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Traveling Jobs in IT?
wed128 asks: "I am currently a freshman at Penn State University, studying for a Computer Engineering degree. However, I look at the graduates ahead of me and many of them are cubical warriors. This doesn't really bother me, however i'd like to see the world before being confined to a cube for the rest of my life. Are there any jobs in an IT field where I can travel? How would I go about getting the right contacts regarding this? I have 4 years till graduation, so this isn't a direct plea for a job..."
This doesn't help you. I'm just reminiscing.
My first job was maintenance programming systems for cruise ships -- passenger manifest, inventory, personnel, etc.
The system was a mess, written in a hodgepodge of languages. The accounting portion, being the most egregious offender, was written in Basic 2.0; that is, y'know, when it required line numbers and didn't have the concept of a subroutine (though you could define one-line functions. W00t.)
The pay was shit, too.
But, on the other hand, I did get to see the world. Best trip ever was two weeks in Australia, aboard the Silver Wind -- one of the ultra luxury ships where a two week package can run $5-10k. Other times, you end up for two weeks in drydock in Malta, which isn't so much fun.
seriously - you're not gonna get much travel as a student. even the experienced professionals rarely get to travel, so any trips would immediately go to them without consideration of the intern. your best bet is to save up some cash on your own and use your vacation time to travel around.
Most large companies have jobs like what you're seeking. Presales engineers usually go out to customer sites and help install and debug installations. Field-service engineers travel to customer sites to debug on-site customer problems.
These types of jobs require an awareness of computer issues, but not so much programming as problem-solving.
However, you trade your cubical for lots of travel and 14-hour days in customer machine rooms.
Go work for a large consulting firm with offices world wide. Prove your worth and you'll travel all over the place. Just hope you don't meet "miss right" in college and decide you don't want to travel. You're just a freshman, why worry this early about something you want now but may not want in 3-4 years from now?
Give yourself options, you'll be glad you did. Oh, learning another language or two can help.
Large corporations have their own IT staff (but many are out sourcing lately...)
Most of the people in IT who travel are either desktop support or engineering folks. The travel is pretty much for a year and only during rollouts. i.e. rolling out 15,000+ new computers to all of a companies employees.
Those that do this sort of rollout generally rack up the frequent flyer miles to the point that they always upgrade to first class and they always travel free for vacation. Of course that means in the peak of the travel session you will be home once or twice a week if you are lucky. Try 4 times a month to see your significant other...
Other jobs where you travel would be consulting gigs where you are *THE* expert and you need to go all over the place to save other peoples bacon and for the privilege of having a *specialist* flown in, the customer will pay BooKoo bucks! But as a recent graduate you can kiss this sweet job goodbye because these are rather rare positions and only earned through years of hard work.
Those who say they love travel will hate it after a few months! Dealing with airports, car rental, and hotels can truly suck over time.
Fresh out of school? Want to see the world? Try being a missionary IT guy and go to Africa and other remote locals to setup networks for the locals. This is about as smart as joining the US Navy to "See the World" and ending up on a submarine for 6 months at a time underwater!
Well, there's always the Navy. They're always looking for skilled people willing to server.
Most if not all of the traveling tech jobs I was aware of disappeared around 9/11/01.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
If you have or can develop people skills -- presentations, answering questions, talking without stuttering, explaining complex technical subjects to your Mom -- then you may want to look into sales engineering.
A sales engineer has a few important functions: uphold the technical reputation of the company, find solutions to customer problems, and keep the salescritters honest. (Bad sales engineers destroy the company's rep, push the most expensive products even when there's a better cheaper solution, and care only about their salescritters' quarterly numbers. That's a short-term ticket to wealth, followed by the death of your company.)
This doesn't really bother me, however i'd like to see the world before being confined to a cube for the rest of my life. Are there any jobs in an IT field where I can travel?
You have got to be kidding me. Join most any company that has a significant consulting services or sales branch, and it is easy to see the world. Within the next six weeks I'll hit cities in four continents.... Surprisingly, the view is about the same as a cube. A card table if the client planned ahead, a hotel every nigh where you spend the rest of the evening making magic, and eating at whatever restaurant is nearby. I know where the plane is on some international flight just by the snack cart shuffling about.
There was a point - travel is easy. If you want to spelunk the world and enjoy it, better to do it as a vacationer than trying to 'see the world' after a shift is done. I saw more of Europe backpacking on the cheap in college than I have 'commuting' back and forth.
As a bonus, make sure you pick a career that affords you the purchasing power to see the world. Air and hotel miles are a brutal way to do it... (grin)
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Peace Corps
yeesh - that was easy = next?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
My father worked and retired as an IT executive in a large multinational company. He got to travel at least once every 4 months or so to one of the key cities in the US and Asia, occassionally he'd go to Europe. However right before he retired, the company has been cutting down on IT personnel in favor of outsourcing IT services.
IBM Global Services, any consulting company and most "enterprise" software companies.
If you get into implementing SANs, deploying apps like Tivoli or SAP, or something highly specialized, you'll get to travel.
Hint: Ask any travelling consultant how they like travelling -- they don't. One of my colleagues had to fly from Virginia to Oregon for staff meetings... it sucks.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I happen to know that The Naval Research Facility is hiring network and system engineers. These guys do a lot of traveling since they have contracts with and support the US Navy. They are all over the place (Hawaii, Norfolk, Japan, Italy, etc) installing equipment and such in Navy ships.
Word of caution, traveling sucks after a while...the first few times it is cool but after that you will hate it. I don't know about most people but I don't like flying every week a day flying to a destination and another day flying backs from it.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
There are also some "fly-in" jobs that are based in Montreal, and I believe there are some too in Vegas and Amsterdam. Check it out ! :-)
Survive Penn State Engineering
Computer Engineering != IT.
Look for a real job.
I have a friend I met while travelling who works from home for RedHat. He managed to persuade his bos shat since he was working from home why couldn't he move his home around. He then spent 3 months travelling across the US on a moter bike, 3 months living in Scotland, a month in Egypt, 4 months in Australia (where I met him) and 3 weeks in South East Asia. He still put in a full day's work and uploaded his code every day by taking his laptop to an internet cafe.
I haven't done it yet, but I am interested in doing it sometime perhaps a few years from now. The stipend is minimal, but you will get to see a part of the world you normally wouldn't.
It will give you an appreciation for the opportunities you have here in this country. You will have a much better perspective on the world and it will make you a better person for it. You will suddenly stop caring so much about having the latest video game system and start volunteering your time and donating to charities. The words "digital divide" take on a whole new meaning...
Get a job where you have to spend none or a limited time physically in office. A job like that isn't easy to find though. I started working for a company in the UK about 3 years ago, spent the first 6 months in the office building up the bosses confidence in me etc. After that I moved to the US, and has since worked remotely.
Bottom line though, is that I can go wherever in the world as long as I can access the internet. Works great for me!
work the standards "circus". you get to travel to meet face to face to discuss technical issues on a standard. meet with other engineers in the same field/expertise, etc.
at this point in your life, you can get "in" with standards committees by doing a LOT of free work for it and presenting proposals and results. the university would pay for it and you can hook up with professionals in the field for a job that would be about the same...
do some work, travel to present results (usually in very nice locales...), rinse and repeat.
work that for a bit and you'll have more air miles than you know what to do with. especially since you've hit a lot of cool places already.
just be careful of getting stuck in the standards "circus"...
some good ones: ISO MPEG... ISO JPEG...
good luck!
You might want to try to work for a large company and get into customer education. Many of our instructors travel around the world, delivering education to customers on using our server software.
Trust me, you have an infinite oppurtunity to experience the world as a student if a) you look out for oppurtunities, b) you're willing to work and c) not lament on crazy things such as working (on paper submissions for example) on weekends, ie, set your own performance metrics and achieve them.
Don't be disheartened by all this talk of economic downturns; not that difficult to travel around the world EVEN NOW without burning holes in your pocket.
(Saying this as someone who got paid to represent my university in an East Asian country)
More than mere navel gazing.
Two options I can think of off hand (I have done both). Military: I served 20 years in the Air Force, nearly all of that as a Sysad. Got some great training, (not only in IT, but several other things also) was paid OK and did get to do a lot of travel. Even though I was often in places where I received combat pay, I never got shot at. The Air Force has a lot of state of the art (or close to it) systems, and if you get the right assignment you could be working on them right out of tech school. The other option (slightly less dangerous in some areas) teaching. If you teach for an organization like Learning Tree or New Horizons then you could potentially do a lot of travel.
With your IT degree you will be perfectly prepared 4 years from now to land a job in India or China doing IT work for American companies.
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I support spreading santorum
Try the UN - they have people flying all over the place all the time. They will work primarily in Africa, South America and Asia (ie rural development areas) and you will be doing stuff such as setting up wireless broadband networks, teaching locals how to use technology, and pushing lots of Linux and Open source Software to its limits. You won't make lots of money, but you will gain lots of experience, get the good feeling that you are actually using technology to help those who most need it, and you get to see some interesting places.
The UN job site is currently showing 20 IT related jobs. Have fun.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Go to work for a global investment bank. MS, GS, CSFB, or a software vendor/consulting firm that sells systems to one of those guys.
If you don't mind selling out and going the analysis/project management route, you will travel a lot. You'll never see rural China this way, but Chicago, NY, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo are all on the list. As an added bonus, you'll fly business class, stay in the best hotels, and bill everything back to the project.
Pure coding roles see v. little travel, however. You can move around some, but you're on your own to do it. (no expense account, etc)
Security consultants have the potential to be travelling nearly constantly, spending one to two weeks in each location. The pay is pretty good, but you'll need to be able to express yourself well to other people since you will often be responsible for explaining your findings to the clients.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
As others have said, there are plenty of jobs where travel is required.
Some of the best can be airline related. Either working for an airline or working for a company that provides services to an airline.
With an airline, even if you don't travel from place to place with the airline itself, you get flight privileges which means that you get to travel for free on the airline wherever it goes. Often, you also get reduced rate privileges (or free privileges) on partner airlines. One of my friends completed an MBA in Chicago by flying there evey weekend for free for 2 years. Want to spend the weekend in Paris? No problem: just head to the airport, show your ID, and get onboard.
Working for a company that provides services to airlines (like Sabre or PROS Revenue Management) can also be pretty sweet. I spent a year and a half at one of these companies, and I ended up in Taiwan, South Africa, Chile, and Mexico. Our contracts were nice particularly since they specified either business or first class travel only.
and many of them are cubical warriors
If you wish to travel the world, it is highly likely that you will need to command at least two languages. From your post, it is clear that you do not yet command your native tongue and a second language is highly doubtful.
Cubical refers to a cube shape. Cubicle refers to a partitioned space, ironically for sleeping, such as a carrell that is commonly used for office workers.
As a student at a prominent university, with desires to "see the world", one should really have a better grasp on the English language. Most US employers require their employees to be skilled in English. Obvious exceptions include Yellow Cab and 7-Eleven.
The pay isn't as good as other IT jobs, but the environment is easy-going (unless were doing a merger....) and my bank gives you 21 days off (count 'em!) after you become an officer. That's not including the 10 paid federal holidays. Do the math...that's a lot of travel time to go where I please. There was a 1 1/2 year gap between my graduation and my job that I was hoping to do all kinds of stuff. I've traveled more since I got my job (since I have the money to travel.)
When I was in college I always said I'd never work for a bank or an insurance company. I caved and got this bank job and was very surprised how technologically sophisticated they were.
There's always talk of banks moving programming overseas (BofA did it) but there's always tons of IT jobs that have to stay on-site....and large banks always have lots of sites.
Steve
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
Are you out of your mind? Since when has Penn State been considered a prominent university? U Penn is a prominent university so maybe you were confused. But Penn State is not even one of the better state schools.
Have you thought about working on a cruise ship after you graduate? It's a great way to see the world on someone else's dollar, and on many of the cruise lines the IT techs are officer positions, so you'd get your own room, privileges to get people onboard with you for free, etc. This varies depending on what company you hook up with. Most people I worked with burned out on it after a few years, but it's fun while it lasts, and decent experience as well.
They have the Internet on computers now?
I've been telecommuting since 1990, and I
think anyone who works in this industry and
sets foot on company premises more than once
a month is living a substandard life.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
See if you can line up a job as a customer engineer or field service tech for some IT product or other. Travel, stress, and weird hotel food all rolled into one.
The company I work for has a customer service model in which there are Field Engineers that are responsible for installing and support our enterise systems at the customer site.
Some areas of the world are packed with our FEs (such as east coast), which is covered by ~10 of them, but some areas (APAC, for instance), has 2 or 3. Can be interesting to work there for a couple of years.
I can't help but be amused that the UN Web site, or at least that portion of it, runs on ASP.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I've got a friend who's worked for several consulting firms. His routine was: 1) Get up very early Monday morning and go to the airport. Fly to work location. 2) Work through week, putting in maximum amount of billable hours. Sleep at local hotel. 3) Friday night - go to airport. Fly home, drive to house late Friday night, early Saturday morning. 4) Repeat
Pluses: pays well, interesting, challenging work.
Minuses: don't see much of family and friends, travel wears you down after a while, consulting firms are gradually moving most work off-shore.
YMMV
Like so many before me have said A Tech Job in the navy or abord a cruise liner will get you arround the world. I spent some time working for a surveying company, we did hydro acoustic surveying. Not only do you get to travel the world but the inaccuracys involved in sonigraphic surveying are some truely some problems that can tune your solving skills. Sea life is nothing like a 9-5(even with 24hr on call).
You live in close quarters with your boss and co-workers, you will learn and accomplish more at sea then a "land lover" could dream of. Of coures there is that lack of the internet unless you work for a really really wealthy commpany with spoiled clients! So bring plenty of reading material.
That's what I do. My company is a 130 strong consultancy with all consultants either on client site, on the bench (not currently assigned), or teleworking on internal company projects. We all keep in touch by email, IM etc, and meet up a few times a year as a company to touch base and have a few beers. I am in the latter group and I can pretty much base myself anywhere I choose. Cool huh. There are always opportunities to do these things if you look around. You are in charge, don't condemn yourself to cubelife if that's not your bag man.
re-invent wheels
I am just about to graduate and I am going to work for Raytheon (at state college) and even though I will be a cube jockey the majority of the time, I will also be going to sites all over the world (on occasion). Best of both worlds, stable job, but some traveling if I want it.
Gotta be very careful with jobs that require travel. At first it might seem like a lot of fun, but it gets old fast. When you are spending your free time in airports, and living off of hotel room service (novelty of it wears off QUICK) and driving rental cars in the middle of the country, it's not much fun. My job doesn't even require travel, but the little I do gets to me. IT consulting I guess is a good description of what I do, and business travel has taken me from large insurance companies, manufacturing sites to government. It isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
Try applying to defense contractors. I graduated a year ago and have been working for one since. I've been to Europe twice already and may have the chance to go to some other places too...I think hawaii may be on the list...since you will have a customer that is based all over the world, you'll most likely be involved in a project that requires on-site support...but like some of the other people have said, living out of a hotel room for weeks at a time is not exactly the best life.
A lot of companies like to send the young guys cause they have no "baggage" back at home (i.e. kids or wife).
nuf sed
I have no IT qualifications, just an Arts Degree. I help run a FOSS project. I have been to Europe twice in 3months and will come back at least twice next year.
Also keep in mind, airline food tastes like crap after a while, flight delays are a consiparcy to deprive you of more sleep and security checks are designed as side show entertainment. Watching movies on 10in screens with tinny head sets is a great idea for the kids, but as a grown man the novelty has worn off. The Frequent Flier points are nice, but by the time you have enough for a holiday flight, you will be completely over flying. I forget to mention it is pretty lonely when you can speak the language.
btw this is one lesson it is fun to learn the hard way.
Here are some things I've done in between serious periods of technical consulting. Not for everyone, but every few years its good to go out and do something different.
Travel Writer. While you are still in school, take journalism and creative writing classes. Learn to sell your articles. Use your computer skills to create a website, and maintain your articles in a database or wiki where you can pull one up and quickly re-write it into a new article. Then every time you travel, make sure about 4 hours of each day are spent working on your article(s) of the trip. Take digital photos of lots of things, keep the captions straight. Research hotel prices, interesting things in the area (plagiarize directly from other travel guides, then verify, they often have intentionally misleading info), and keep a diary on some kind of mobile computing device. Make sure you have a website where you can try selling your articles in near-real-time, and if an editor wants a specific angle on a story, you can work it up while there. Start while you are still in school, to have a good base of editorial contacts.
Technical Trainer. For some products a company needs a trainer to follow up the sale with a few days or a week of on-site training. Good trainers are hard to find, good trainers with extensive technical background are very rare indeed. Only a few companies actually realise this and pay accordingly, but I know one who travels to cities all over the place and earns about 150k euros/year (30 weeks X 5,000 Euros). When he gets an assignment to a location he has never been before, he always adds a few days to his trip for traveling in the area. Needless to say, he is single.
Events Coordinator. Specifically, hi-tech events. There is a need to work alongside the other coordinators for things like internet access, power requirements, cabling, and speciality telecoms and satellite access. There is also a whole field around event security, providing the big burly guys with working radios, a command centre with computers and video surveillance, and other security related items. There has to be a hands-on techie to ensure smooth operation. Speaking multiple languages is also a key requirement, at least here in Europe.
There are lots of early career organisations, like the Peace Corps, or Ingenieurs Sans Frontiers, who will place you in a village somewhere for a year to earn some work experience. The only travel involved is in getting to the place, and back home after a year. But its a good way to see at least one other small part of the world. Take lots of language courses while you can, english only goes so far if you want to actually work in non-anglo parts of the world.
As others have pointed out, serious relationships and a travel career are mutually exclusive. Having children almost certainly means you need to settle down. So plan on having the travel career right after school, while you are still free enough to enjoy it, and expect to change into a cubicle job later.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Are there any jobs in an IT field where I can travel?
Learn to speak Urdu / Hindi.
Plenty of techies are needed to leaise (sp) and the food is bloody excellent.
Anyway, whats wrong with droping out and bumming your way around the world on a motorbike.
And dont give me that 'I cant' crap. Life is not a rehersal
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
oh yes, if you like being posted places freight.
...You'll be moving house every 6 months just to keep eating...
Get a job as an auditor with a large (multi-national) corporation. Some audit teams do require technical ability (i.e. if you're auditing site system security).
State Department is looking for a good few techies these days for US and abroad assignments check out their website: http://www.state.gov/employment/ :-)
You do need to know how to read and write.
A local DC area company that contracts with the State Department: www.orkand.com currently looking for Software Trainers to travel the world. Hmm, website is currently down.
I intereviewed there about 5 to 7 years ago and turned it down because I just got married. Travel was 50 - 75% at that time. However, now I wish I took it for at least a year, currently my Mrs. wants kids so no more long term travel opportunities for me....
Of course you could be sent to the exiting locations of Afghanistan\Iraq\Colombia to list the latest dens of death and destruction. In the 170 + countries of the world, you are more likely to be sent to a far duller location.
State Department assignments are 2 to 4 years; I orkand was a few weeks at an embassy at a time, then hop to the next one.
-Neilix
As others have noted, a job that involves a lot of short-term travel can soon pall. When I was just a few years out of university I had about 18 months of living out of suitcases in hotels, and towards the end on friends' floors between assignments; unsurprisingly, the relationship I was in at the time didn't survive for long. There's another type of travel, though, that's got a lot to recommend it, which is where you spend a couple of years or so in the same place. You get to experience more of the local culture, which even if it's part of the general 'Western' one has a lot of different flavours and variations; you're there long enough to get to know some people reasonably well, and so on. Multinational companies are the places where this sort of assignment is most likely: they've found that it pays them to promote this experience for talented people working in the company's core areas; I imagine that government agencies may also go in for this to some extent. I do stress 'core areas' here: an IT company will be more likely to run such an exchange program for technicals than a financial services company, which will be interested in identifying and promoting high flying analysts and business managers. Landing a succession of these assignments in different places is feasible if you develop a reputation for good work and for being able to handle and enjoy the cultural differences.
Just one word of advice: this lifestyle, unlike hotel-hopping, can be very attractive and if you start on it early you may find a few years down the road that you've lost touch with many old friends back home, or indeed are no longer quite sure where home is any longer. Making a point of coming back regularly to keep in touch (with family, friends *and* your 'home' management) is highly advisable, so you have a place to come back to later.
" How would I go about getting the right contacts regarding this? I have 4 years till graduation, so this isn't a direct plea for a job..." instead of thinking about what your going to do in 4 years, you are in the "college" environment. you know theres those things that walk around campus with really short shorts. try travelling round campus and have some fun. trust me my life is basically ruined cause i work and goto school full-time, which equals no time for fun. live life....
Many people with middle-age responsibilities (spouse & kids) are looking to minimize travel. Travel requirements are seldom viewed as a plus, except by young people want to travel. I never thought about it before, but high-travel jobs might be the one area where employers favor recent grads (few responsibilities, willingness to live cheaply, flexible schedules, few complaints).
Believe me, the mystique of travel fades soon enough. I had an around-the-world trip in 1999. Nobody would do it this way in 2003, but at the time I travelled alone. As an added bonus, I was sick as a dog every step of the way. Sick in UK, sick in Switzerland, sick in Hong Kong, sick in China. Over the course of two weeks, I was miserable in all 24 time zones. If I tried such a thing today, I would have been stuck in the SARS quarantine.
I met some great people, and discovered that British Air has very nice seats in Business Class on their long-haul international flights. All of this is fine, but travel is a "defensive" game. You are defending your property and yourself against a number of threats, and you are mostly trying to prevent things from going wrong. It's a fun game to play, but the novelty wears off.
Create a specialized database for some obscure vertical market. I'm the leading (well, only besides homegrown) database vendor for an industry with about 100 businesses in the US. I travel 2-3 times a year - not enough to completely alienate the family (the spouse only sulks a little bit) or get really tired of it.
Get a job where you can ride a bicycle or walk to work and back every day. There's always something interesting to see if you're going slow enough to notice it. Really.
There are a few people who really like the travel and such. Most of them are very people-oriented. I'm more comfortable talking to a few thousand lines of PHP code.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
,02
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
I took a job in Germany, and spent weekends seeing that country, and used my 6 weeks vaction (which is normal in Germany - I thought the guy who offered me the job was screwing with his English, but it was true) to see the rest of Europe. It was nice, since I had a home base, and my company was nice enough to give me a VW camping van as my "company car". With the value of the Euro, your pay would probably look cool, too.
I was based near Dusseldorf, but I would recommend the Munich area - you'd probably be more comfortable there, the food is better, the people easier (by American standards anyway), and you're near a lot of stuff.
was Re: Military
Well, there's always the Navy. They're always looking for skilled people willing to server.
Join the Navy, see the world. Just remember that it's 75% water.
As someone who has been traveling 100% for work for the last 3 years, let me give you a warning. When I first started traveling (right out of college like you) I thought it would be a great way to see different places by exploring the town I was staying in after work. I quickly learned that companies assume that when you are on travel, they can make you work longer hours so there is no "after work". Managers bully you into working longer hours than at home with the attitude of "Why are you leaving? It's not like you have to go home to your family. You've only got an empty hotel room that WE'RE paying for to go back to so I think you should just stay here and work."
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
Yes. Become a training person in IT. I got a couple certs a few years back. One was a class in Chicago. The other was in Dallas. One instructor was in his early 30s and had done computer networking in the Navy. The other had been networking for decades. I never asked the first guy what he made but the second guy readily divulged all the juicy details while drinking and eating steak at Bone Daddy's in Dallas (nice steak house if you're ever in Dallas BTW, hot waitresses too). He made $1100 a day plus expenses. Not too shabby if you ask me. I'd gladly spend my youth traveling the country doing training for that kind of green. Granted you are on a plane all the damned time. Still, the money is worth it I think. Both of these courses were from Global Knowledge and were pretty good I thought. My $.02. PS, you should really have some experience before you jump on the cert training bandwagon.
If you think a military job would appeal to you anyway (i.e. you don't define yourself by being a non-conformist peacenick, etc.) then it's a good option to consider.
A friend of mine who was in the US Army a few years ago said that when he enlisted, he got a choice: he could either pick his job, or his location. He chose to work in a particular country of interest to him, and had a lot of lousy jobs in a place he loved. On the other hand, when my brother joined the Navy he chose his job (welding) and they chose his locations (Guam, where American sailors were welcomed, and Sicily, where they were hated). During his training, he and his wife spent their last dime to get a home by the base he was told he'd be at for a year, and at literally the last day they relocated him a day's drive away.
I wouldn't be surprised if in the future, there will be IT support analyst jobs travelling with journalists who make a living from individual subscribers to their online news services: a one-person (or few-person) news agency. The geek would keep the capture/edit/upload system running 24x7.
Since that link leads to a VB error on an ASP page, my guess is they really need the help!
this sig deleted by another sig
Internal auditors for a company travel to a site and spend 3 - 6 weeks at a site looking through the way the company executes. Probably deadly boring work, but - very little overtime - very little interference from your clients! - weekends and evenings free In 2 years you could visit 12 - 18 countries for long enough to get to know the place a little - not like the rest of us who are on fast in and fast out schedule.
I worked for Sun MDE during 1999 based in Israel and on average I travelled abroad once a month, half of these to the San-Jose area but also to customer sites in Germany, South Korea, a show in Paris, a benchmark in Portland, OR, a conference in Washington DC, JavaOne in SF (we were among the few Sun employees allowed to come over, sort of as a bonus for being so "far out". Sun didn't want this to be too much "Sun centric").
Sun's policy (or at least my direct boss) was to encourage people to take a couple of days off around the work days, so I got to hop over the Nevada to fly a glider, go with family to lake Tahoe for a day of skiing, stop-over in Italy to visit a friend I met at JavaOne, take a couple of days tour outside Seul to learn a bit about Korean traditions and history etc...
Now as for Sun as a long-term workplace, I don't know how it goes. I heared with sorrow that they are in troubles now. I left there after a year because I missed programming too much, and got over 60% pay rise working for a software startup. Travelling is the single big thing I miss about working for Sun. Not much else.
First, gain fluency in your favorite second language at a university level of reading, writing and conversation. Second, finish a master's degree (hey, howzabout in that language?) or better so you can enter the government (the only entity bar the military likely to send you overseas anytime soon) at a salary level that won't make you cry. Third, apply for any reasonable job that will provide you with a TS/SCI with full lifestyle polygraph. Fourth, finish 3-year compulsory stint in non-excepted service to have first $20k in student loans paid off. (read: accept it, buddy, everyone else 'pays their dues' and that process begins AFTER college, so start planning your cube decor now.) Fifth, voila, choose your favorite international superspy job with the realization that A) now you're sitting in Oaugoudougu--in a cubicle, and B) if you really wanted to get out, travel and not be stuck in a cube, you should have joined the damned Marines, studied theatre or maybe been a cowboy, baby.