IT guys advice

All right guys, here’s the deal.

I’m about to move back to my hometown of Baton Rouge, La. I’ve been looking around for jobs and none seem to match what I’ve been doing thus far.

So, going back to school for either an associates or a bachelors in IT (computer science or related) has been slowly becoming a very possible option.
Keep in mind, I already have a marketing degree along with an MBA.

Leading to my question, in your experience, which would be the best move? Associates or bachelors? And what field would mesh well with my MBA?

I’ve weighed the pros and cons of each. A big pro of both is (associates) less time and the possibility of a future employer paying my way through a bachelors - but not a guarantee.

Bachelors - more promotion and money opportunities.

Also, my wife and I would have plenty of money to live off of, we have no kids and a nice stash, so it seems prudent to attack this now.

Thanks in advance, boys!

 

having been in this business for over 20 years, i have a few thoughts. first, run. run away as fast as you can. do not get sucked into the IT black hole. you have to really really like it.

on the other side of that, i firmly believe that there isn't much an AS or BS degree is going to buy you. you would be much better served by taking either a microsoft or cisco certification or both. with micosoft, you'll want the MCSE route. i'd put your focus on mobility and cloud (Azure). cisco will be great to have for the network hardware layer.

 

the other stuff you want to look into would be big data and analytics. PowerBI, Tableau, Hadoop, Spark, SAP Hana. again, not anything you need a degree for but definitely stuff to put on your radar.

 

If you want a job in IT, as a programmer, fixer upper, whatever, I've learned through my experiences that a degree does not really matter. It is nice to have so get a bachelors degree if you like as long as it is quick and out the way. IT field is more open to guys who are proven that they can do the job. Build up your online portfolio. Get certificates and work on projects, write coding blog posts and in short just make sure every one can see what exactly you can do. Right now there is a need for doing marketing analytics if that grabs your attention. Be careful with the path you choose in that section because most of the people who do that kind of work will be replaced by AI pretty soon. You need to pick the one that will always require human input.

On the other hand, why bother? You already have an MBA and IT workers, such as myself, will earn less than what an experience MBA worker does. Unless you run your own company to do your own ideas or in a field that is extremely specific and not many people can do it, IT does not pay well. You do IT because you fkin love it. You love the brain work, all the challenges etc or you will not make it. If you do not prefer computers over the majority of humans, you probably should not do it.

 

I'm working in IT/software business for a big US corp...a lot of work is being outsourced off shore nowadays with minimal staff in the U.S. You sure you wanna go that way ?
Unless you have a very marketable set of skills, cheap wages from off shore always win...even if the quality of work is not great. Just my 0.02

 

i hear hyderabad is great this time of year.

when i was deeper in the trenches as a code monkey, i can't tell you how much stuff we had to rebuild once it came back. you'd send a spec out and the code that came back was just a mess. some of that has gotten better but in general the contractors are not great with minimal training. these days, when i send stuff out, it is very very specific. everything is spelled it in very basic english. it's not enjoyable.

 

yep. Very low quality of work, shady behaviors. No work ethics whatsoever..but hey It's cheap labor for big corp...

 

super cheap. however, in the past few years, i've worked with some contract firms out of argentina and eastern europe. top notch guys. language barrier isn't as difficult either. definitely not the same kind of churn-n-burn machine india has become.

 

A lot of people are getting Security+ certification, CCNA, or better yet CISSP. It appears there is a lot of $ on the security side right now. I’d concentrate on firewalls and such. At least 5 of my close buddies are all working from home making $100K+/yr doing either network engineering or network security. None of whom have a bachelor or associate degree. All of them are working for big companies with nationwide networks (banks, medical, etc.)

 

You guys have given me a lot to consider that I haven’t thought of yet (it’s still early on in the decision making process and a ton of variables that can still affect the decision)
Thanks @smslavin @TheBeast @Shaggypeach
@louscrw

Keep the opinions coming! Rather be over informed beforehand than get in over my head.

 

I worked for Cisco for many years. It was a shitty company when it comes to innovation.

 

anything infrastructure related, especially cloud infrastructure (Azure, AWS, Google) and/or devops. things like understanding Docker, Chef...

damnit, you're making me think about the day job. i gotta go now.

 

Agree with all of the above. Certs are worth more. I have an associate degree in network security. Currently working on a few Certs. In my line of work, API's are the it thing

 

I agree that certifications are just as, if not more important, than a degree. I have a B.S. in CSIS, and a number of CompTIA certifications. I would focus on both to be honest. The degree will teach you the basics and looks great on a resume, but the certs demonstrate that you can master specific disciplines.

If you plan out your A.S. well you can easily stop there or transition into a B.S. seamlessly. You just need to understand the program requirements and make sure your A.S. is setting you up to continue if you desire.

I also agree with @smslavin when he says "run." IT is a good field, and you have excellent job security, but I found when I had a chance to move in another direction where my education and experience was helpful but my responsibilities and goals were very different, I took it and haven't looked back.

 

This all depends on what group you get with. Experience with very high end groups that are very well managed and produce top quality solutions. The draw is about half the cost once you count benefits, payroll, regulations and the entitlement mentality frequently seen domestically.

 

I am currently working in IT with BS degree and I can agree with all the statements made here. Think twice before you get into this industry.
1. I am a first-hand proof that your job will be outsourced as mine has.( yes, i am loosening my job soon).
2. You don't really have much of a life, IT is not a 8 to 6 job. Computers and servers break and they do and you need to fix it regardless of time of night.
3. Most of the changes that IT does are off business hours because you cant make changes to anything during business hours so this means you're doing that work either at night or weekends while your friends and family are enjoying their night or weekend without you.
4. In IT world - work comes first and then everything else, there is no such thing as "I'll fix it later".
5. You're always on call 24/7, sometimes there is a rotation between you and your co-workers but there's always that company phone that can ring at any time.

Very little work/life balance.

IT is a very generic term but if you want to be more specific and certain fields like security is a growing field that will most likely grow and stay in-house.
but here again, my points mentioned above will apply.

If you get into coding you could have a good work/life balance as most companies allow programmers/software engineers to work from home or remotely

In the end, most businesses see IT department as a big major expense and the least appreciated department - we don't earn money like sales team does so the company heads are always looking for a cheaper alternative aka outsourcing. Offshore companies come into U.S companies and promise 24 turns around for any issues that are a big plus for U.S companies. The Offshore companies sales pitch "we'll fix your problem while you sleep for 1/10 the price you currently pay" because they're in 12 hours ahead and currency offset allows them to hire 10 people offshore as appose to one of you here. As for the quality of work don't get me started with that regardless of how shitty the fix is it's cheap and believe me, your dog could do a better job.

So do you really want to be in IT industry?

 

Job security ha - Get ready for layoffs every year. I have been through 15 layoffs and hit 3 times in my 20 years as a VoIP/Network Engineer.

Kurt

 

don't know where you found those guys. I never met them. If they are experienced and high end, they are not cheap. Won't fit big corp agenda, why pay a U.S. IT guy for $50 an hour when you can pay an outsourced guy for $12 an hour...

 

Haven’t gotten as far as narrowing down area of study. Still in the very early phases of decision. Have thought about engineering though.

 

Dev is like poker.. It's easy to learn the basics, takes years to become amazing at it - at least for normal people. Pretty sure that long path was the reason I opted for a more "hands-on" path and gravitated toward network administration (Linux and Winders) and netsec. It takes a really patient kind of person to elevate themselves to being master coders.

I typoed originally and it said "netsex." Should have left it.