[bradoesch]

OK, for those of you holding tech jobs (electronics, programming, etc.), anything that has to do with computers basically, could you please let us young people (like myself) a bit about your job?
Like what is your job title? Where did you go to school? What kind of education was required for your job? What sort of salarly could you expect from this job?
I've only got one more year of high school left, then I'm off to University/College. Maybe if someone told of a job they had that sounded interesting, I (or others) might be interested in it, and start thinking about something like it.
Like, if you're a programmer, what does your job require of you? Do you know a few languages really well, or only work with one? How important is being able to share ideas and work with other people in a job like programming? What kind of saralary could you expect to start with/work up to.
I'm not trying to be nosy and ask people how much money they make (not at all), I'm just curious to hear from people holding jobs and in these careers, and see what they have to say or comment about.

I'm a Network Administrator with Novell, NT, HP/UX and Solaris servers and about 1,000 Windows nodes under my thumb (and a couple of Macs!). I went to a local broadcasting school after High School and that was the end of my so-called "higher education". Played as a DJ for a few years but became bored with it. Never took any computer classes - usually a waste of time.

My first computer job a long time ago was with a small integration company. The owner was an idiot and sold customers "dreams" - and it was my job to fulfill these "dreams". Many countless all nighters at customers sites trying to get things to work together that weren't supposed to. Thousands of miles away from home and lonely. Sleeping in the car and eating McDonalds three times a day and never having a day off. This was my education and I did it for four years. Which probably equals 16 years of accredited education!

My biggest complaint has got to be end users and Microsoft. Without these things, my job would be perfect!

Biggest piece of advice? Don't think that getting a CS degree in college is worth anymore than the paper it's on. We recently had a job opening and received more than 400 resumes - mainly from people that have their CS degree and nothing more. Those went straight to the bottom of the pile. And those with CS degrees that had had some real world experience had mainly worked at a HelpDesk. Those with certifications and nothing else went a little higher in the pile but were frowned down upon just the same. So, if you're thinking that that piece of paper is a Wonka Golden Ticket to a dream job, think again. Sure, there's some employers that will take someone who is newly certified and think that they're next to god - and that's nothing more than an idiotic CIO who doesn't have a clue - someone I definitely wouldn't want to work for!

Read everything you can, learn everything you can. Don't rely on a test to teach you what you need to know. And the last piece of advice? Reboot.

-s'fit

[Raman]

O.K. Here's my story:

I'm 29 now. My 1st computer was the Commodore VIC 20 + tape drive at the age of about 8. Actually, I remember programming on the Atari 4800xl or something like that as well as the TI99 4/a. I learned to illegally copy my new Commodore 128 (which I only used in C64 mode) disks with Dr. Nibble or something. I also learned to ummmm.. make calls with my 300 baud modem with other people's calling cards a very long time ago. I knew someone who was in the 8th grade when I was in 6th grade who got in trouble with the FBI for doing the same thing. I still have that machine today - and yes, it still works. Basically I got into computers and programming at a very early age.

Went to high school and college. In college I majored in Chemistry. Took 1 computer class and learned Pascal (whoo hoo!). Realized I knew theory and practice too much to take classes at collge and never took another class there. At my college, we had MANY computers for student use. 40% PC 41% Mac (centris, quadras, powerpc's) 9% sun solaris boxes.

I was too busy chasing girls in the latter parts of high school and in college so I got "out" of computers until my sophomore year when 2 things happened: 1)my friend showed me alt.binaries.supermodels and 2)My Instrumental Analysis Lab TA made me rewrite my 1st lab up because he wanted me to do a computer printout of the graph of my linear regression with Lotus 1,2,3. I quickly learned Lotus 1,2,3, wordperfect 5.1 <hmm.looks a little like HTML, doesn't it> basic UNIX FTP commands and became quite adept at MGETting pictures with my 2400 baud modem with my 1st PC - a 486dx/33, at college. I soon learned to use the Macintoshes because it automated most of the processes in getting nude pictures and I could get more pictures faster. I also used the unix boxes because i liked XEYES and other stupid things. My roomate Joe purchased a PowerMac 6100/66 and 16" display for like $4000 and is probablly still paying it off. The manual was about 30 pages. In contrast, I got a very thick manual with Windows 3.1. He used Premier and stuff and showed me the superiority of the Macintosh in areas that the PC hadnt even touched. I learned to Photoshop some of the girls' heads onto naked womens bodies. I also learned to network 2 macintoshes and a HP deskwriter printer in about 5 seconds flat. I also learned to use Excel 2.0 on the macintosh to do all my chemistry lab reports in. My teachers were very impressed with the visuals in my reports as none of the other students did them so nicely. So I ended up teaching a few of them how to use Excel on the mac. I still remeber me and 2 of my buddies doing a huge lab write up one night "3 blind chemists.. 3 blind chemists.. they thought they could do the lab in one night........." We also used to download rendered images and Greg really got into POVRAY for the PC. I remember rendering a scene on my 486dx33 in about 1/2 the time his 386sx16 did. Heheh.. he went out and got a 486dx2/66.

At the end of my senior year of college I purchased a demo Powermac 6100/66 + apple 15" monitor for $1000 at The Wiz. This is also when I learned of Apple's customer service - my DEMO MODEL USED FOR 1 YEAR monitor blew and Apple replaced it in 1 day because they said the warranty started when *I* purchased it!!! I also got a job at a small mom & pop PeeCee store and learned to build, troubleshoot, sell, etc.. computers and software. I learned so much that our technicians asked me for help when they were stumped. I also occasionally taught classes thru the store to High School and Vocational School Teachers - mostly M$ Office 4.3. We occasionaly sold Macintoshes, but never stocked them. I often bought my Mac to work to show my boss System 7 and how it was better than Windows 3.1. While I was there, I worked with my good friend Greg who was a Computer Engineering major. He switched to Computer Science, probably because he didn't do so well at some of the classes. We studied Visual Basic 3.0 and wrote supid programs, including a store catalog and learned to use DLL's and work with JPG's and write SQL queries with inner joins and crap. Greg was a hardcore computer guy but I always knew that I had more overall knowledge than he did, even though he studied esoteric things about computers. I simply "get" things that take other people a few passes to pick it up. Plus I always kept up with the latest and greatest at C|Net. I also toyed with OS/2 Warp. That was stupid.

I learned about the PC, Mac, and UNIX while at Rutgers University. I probably wouldn't have gotten "back" into computers if it weren't for some of my high school buddies that were CE majors teaching me to download cindy crawford pictures, as well as my Instrumental Analysis Lab T.A. giving me an incntive for learning Lotus 1,2,3 to do my linear regressions on. This is also where I learned the weakness of the windows platform, especially compared to the Macintosh. Greg and I and a few other nerds also started going to computer "shows" and bulding PeeCee's. It was interesting to note that I had just a few friends who used Mac's at home. Most of everyone's macintosh exposure was at school. Most anyone that I knew that had comptuers, had a PC.

Even with chasing girls, my Honda CBR600F2 and everything else I did really well on the medical college admission test (MCAT) - hey, I'm Indian - according to my parents you either have to be an enginner or doctor if you're Indian. Went to med school in Iowa 1.5 years after I graduate college. I brought my Mac and new Apple 17" monitor which I paid $1000 for with my American Express card to med school with me. I started learning HTML and put up a web page with my daily writings - so I didn't have to call my parents every frikkin day. While I was there the physiology department wanted someone to do computer stuff because the 1 other guy in the whole school who was adept at programming was graduating. So I took the 8.25/hr job and wrote a Medical Physiology and Pharmaclolgy tutor program in Macromedia Flash 3.0. It got published in some physiology literature, I was recognized for it and given pats on the back, blah blah blah. I also wrote a JavaScript program for teaching and diagnosing some weightbearing disorders of the foot and ankle based on a myriad of angular measurements. I got some honors and blah blah blah for that etc..

I graduated school. Did some surgery. Did alot of surgery. Alot of hours. No sleep. Realized I needed a change and that I never wanted to go to med school in the first place. I was 28 then.

I looked at DICE.COM, talked to buddies, and saw that ASP jobs were aplenty. Learned ASP (damn.. same as good 'ol VB I learned a million years ago - and just as "powerful" HAHA). I got MANY calls. Most were curious/impressed at my computer knowledge in light of my day+night job as a surgeon. I got a job as a web developer in Houston at a startup headquartered in San Fran. Loved it but I did more HTML than ASP so I quit that and got a job at my current job as "Analyst" doing Oracle, ASP, VB, HTML, XML. I even got promoted to Sr. Developer in 1 month after I started. The other developers were kinda pissed at first cause they thought I was some kind of hotshot and know it all beause i'm a surgeon, too, but now I handle all of the tough stuff and have earned the respect of my fellow developers. Mentoring recent college CS grads that we've hired. Realize they don't teach you a damn thing in college except how to party - but then that's what college was all about.

Wow. That was a trip down memory lane.

O.k Advice: read read read. read everything. become engrossed in computers and technology. people hate me because i can read a technical book in no time flat and understand what i read and instantly apply it to development. read stuff you don't need to know. learn project management. learn uml. learn coding. remember: computer programmer != computer scientist. a monkey can code; it takes a bright person to create. have a life outside computers. work hard but remember to play hard. keep the 2 separate. date women who share your drive and will leave you alone when you're studying at night. having the right person next to you can help inspire you to achieve more than you would if you were sitting on your ass watching Office Space every day after work.

Income right out of college: If you're doing M$ stuff (remember that M$ stuff is not reliable so many places are always looking for people to baby sit and fix problems, etc). if the world ran on macs then the IT industry would be a MUCH different climate today. The 2nd level helpdesk guy (recent MIS grad) is getting $20/hr (40K year) as a contractor. He will be hired on as a junior developer at will get more than that. His salary range as a regular developer will be between 50-75K. More or less depending on the company and geographical region. He has nothing to worry about as he will earn an above average income at a job where there is very little stress as long as you know your stuff. my older brother doesn't have a college degree and is earning 80K+ as a project manager in new jersey. Married, purchased a NICE house, chrysler 300m with autostick, etc.. he'll live comfortably and be able to put away money for the future.

go to a geographical area that has good tech. i know there were alot of .com layoffs but there are still a TON of jobs, at least for the M$ companies.

if you contract yourself out you'll get raped if you go thru a contracting company as a middleman. if you can do it corp-corp then you'll expect between $35-200/hour as a good developer. designers make less usually (no clue why - i'd die to be able to draw stuff in photoshop, and anyone can learn to code)

if you're an employee then you can expect 50,000/year +++ as a developer. you need to do the math and see which is better for you and your lifestyle and stress level.

education places will tell you that you'll make more as a certified professional but i find this to be largely untrue in real life from the people whom i've worked with and know. so if you feel like it, get certified, if not then don't worry about it: just know your stuff and they''ll figure it out during your technical interview.

In retrospect i should have done comptuer engineering. those guys got great jobs right out of college and are doing high level stuff. greg got a job right out of college and has worked for the same company (5 years) until he got canned a few months ago (but got a much better web dev job in jersey). we diverged when we graduated college - i went to med school, he got a programming job. now we're in the same place - web developers getting paid good money, future looks good. saving money for retirement. work 9-5 job. have outside business development gigs going making $$$$. nice cars, etc.. he bought a house, i'm building one.

i'm happy at this point. and yes, my med school buddies are jealous because i have a "normal" life, almost no debt, but i could change my mind in 2 seconds and go back to being a doctor.

anwyway, to continue. i have a windows machine at home as well as my powerbook which i do everything on. the windows box is for when i need to learn somethign that is specific to M$ like commerce server 2000, windows 2000 advanced server, win network hacking, etc.. my new house is airport ready and we're going to buy at least 1 fast desktop mac and 1 more mac laptop, wether it's a iBook or TIbook (if i give my g/f my pismo). all CRT monitors will be replaced with LCD's from apple and others. I'll post a picture around Xmas when my dream office is ready.

again, i only have experience as a M$-type developer so that's my take on everything.

hope that helped.
-raman

[CommonSense]

If just 1/10 the Indians in central new Jersey followed Raman's lead and made their house AirPort ready, I could keep my Pismo in the car and get wireless access *anywhere* in, say, a 50 mile radius of here.

But on to the question(s). I "work" (hah!) as a webmaster, I suppose, of an intranet site for a major financial firm in Manhattan, and it would be very difficult for me to hate it any more. Unfortunately, I have debts that need to be paid, and the three and a half months I wasn't working (after being laid off from my last job) only produced this one job offer. It wasn't my first choice -- hell, it wasn't my 147,382nd choice -- but it's all I was getting, and I was nearing the end of my allowed time to receive unemployment checks (which were only barely covering the mortgage anyway).

Anyhoo. I went to the University of North Carolina (yeah, Jordan's alma mater) and graduated in 12/96. My degree was in Journalism, with a focus on graphic design, and I figured I'd go into web design. That never really happened; I ended up taking a string of mainly HTML coding/scripting jobs with some Photoshop graphics production (slicing up other people's designs, basically). In a couple of my jobs, I got to do some design, but it was little more than retarded 468x60 banners. My design ability has since deteriorated significantly, for lack of practice. Plus, working at AGENCY.COM in New York, around some really talented people, pretty much destroyed my self-confidence with regard to my design ability.

Er, the point I was trying to make (before digressing for the 43rd time this hour) was that your degree quite often can have absolutely nothing to do with your work. Your average webmaster doesn't have a Journalism degree, after all. But I got to this point (what, this is supposed to be an *accomplishment?*) because I taught myself HTML, some JavaScript, stuff like that. And just used it a lot on the job. After a year or two out of college (if even that), your work experience becomes the #1 criterion in the eyes of future employers, and your degree and college performance become pretty much irrelevent.

Basically, to echo what's been said so far, what makes the biggest difference is learning new stuff. I'm not a programmer, so I can't answer you on that front -- although my bosses are now more or less making me learn Java. I really didn't have much interest in going in the programming direction, but hell, if they want to pay for the course and give me something to make myself more marketable for future jobs, hey -- let them shoot themselves in the foot, then. (shrug)

Side note: The financial industry sucks ass through a silly straw, and makes you hate humanity as a whole (because you're basically just around the scum of the earth, people with no soul, no humanity, and definitely no right brain whatosever), but it pays well. Probably because working in the IT division of a financial company is so damn repulsive and boring. Hell, they have to give you *some* incentive.

(sigh)

Hey, why not just go into writing or something? Save yourself from the hell I'm in -- it's not too late!

[Yuri1419]

Wow, I think Raman and I led parallel lives!

I got my first computer, an Atari 400 with the 410 cassette recorder for storage in 1982. I was 11. I spent the next years with Atari systems (800XL, 1040STe), figuring out everything they could do- copying disks with Happy drives and Chipmunk, phreaking phone calls, programming from Antic magazine, going to user group meetings. Bought a "broken" 810 floppy drive with a Happy Chip mod in it at a UG. Took it home, cleaned the cat hair out of it, had a way cool system with 2 HAPPY DRIVES! I RULED! . (Tell me someone here knows what that means....). 300 baud modems, 8N1, ATASCII BBSes.... I just never got tired of wondering "what if..." and seeing if I could do something new with my system.

Somewhere along the line, my folks also decided their son should be a doctor. So I went to college majoring in chemistry too. Spent more time than I should have exploring the campus network, using Phone on the VAX to chat, ect. Took the MCATs, did OK, but didn't get into medical school. I'm actually glad about that now, because it doesn't seem like my friends who are MDs are happy in their jobs. They're paid well, but have billions in debt and no end of work frustrations...

During school, the Atari line fizzled. When I could decide between moving to Windows 3.1 or System 7, the choice was easy. By my junior year, I owned a Powerbook 140. I graduated with a BA with a major in chemistry.

After graduation, my first job was doing analytical chemistry for a pharmecutical contract lab. So was my second job. I got myself an amateur radio lisence in my free time. Went to buy a cell phone in 1994, started talking shop with the store owner, left with a part time job doing phone and stereo installs.

Soon afterwards, I bought a Powermac 7500 for $2K with my additional part time job money. Discovered this web thing that was just beginning to explode. Learned about HTML, IP Networking and the like. Found a job listed in the classifieds looking for a mac geek. Got hired, and made a complete carreer change. Worked for them for a couple of years, got frustrated with them, got hired by an advertising agency. Now I'm paid decently to keep 65 mac clients, a couple of PCs, 2 ASIP servers, 2 NT servers, the network and the users up and running productively. It's pretty good. It has it's downsides- advertising has no lack of egos, and creative people= creative problems, but it's better than retail, where I was before. In my job, if it has electrical current running through it, it's fair game for someone to expect me to know about it. Wireless, servers, "why can't I open this .zip file?", photoshop layers, Quark... a little bit of everything.

My first computer class since 8th grade was this spring, when I brushed up on my Unix commands. I have no CS education, and no letters after my name. Some days, I wonder how long I'll be able to keep doing this, and have to get a real job, but I keep getting good reviews and raises, so I'll ride this as long as it still feels right for me.

I do some freelance consulting on the side, all word of mouth, and all Mac centric. Networking, installs, training. $20/15 minutes or $75/hr, whichever comes first.

My advice- never stop learning. If you're gonna be a techie, you have to keep reading and ingesting. And do. Don't just read about something, go make it happen. Then make up something new to happen. The specific skills you have now may not be relevant in 5 years, but the general concepts may.

Never let your degree get in the way of what you should be doing with your life.

And when it stops being fun, CHANGE. Life is too short to hate your job. I watched my father be miserable at a job that beat him down, and I won't do that.

Salary: I'm not getting rich doing this, but I'm confortable. I've got a house the right size for me, my wife and dog, 2 used but quallity cars. We can take vacations and invest in the market and 401K. We can eat out a couple of times a week, but choose not to -we're both frugal that way. Distinctly middle class, and liking it here.

And of the employers I've had, the best ones were the places where you knew the top brass by name, and they were the guys down the hall. One place started like that, got bought out by a international, publicly traded company, and quality of life there went downhill fast. When in doubt, work for the small company. Corporate life stunk.

Hope that helps,
Yuri.

[edit- added last paragraph]

[This message has been edited by Yuri1419 (edited 06-02-2001).]

[olePigeon]

My friend's boyfriend is a Network Administrator for an office for some lawfirm, forgot which. Anyhoo, he has no college experience and makes about $120,000 a year.

And what does he do? Well, he spent the first month or two setting up the server with an autopaging box. So basically he's sitting at home until his pager goes off.

[itomato]

I work as a Network Admin at a telecommunications company. I basically sit around for 12 hours a day, waiting for something to happen. Then I get 4 days off. I've been at this since December.

Before this, I was the "computer guy" for a similar business. I had to admin Linux, NT, 98/95, ans a (very) little SCO. I ran around between 5 different businesses fixing little things, re-mapping network drives, changing network cables, defragging, etc.. This gig was good for about a year, until the owner got sued.

Before that, I worked in a small computer shop. I was the tech, and worked on 99.999% Intel despite having owned only 1 before. I taked my way into the job, and was lucky enough to get up to speed quick enough to maintain the job. I did get fired though. The owner thought he could get a more experienced tech than me for the same money. For a month he tried to make it work with some kid that had A+, etc.. He came crawling back to me. Heh heh..

My first "computer" job was as an NT admin (!), in addition to my regular duties at a health food store. We had 15-20 PCs on a network, and one NT server. Same ol' crap.. Defrag, install/uninstall.. Yawn..

I have had zero formal training, and no college education. If you have the desire to work in the tech field, you will do just as well without certification/training as you would with it in just about any capacity aside from engineering. Everybody I know, except for two people, who work in tech have made it where they are by learning and doing on their own. There are a lot of us out there, and a lot of us are doing the hiring.

I would take some classes and get a couple certifications just as a way to learn more. I could take advantage of the structured environment that one of those programs would provide. I don't think they are essential, however.

You can go just as far if you learn what you want to learn, and do what you are inspired to do, without 20+ other people holding you back.
With the Internet and the incredible number of tech books at your disposal that there are, learning on your own is a piece of cake.

------------------
-- | T () /\/\ /\ T () --

[ndptal85]

This is an excellent thread. Please anyone else who has a tech job please post your experiences so that this thread can continue to inspire others like me.


NDPTAL85

[bradoesch]

Thanks to everyone who has shared their story so far. Everything has been VERY informative and interesting. I'm going to keep up my reading of computer/business books, and keep going on JavaScript, C and many other things. Thanks everyone!

[maxelson]

I'll start with the history. I have no degree in Computer anything. I have an undergrad in Theater, Grad in Lit- Elizabethan.
Taught English and Theater in a small private school. Started fixing Macs when I got my own (a Performa 6116). Refused to pay some joker $80 per hour to fix anything on my machine. Picked up Ted Landau's book. READ it. All of it. Started fixing the machines around the school. Took a DSSO Mac Repair course. MIS became my official title. Got the AASP Technician Cert. After a while, I left that job and took one as a Director of Technology at another private school. NT. Blech. Got a call from MIT- one does not refuse a call from MIT- they found my resume on Monster. I am now the Senior Mac Tech at the Lab. These people are being really good to me. I just finished a course in UNIX (they paid) and later this month I'll be taking the OS X Administration course at Apple Center in Boston. Again, MIT is paying. I'll continue on until I have the full cert process done.
Working in the Education industry, while not the BEST paying technology gig, is very safe and productive.
One of the things I have noticed in my carrer as a Mac Professional (I am so grateful to be able to say that I am a Mac Professional) is that I have met next to NO ONE who has an actual degree in this field. It seems to me that Certs and Experience is what counts the most. Not degrees. So, if you are in college or going in, I'd take whatever pleases you the most, English, history, whatever, but get those certs. The other thing I've found is that there is no shortage of geeks who can get the job done. There is a huge shortage of geeks who can get the job done AND work well with people. Being well spoken and a good writer as well as knowing your stuff in your chosen area is key. If you have a pale blue CRT tan, get out there and work your people skills. Ultimately, most of this stuff is customer service.
In reading the other posts, I see there are not too many people recommending the certs. Perhaps the certifications are preferred in the Education sector. I think certs may also help you along if your experience (professional experience) is low. I'd say do whatever makes you learn the best. Formal class is my best teacher. Books and fiddling are my mainstays. Trial by fire was the absolute best teacher I've ever had- when it's do or die, it's amazing how quickly you'll figure stuff out. Work during the day, study like hell at night... for a problem you'll need to tackle in the morning.
Best piece of advice I can give- when you don't know the answer, say, "I don't know... but I'll find out". No one is served by a false answer designed to protect your ego. It is not your job to lie about what you know. It is your job to find solutions. Not to mention, those ego head power trip techno geeks give the rest of us a bad name.

[ 06-04-2001: Message edited by: maxelson ]

[davechen]

Well, to give you another perspective, I'm a computer scientist doing
research at the National Library of Medicine.

I've been playing with computers since I was a kid (like everyone
else here). Started out with an Apple II in 1980, and been on
apples ever since.

My background is the pure geek route. Went to Berkeley to get a
bachelors degree in CS (and Astronomy). As I was finishing college
I realized that I didn't want to get a job, and that I really enjoyed
my computer graphics classes, so I applied for grad school.
Went to the University of North Carolina (Go Tar Heel!) to get a masters
and a doctorate. Saw many, many college basketball games. Graduate
school is a nice life if you don't really need money (which I didn't).
As a research/teaching assistant they pay you enough to live on.

After school I spent a couple years as a researcher at the University
of Houston doing virtual environments / visualization for the oil &
gas industry, and I am now a researcher at NLM.

There are folks that will say a CS degree is useless, and to some degree
that's true. You can get jobs and experience without one, and there
is no real economic reason to get a Ph.D. On the other hand the degrees
give you a more fundamental insight into how computers, operating systems,
compilers, algorithms, etc. work. This doesn't really do you much good
if you want a job in system administration. But it's a good base for
software development. Of course you can learn these things without a CS
degree, but that requires more self motivation/discipline.

I've always enjoyed solving problems with computers. Thinking about
what the algorithm would look like to accomplish some task. The higher
degrees allow me to get research jobs with a lot of freedom. Of course
the preclude me from slinging Visual C++ code for Microsloth or hacking
databases or being a system administrator, but I never really wanted to do
things like that.

I spend my time developing algorithms/applications for computer graphics,
medical visualization and image processing. I'm currently working
on ray tracing of implicit surfaces and computer aided design of
devices to aid spinal surgery.

dave chen

[RoofusPennymore]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
<STRONG>Thanks to everyone who has shared their story so far. Everything has been VERY informative and interesting. I'm going to keep up my reading of computer/business books, and keep going on JavaScript, C and many other things. Thanks everyone!</STRONG>

There more to this industry than just the software and IT side. The hardware side always seems more exciting to me. (I make processor, BTW).

[ndptal85]

There sure is a hardware side to this industry, but to work in designing hardware pretty much demands the college route (I'm guessing) while the software/IT route is more open to anyone who can do the job.

I'd love to hear otherwise however. :O

[fobside]

ill keep it short. i was originally hired to upkeep the economics class web pages and that was it. then they started making me help the professors with troubleshooting...nothing big. just stuff like "how come i cant send email?"..."where did my icons go?" they they started making me do some graphics work for them. soon it was web design...then web programming. i doo a variety of things on the same pay i came in at...boooooo!

i fooled them tho. while i get underpaid for what i do, i make it up by doing very little of it! thats kinda true. things have gotten confusing so theyre not making me work on big stuff. ive resorted to upkeep of class web pages, tech support for professors, and office tasks for now. im happy since its not too much work with finals approaching.

[davesimondotcom]

This thread blows my mind. It seems like everyone has little or no formal education in the field they are in!

Add me to the list.

My computer geekdom (is that a word) goes back to my first ][+ when I would program in BASIC hours on end.

After high school, I went to college to study International Relations. After a year, I transferred to an in state school, and hated life. I've gone on and off ever since, changing majors from Marketing to CS and back. I'm finally going to finish my degree via online courses soon. Only reason I am going to do that is because my employer imposes a limit on the earnings of anyone without a diploma. I think it stinks since I know my job and do it really well. I can't even get on salary, so I'm a wage earner until I get my degree (which won't have anything to do with my job.)

I'm the Web Admin. I do then entire website, from concept to completion to upkeep. I'm the only one, too, nobody else does any work on the site. If it's there, I did it.

I KNOW I could make more money elsewhere, and I wish I could look more, but I like where i live and I don't think there are any better opportunities in town. And freelancing sucks when nobody will pay you what you are worth because they can get a cousin to do their "web page" for some rediculously low price. For some reason they don't get that their cousin will use FrontPage and do something that looks like something my dog did in the back yard...

[gyc]

Originally posted by ndptal85:
<STRONG>There sure is a hardware side to this industry, but to work in designing hardware pretty much demands the college route (I'm guessing) while the software/IT route is more open to anyone who can do the job.

I'd love to hear otherwise however. :O</STRONG>

Didn't Woz design a lot of hardware for Apple before completing college?

Anyway, I'm another one of those hardware people. I'm set to graduate in December with a B.S. in CompE and last Fall I interned at a microprocessor design facility doing design verification on a very very cool (technically, it will run very hot!) new chip that isn't set to tape out for a few years.

What was required was a knowledge of both software and hardware. I had to write code which would try to test all the corner cases that could occur, and think up of all different ways to try to come up with more test cases.[/LIST]
[ 06-05-2001: Message edited by: gyc ]

[Scott_H]

Biggest piece of advice? Don't think that getting a CS degree in college is worth anymore than the paper it's on. We recently had a job opening and received more than 400 resumes - mainly from people that have their CS degree and nothing more. Those went straight to the bottom of the pile.

IMO that horrible advice. I find it amusing when some "network admin" pans the CS degree as useless. Sure for installing software and unjamming the printers a CS degree is useless. Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Oracle, Adobe, Pixar ..... need real programmers that MUST have a CS degree. If you want to jockey a network your whole life skip the CS degree. If you want to be a real computer programmer it's a requirement.

My roommate got a CS degree now works for Oracle making good money doing real work. Not installing Windows all day long. Another roommate is off looking for new stuff to do after working in CS programming for 10 years(just found his web page. Gotta love google). Another guy I worked with is now at a 3D animation studio working on custom animation effects. A third is working at SGI doing computer visualization via OpenGL. A forth is working here where I am making computer aided diagnosis software. NONE of these people would get a job doing that work if they did not have a "real" CS degree. These people when to schools like UIUC, UIC and VaTech. Three of these guys all went to UIC's ELV for at least a masters.

I think a lot of the "CS degrees" are not "real" CS degrees. There's some business schools that offer something that passes as a CS degree. If you come out of school and your CS degree is useless then you went to the wrong place. You need to goto a school that puts the "S" in "CS".

[Raman]

Originally posted by Scott_H:
<STRONG>Biggest piece of advice? Don't think that getting a CS degree in college is worth anymore than the paper it's on.

IMO that horrible advice. I find it amusing when some "network admin" pans the CS degree as useless. </STRONG>

I don't know about that, Scott. I took a class at Oracle and next to me was this 40 something woman secretary that worked for oracle. They were going to pay for her to get Oracle certified and then work as a Oracle database person. I think she had a college degree in MRS.

Today I interviewed 6 people for a 2nd level helpdesk job. They were all MIS majors and had graduated recently. None of them could write a simple SQL statement:

colors table
id color
-------------
1 blue
2 green
3 red
4 yellow
5 black

cars table
id car
----------
1 jeep
2 jeep
3 jeep
4 ford
5 chevy

write sql statements for the following questions
question 1: what color is the ford?
question 2: how many cars are in the table?
question 3: how many unique cars are in the table?

answers (i'm not paying attention to capitol letters oracle people):
1. select color from colors where color.id=cars.id and car='ford'
2. select count(*) from cars
3. select distinct(count(*)) from cars

not 1 knew the answer. what do they teach in MIS???

I was supposed to give them a technical interview - what shoudl i have asked? how many buttons on a phone? what do you say when someone calls you?

i dunno, man.. kids these days.. anyway. basically it boiled down to the one who i thought had the most motivation and potential to learn.

i won't argue that some places wont' hire you unless you have a cs/ce degree. we don't hire anyone that doesn't have a college degree.

[gyc]

Originally posted by Raman:
<STRONG>

I don't know about that, Scott. I took a class at Oracle and next to me was this 40 something woman secretary that worked for oracle. They were going to pay for her to get Oracle certified and then work as a Oracle database person. I think she had a college degree in MRS.

Today I interviewed 6 people for a 2nd level helpdesk job. They were all MIS majors and had graduated recently. None of them could write a simple SQL statement:

not 1 knew the answer. what do they teach in MIS???

I was supposed to give them a technical interview - what shoudl i have asked? how many buttons on a phone? what do you say when someone calls you?

i dunno, man.. kids these days.. anyway. basically it boiled down to the one who i thought had the most motivation and potential to learn.

i won't argue that some places wont' hire you unless you have a cs/ce degree. we don't hire anyone that doesn't have a college degree.</STRONG>

MIS != CS

From what I can gather from talking to CS majogs, MIS degrees are a joke compared with CS degrees and most MIS majors are probably people who couldn't hack it in CS.

[siegzdad]

Mines pretty close to everyone elses. I played with computers my whole life, mainly our VIC-20, 128 and programming Apple-]['s in elementary school, though I never liked programming.

Went to college and got a double degree in Music Composition adn Audio Recording (I thought that I could make money in recording, ha!). Anyway, to make a long boring story short, met a guy who worked for a company that was looking for techs who knew Windows NT. I had been picking that up in college, and applied for a job. No formal training, no experience, and no certifications. They hired me on as a Field Service Engineer making next to nothing (alright, less than next to nothing). Realized real quick that if I didn't make a change and fast I'd slit my throat, I pursued networking certifications, and got my MCSE, CCA, CCNA and CCDA. Stepped up to a networking job and have been in that ever since. They finally got me to a decent salary, then the company got bought out and the new company started killing off the computer side of the house, keeping all the A/V engineers. I left before my head was on the block.

I looked for a job in Manhattan, and there are a lot of them there, and they pay beaucoup d'bucks. I was offered one position, and was ready to move (making almost three times what I was in Cleveland) but that fell through. I decided to move to where I am (for my wife) and took a job as a "Level 3 Engineer," but the economy here is so stinking depressed that I actually took a cut in pay. Ahh, the price of love. Anyway, I'm only 27, so I know the money will come.

In the meantime, I've pursued higher networking certifications (CCNP, CCDP, CCIE, finally got the lab scheduled) and am now eyeball deep in security clearance exams, and starring down the barrel of vendor required certifications (thanks Cisco, Micro$haft, and Enterasys).

Now I design, build, troubleshoot, maintain, and test networks. Everything from small SOHO networks to 2,500+ seat multi-site international firms.

Anyway, my advice for anyone who is thinking about this field is to find a niche, and pursue it. There are a lot of paper certified engineers out there (guys who go to boot camps and get the paper and still don't know what WINS and NDS are, oh, yeah, and DNS). Be willing to pay your dues. Do the grunt work to prove that you know what you know. Don't get fiull of yourself either. Don't believe what you read in industry rags about "Average Salary Comparisons". They all lie. And most importantly, when you start the certification process, DO NOT STOP. Believe me, once you do, it will take twice as much energy to get back to where you were. And never stop improving yourself. One thing I notice about kids these days, is that they get so far, and stop reading, and stop learning. Well, in this gig, you must study, and work hard. I study about 3 hours a night, every night, and more on weekends (my breaks are MacNN).

OK, I'll get off my soapbox now...

[fobside]

Originally posted by gyc:
<STRONG>

MIS != CS

From what I can gather from talking to CS majogs, MIS degrees are a joke compared with CS degrees and most MIS majors are probably people who couldn't hack it in CS.</STRONG>

while MIS may not be as hard as CS i read an article that they get paid just as much and it makes CS majors wonder why they should work their butts off in the hard major if they can take it easier and earn just as much.

[jagga]

Sorry I have to ask, But what is MIS anyways??

[Scott_H]

Originally posted by Raman:
<STRONG>I don't know about that, Scott. I took a class at Oracle and next to me was this 40 something woman secretary that worked for oracle. They were going to pay for her to get Oracle certified and then work as a Oracle database person. I think she had a college degree in MRS.
</STRONG>

Yea. I'd say that she's using software APIs that people like my friend wrote. He's no "Oracle certified" blah blah blah. People like him write the standard. Then they train people like he rto use the software he wrote. Before that he programmed call waiting for a local phone company. Major bore!

Originally posted by fobside:
<STRONG>

while MIS may not be as hard as CS i read an article that they get paid just as much and it makes CS majors wonder why they should work their butts off in the hard major if they can take it easier and earn just as much.</STRONG>

It depends on what you want to do. IMO when you get the higher power degree you wind up with more options in the end. MIS people can never move into the CS area while the CS person can more into the MIS area. Also CS people can do so much more than MIS people. There are no MIS people working on Darwin at Apple. No ones going to hire a MIS person to make the next generation 3D rendering tools for Pixar. Or program full simulations of car crashes at GM? Or program the embedded systems in a Boeing 777? Or model traffic on the LA freeways?

I guess I get a little upset when people pass off the CS degree as "useless". It's not. People with a real CS degree are in a different league than most "computer people". Also a degree from college is worth more than just the major it's in.

I'm starting to sound like my father

[gyc]

Originally posted by Scott_H:
<STRONG>
I guess I get a little upset when people pass off the CS degree as "useless". It's not. People with a real CS degree are in a different league than most "computer people". Also a degree from college is worth more than just the major it's in.

I'm starting to sound like my father </STRONG>

Hey Scott_H, if you want a *real* CS (or any other engineering) degree, come down to Champaign.

[gyc]

Originally posted by Scott_H:
<STRONG>
I guess I get a little upset when people pass off the CS degree as "useless". It's not. People with a real CS degree are in a different league than most "computer people". Also a degree from college is worth more than just the major it's in.

I'm starting to sound like my father </STRONG>

Hey Scott_H, if you want a *real* CS (or any other engineering) degree, come down to Champaign.

[Scott_H]

That's a great program down there. I was looking at the Typical schedule for a BS CS major Very solid.

[Korv]

I should have majored in Art, where nothing changes for atleast 20 years and the old stuff gets more valuable!

[gyc]

Originally posted by Korv:
<STRONG>I should have majored in Art, where nothing changes for atleast 20 years and the old stuff gets more valuable!</STRONG>

And most importantly, there will actually be girls in your class.

[ndptal85]

Scott,
why do you assume those without CS degrees will be limited to being network admins or simple installation techs? You mention Darwin, well much of Darwin is built on BSD code which is open source. A lot of open source programmers never attended college at all. Many of the people who are currently programmers have degrees in totally unrelated fields.

Programming is something you can learn at a college or on your own. Anyone can download a GNU compiler and get started on their own and learn from others. Sure many companies won't hire people without the degrees but there are many others who will. Someone who learned how to program in Perl, PHP, Javascript, C++, Obj-C and Java on their own is much more valuable than someone with a CS degree. The CS graduate while skilled in what they were taught is always waiting for new things to come to them while the person who took the other route is actively seeking new languages to learn.

I guess what I am saying is, if you know how to program you know how to program. If your experience is limited to Visual C+ and Visual J++ then a CS degree won't mean much at all. Versatility, initiative and discipline are the qualities of a good programmer. You aren't born with those qualities and they can't be taught. You have to develop them on your own.

[Joshua]

Several good friends of mine have worked at an online multiplayer game company for years, and they've told me that when the company goes to hire a new programmer they do tend to put the CS majors towards the bottom of the pile.

The reason they give is that applicants who haven't been taught languages in classroomes - in other words, those who have taught themselves - will tend to be the far better employee in the long run. They're more adaptable, they pick up new languages/systems more quickly, and they tend to have a wider skill set.

As someone else mentioned, not all computer science degree's are equal. At many colleges, unfortunately, a CS degree means you've had a couple courses in C++, a couple courses in databases, a course or two in Networking, and then perhaps a couple more courses in COBOL or something to that effect. I'd suggest that if you're going to major in CS, at least try to find a school that does a good job of it.

Anyway, as I'm a little bit closer to your age, bradoesch, I'll tell you a bit about where I am now.

I just finished up my sophmore year of college. I'm majoring in English and History, and I'm minoring in Medieval-Renaissance Studies. I started out as a CS major until I learned that the program at my college is exactly what I described above. I wanted to take my interest in computers in a creative direction, and classes in nothing but C++ and NT weren't stimulating my creative side.

Halfway through my freshman year I made the gutsy move and jumped over to nothing but pure humanities. I knew that, regardless of where I went to put food on the table, books and history were what fed my soul. I've been scoffed at for making that kind of comment before, but I think it's true for everyone; there's a reason why the humanities are referred to as the "humanities."

Now, with that in mind, my interest in computers hasn't died down at all. Quite the opposite, really. There's been a student group on campus here for the past three years which is entirely responsible for maintaining the college websites, and I decided to go there for my tech "education." That's proven to be one of the best decisions I've ever made; the skills I learned in the first year alone are far more useful and practical than anything I think I ever would have gained as a CS major.

Last year we spun off a second student group dedicated entirely to professional web design. We based the group around a solid business plan, and with only four designers (all full-time students, mind), we managed to make nearly $20,000 for the organization. We take all the money we earn and reinvest it in hardware, software, and training, and as a result we're learning more than any of us ever dreamed we would.

I also teamed up with the Director of Marketing at the college to do a lot of Digital Video / Advertising work. I helped write/shoot/edit a series of commercials for the college, I've put together advertising pamphlets and mailings for the college as a whole, and most recently I helped film the 2001 Graduation ceremony and market a well-edited version of it to Graduates families as a fundraiser for our chapter of the AAF.

This summer, with the skills I've built up over the past two years, I'm finding enough freelance work (so far ) to keep myself out of a mindless job at a grocery store while still making very good money (so far ).

Well with that story out of the way, here's my advice:

* College should be a place where you go to be educated, not groomed for career path X, Y, or Z. I'm obviously biased, but I think that everyone should major or minor in one of the humanities.

* Give something back. No, I don't mean donating money to the Salvation Army. When you find your talent, whether it's medicine, web design, or electrical engineering, find some way to use that talent to give back to your community.

* DIVERSIFY. The fact that I can do more than just code HTML has opened up a lot of doors that would otherwise have been slammed in my face. For me, diversifying meant learning about advertising, digital video, photography, print layout, etc.

* Have fun. This is often easier said than done, but I truly do believe the phrase that's bounced around a lot in those cheesy find-a-job books/shows: If you find the right job, you'll never work a day in your life.


Now that I've finished that, I better get back to some of that freelance work I was talking about before.

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: Joshua ]

[Scott_H]

Originally posted by ndptal85:
<STRONG>Scott,
why do you assume those without CS degrees will be limited to being network admins or simple installation techs?</STRONG>

I never said that. I'm just defending the CS degree as being on a much higher level.

<STRONG>You mention Darwin, well much of Darwin is built on BSD code which is open source. A lot of open source programmers never attended college at all. Many of the people who are currently programmers have degrees in totally unrelated fields.</STRONG>

I'd like to see the numbers. I'd bet the contribution of the people with CS degrees far out strips those of people who don't have that degree.

<STRONG>Programming is something you can learn at a college or on your own. Anyone can download a GNU compiler and get started on their own and learn from others. Sure many companies won't hire people without the degrees but there are many others who will. Someone who learned how to program in Perl, PHP, Javascript, C++, Obj-C and Java on their own is much more valuable than someone with a CS degree.</STRONG>

Maybe you can but you wont learn calculus, statistics, probability theory, integrated circuits, PN gates, logic, numerical methods, data structures, linear algebra ...... Plus all those CS ugrads can learn all that Java and Perl and .... just like anyone else. My roommate were always hacking something and had interships every summer. I very much doubt the self taught programmer is more valuable than someone with a CS degree.

<STRONG>The CS graduate while skilled in what they were taught is always waiting for new things to come to them while the person who took the other route is actively seeking new languages to learn.

</STRONG>

I don't know why you would think that? My roommates were always learning new stuff that was off the "degree requirements".

<STRONG>I guess what I am saying is, if you know how to program you know how to program. If your experience is limited to Visual C+ and Visual J++ then a CS degree won't mean much at all. Versatility, initiative and discipline are the qualities of a good programmer. You aren't born with those qualities and they can't be taught. You have to develop them on your own.</STRONG>

But computer scientist don't learn just Visual C+ and Visual J++. I doubt the ones at UIUC learn those things at all. They learn the science of computers. The learn C, C++ and any other programming languages they want. They learn what make an OO language an OO language. They learn what makes a kernal a kernal. Why and nlog(n) search of a database is an nlog(n) and not n*n. They can figure it out on their own because they have the math background because they have had classes in advanced math.

Computer scientist are not just programmers. I urge you to look at the course work linked above and read the class description.

[gyc]

Another reason for college is the massive amount of resources you have. For example, last semester, in some of my classes we got to play around with $500,000 IC testers, used various design software that probably cost thousands per seat, and had access to an embedded systems lab with logic analyzers. Plus, the various student organizations (such as ACM or IEEE) gets a lot of money both from the University and corporate sponsors for its projects.

I agree with what's Scott saying if you're looking for a programming job. Get a CS degree if you want to program. All of our programmers have their Masters degrees - don't really delve too much into that groups hiring practices and such but assuming that they all have Masters', it would seem higher education was a necessity. I was mainly talking about the guts and glory side (saying this because our programmers just kind of "sit around" all day and always leave on time - never stressed out) of "running" the network and the responsibilites that come with it. I don't know if it's the CS programs at the schools around our state but most of the CS people we have interviewed don't know:

-What ethernet is
-How to install Windows
-How to troubleshoot things like packet loss

What they do know is:

-How to write a C++ program that says "Hello World"
-How to write a Java program that says "Hello World"
-How to pass an MCSE cert in the quickest time possible without learning the fundamentals

I wish I was joking but I'm not. I've personally interviewed over 50 people with CS degrees over the past two years and what I put above is pretty standard fare with them. Why shouldn't I have a jaded view of CS degrees with these types of typical responses I get from applicants with them?

I'm not saying that there aren't some companies out there that don't require some sort of degree to be hired. But, why would I want to hire someone I still have to train?

-s'fit

[gyc]

Originally posted by screamingFit:
<STRONG>I don't know if it's the CS programs at the schools around our state but most of the CS people we have interviewed don't know:

-What ethernet is
-How to install Windows
-How to troubleshoot things like packet loss

What they do know is:

-How to write a C++ program that says "Hello World"
-How to write a Java program that says "Hello World"
-How to pass an MCSE cert in the quickest time possible without learning the fundamentals

I wish I was joking but I'm not. I've personally interviewed over 50 people with CS degrees over the past two years and what I put above is pretty standard fare with them. Why shouldn't I have a jaded view of CS degrees with these types of typical responses I get from applicants with them?

-s'fit</STRONG>

If there are CS majors trying to get jobs running a networks, then they're definitely in the wrong field or they've slept through 4 years of college without realizing what the CS field is actually about. I think Scott_H was talking about programmers and not IT people.

[ndptal85]

Ok screaming is pointing out what I am thinking about. I have several friends who are in college majoring in EE (Electrical Engineering) and it is from THEIR level that people drop out of and "settle" for a CS degree. Those aiming for just the CS degree however know even less then those who settled for it. CS degrees are so common today they are like MCSE's. None of the stuff Scott pointed out is anything a good programmer doesn't already know.
For just programming and this ranges from C++ to Java to scripting languages to SQL programming there just isn't a lot of complicated math. To design CPU's, GPU's, FPU's (which are mostly integrated with CPU's now anyway) chipsets and other things then you damn sure better know discrete logic and more than basic math but to write code in the majority of areas it just isn't necessary. Perhaps Scott just comes from a school with a very advanced CS degree but I don't think the average CS graduate can code right out of school. As was said knowing how to print "Hello World" just isn't enough. If a CS grad spends most of their beginning years learning on the job, then why did they go through the 4 years to get the degree in the first place?

[maxelson]

TO the CS vs. MIS vs Certification vs Experience argument. I was hanging out with a few friends during the 18 inning saga the Sox and Tigers put on last evening, and I posed the question to them.
Some background-
Mark- an MCSE, MCT, MA in History from Providence College. Currently works for one of those "Contract a Systems Admin". Companies in MA. 7 Years experience.
Terry: MCSE, A+, MCT, BA in Theatre from RI College. Currently a Director of Technology at a private school in Western MA. Formerly worked for Computer Ass (as he affectionately calls them), IRS, White House.
Don- Basically every "letter" MS has to offer, plus Oracle, A+, Cisco. Also worked for one of the MA COntract houses. 8 years experience. No college degree.
Me- AAST, MCP, Working on my ACSA. Degrees in Theatre, Lit. 6 years experience... going on 7.
Also threw the question out to the 5 guys in my office. To simplify, all of them have certs in their various areas (Sun, Dell, A+ [which, interestingly enough, they have all declared is useless], MCP, MCSE, Novell, Cisco, etc).

All of us are working. Jobs range from Network Admin, Sys Admin, Technician, Analysts, SEs. Education, Corporate, Government and other private sector are represented. All of us in Massachusetts. None of us had CS or MIS degrees.
In our collective experience, the primary hiring factor was experience and knowledge in the given area. Next was Certs. Degrees followed at the end of the list. This did not hold true for the whole industry, though. All of my friends commented on their experience with others that showed that degrees were important when talking about development or coding, but again, not as important as experience. Again, this is just a poll of ten guys who work in the industry. Nothing scientific, but there are unanimous answers on various points.
Of the guys who went to college- 7 out of 10- none took professional prep technology courses. None have degrees in any area of Technology. In fact, most have degrees in some area of the Humanities.

[ 06-06-2001: Message edited by: maxelson ]