, but I could probably out-program them.
Sorry I waffled a bit there - IT career - your skills will be useful in a wider range of jobs/places.
If you’re a big fan of getting laid off, IT could be for you!
Seriously, IT jobs are getting downsized, shipped overseas, cut back and dumped at an amazing rate. There are so many computer geeks out there looking for work that the industry can afford to hire only the very best, and even some of them are looking for a career change.
Why? The dot com bust, the outsourcing fad, and the guidance counselors of America, who told two generations of high school students that computers were the best career option in the world.
Add on to that the fact that your average computer is enormously easier to maintain than it was a few years ago, and you’ve got an industry in steep decline.
My advice: look elsewhere for gainful, rewarding employment. This industry has become a vast wasteland of cubicle-bound minimum-wage tech-support jobs.
Hardware. Something that is location-dependant. They can (and will) outsource programming, et. al. to India, Canada, who knows where - but they will need their systems installed, configured, and maintained HERE.
The days when one could make $70K for writing 2 page scripts are gone - leaving a whole lot of young folks who really believed that such pay scales were the norm and would continue to be the norm.
Especially, do not go into “WEB design” - every 16 yr old geek (or semi-geek) can put up a site for less money that you would need to charge to pay the rent.
Gotta agree with the previous posters, certainly being a pure code-monkey can be a precarious job now (in the West at least).
Anyway, if IT choses you (like it did me) what do you need to know? Well you asked what us teemings know about… If you wanted something like* my job;
An OO language (not C++ for og’s sake) C# or Java, or both.
Relational database stuff (I mean theory) and SQL.
Maybe a 3GL (probably C) this fits neatly with php. perl and other scripting languages.
UNIX stuff generally, not necessarily admin but shell scripts and the like.
XML/XSLT etc. Currently hip, but might get old fast.
There is other stuff I don’t know enough about to suggest like network support, NT admin, embedded progams, game programming JCL. Anyone work on these?
I’d recommend networking design/installation/configuration/support. It is one of the few real growth jobs in IT where not enough good people can do it.
IT audit and consulting? It’s easy to excel at it if you genuinely know your stuff, because the quality of staff and the level of knowledge across the major firms is worryingly variable. The upside is the variety of different technologies and organisations you’ll see. The downside is that outside specific consulting projects it’s very rarely hands-on or creative, and can veer into a form-filling exercise unless you find somewhere that knows how to use your abilities well.
I’d also really think hard about this…the industry is small, competition is tough. One of the e-security guys I work with has his CS degree, and a law degree on top of it.
We haven’t hired anyone it IT in ages, but we have let 13% of our staff go.
And I disagree that the hardware has to stay here. WAN links have gotten cheap and we have a major data center in the Far East. Hardware will be next to move.
(Programming may end up moving back - at least a little, we’ve seen more move back than has gone over. The quality, oversight, and time issues are problematic).
There’s one more reason to add to this list: the end of the Y2k panic. Heck of a lot of IT professionals hired to take care of that who weren’t needed afterward.