I can offer slightly different (point of view) advice. I would recommend
doing what ever you are good at, or more precisely, where you are most
valuable. To clarify, what ever skills you can obtain that some one else is
willing to pay (a lot) for, get those skills. If those skills can align with
what you like, fantastic. The key to success in the workplace, is having
marketable skills. Marketable skills will keep you employed when times are
tough, as
alexanderhenry@cox.net stated below. That is where school can be
good, training you in areas of marketability. Just my 2 cents...
Eric
On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 8:50 AM, <
alexanderhenry@cox.net> wrote:
>
> I was the one who suggested you should go for network administrator. I was
> looking at both your current knowledge base as well as your character. I
> think you would be pleasantly bored in class, up to a point right at the end
> when you go for your CISCO cert tests, which would have left time for you to
> make money at your day job. You also seemed to be the type who liked 15
> minute jobs, not a software developer like me who bangs their head on one
> line of code for a week at a time.
>
> I've been at that point where everything in my life was whatever was told
> to me by the media. It sucks, bad, don't do that. Dave Ramsey,
> http://www.daveramsey.com/ , loves to tell how the mainstream media is
> like Chicken Little. They don't report, they don't provide a balanced view
> of information, it's lead with bleed, man bites dog. One article in USA
> Today last month or so headlined, "Leading real estate value stat down
> 14%.". Read the article, it said it measured the housing markets of the
> largest 20 cities of America. Dave went the whole half hour doing pretend
> melodrama, "OMG REAL ESTATE IS DOWN FOURTEEEEEEEN PERCEEEEEEEENT"... Then
> explained that the universe which that statistic was based on wasn't large
> enough, if you take all the house sales in the MLS in America, the statistic
> you get for many months is more like a growth of 2%. Then he took his own
> skewed universe, leaving the real estate bombs like Los Angeles, Phoenix,
> Las Vegas, and New York out of the picture, and got plenty of up 4%, up 6%,
> and up 9% cities. But that's not how the media writes it, the way they do
> it you get something that sounds like "REAL ESTATE IS DOWN FOURTEEEEEEEN
> PERCEEEEEEEENT", when the reality is, we have an unexciting, very slowly
> growing, with no shrinkage in growth, real estate market. Why do they do
> that? To make the presidential candidates happy? Because the media people
> live in LA and New York and consider the rest of the country "flyover" where
> nothing happens?
>
> I have a contract. They just renewed it for four additional months last
> month. I know this company better now, they'll probably renew again. I
> paid off my x-wife's car, which she deserved because she stayed with me
> through the times when I was jobless. I have 4 months expenses saved up, if
> I get 2 more roommates today, that number will go up to 6 months. My
> personal economy is great, so that stuff that happens in the news... is
> just stuff. When you're ready to take bumps and unexpected hurdles, they
> don't affect you, and I'm going to work as hard as I can to keep it that
> way. Anything that slows down my plan of paying my house off in 6 or 7
> years I won't accept, I'll be on top of it and change my situation that
> week.
>
> The jobless statistics are relevant only for the jobless. If you're a
> network admin of a company who likes you, and who you like, you aren't going
> anywhere. It's like their accountant or their HR director or even their
> HVAC guy. They know the company, the company knows them, any change would
> disrupt their company for three months or so. And the news stories: "oh
> real estate is down, we have to let go our accountant and only HR person and
> HVAC guy until it improves" doesn't happen. It does happen if the company
> is about to close down, not because "the economy is slow". If the company
> plans their personal finances well (as you should plan your personal
> finances), then they should be able to absorb the slowing in sales until the
> next surge comes.
>
> Now as a software guy like myself, it's almost the opposite. The economy
> could be going great, but the project I'm working on has ended. If I'm a
> W-2, it's like they have to find a really bizarre excuse to keep me busy.
> No thanks, let me know when it's ended so I can start looking again, and
> pay me big so I can afford to take those months off. But that's just me.
>
> Hope that helps on your outlook.
>
>
>
>
> ---- storkus@storkus.com wrote:
> > I've seen a pair of articles on /. about the depressing state of IT
> > right now, and it's making me, well, depressed! My plan was to go to
> > community college in January (after getting my year residency here in
> > Arizona) and fix what I screwed up years ago (dropping out of college),
> > but now I'm wondering whether I'd be wasting my time and money. Someone
> > at an installfest a few months ago (sorry I forgot your name, I'm
> > horrible for that) said to go for Network Admin because it's a fast
> > course and pays well (I'm 37), but now that I see all this with,
> > depending on how you look at it, 44k to 50k IT jobs gone this year alone
> > and more to come, well...maybe I should resign myself to hospitality or
> > driving for a living.
> >
> > Is this mostly FUD or is it really as bad as it's being made out to be?
> > Is Net Admin the way to go for someone my age, or is there something
> > else I should consider?
> >
> > Thanks for reading my 3am thoughts.
> >
> > Mike
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