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Computer Job w/ No Computer Degree?
Peterus7 asks: "I posted here a few years back, complaining that I couldn't code worth beans, but I wanted to get into computer science. Well, I'm back- with a psychology degree. However, I hear there's still hope since a lot of system admins and the like have liberal arts degrees. In the mean time, I've been working as a Macintosh digital media tutor, freelance tech support, and an assistant system admin at the campus library. Now that I've graduated, I want to find a job that will accept someone who knows a fair amount about computers, but is pretty much self-taught. Where should I start? Are there any classes I should take?"
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons. But it all boils down to how well you sell yourself, how well you learn under fire, how well you can adapt, and most importantly who you know. I dropped out of high school (early nineties) my Senior year of high school and moved to the closest metro city. Three months later, at age 18, I was making $35/hour as a jack of all trades systems administrator. A year later I had been jacked up to Senior Network Analyst and was pulling in $60k. Two years later I was a systems administrator for a Fortune 100 company with full benefits. Now, only a decade later, I'm pulling in six figures between my systems administration position at my day job and the freelance projects I'm doing on the side.
;)
Standard headhunters and sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com proved to be utterly useless and every position I've held since entering the professional workforce has been a referral from a close friend or colleague that got me an in with the company and allowed me to bypass conventional hiring channels. This is the most important thing to remember -- managers hire internally first, take referrals second, and then read external resumes; if another employee highly recommends you then you'll be first in line in the interview process.
Keep track of every professional contact you've ever made. I have two or three hundred page binders to keep business cards in chronological order of each professional contact I've made. Each page holds 16 cards and I write details of the conversation or relationship with each person on the back of each card. My brain works on mnemonics so scanning/inputting each contact's info doesn't work for me; I remember each contact based on where in each binder their business card is and which business cards surround it on the page. So I can say, "yeah, that security guy I met in the bar at PumpCon 1996 was red and was in the binder right after the blue graphic designer's card, I think I'll give him a call".
So yeah, don't know if this braindump is any help to you, but there is hope out there for degreeless geeks.
I've been a sysadmin for 12 years now without a degree and I'm doing fine. I've worked (and work now) at some of the biggest companies in the world and the subject almost never comes up.
The few companies that have turned me away because of it were companies you've never heard of because they were small and didn't survive long enough to get big.
I currently do technical support research for a really big well known software company - it pays really well and the benefiets are quite good, but in the process I had to do some really crappy jobs along the way. One of the hardest was front line technical support, but without it I wouldn't have gained the respect to get the job I have now. I think I have a knack for solving problems :).
Along the way I've tried picking up programming - I'm learning, but its a long and slow process. I'm sure actual classes in school would help quite a bit.
I work with a guy who has a Masters Degree, I have no qualifications other than a few GCSEs (high school) and yet I'm earning more than he is and I'm 12 years younger than him. So to me it seems a degree is worthless.
"If you couldn't get into Java then you're gonna be banging your head against the wall on a daily basis with the kind of problems sysadmins face. No, they don't necessarily write any code, but the analytical skills required to learn to program are the same as debugging complex interactions between software."
One of my friends loves using computers and wants to get a "computer job", but the Comp Sci classes he's tried to sign up for have Math pre-reqs and he's lousy at that. "Do you really have to do a lot of math in your job?" he's asked me, and I admitted that I don't. But (I gently explained) the same kinds of problem-solving skills that intermediate-level math is about are the same kinds of skills you need to be a good tech geek. You need to know how to attack problems and you need to enjoy them. He just likes doing hacks and tweaks he reads about on the web... which isn't enough.
Similarly, I haven't done any real coding (except HTML and related technologies) in well over a decade, but the 4 years I spent cranking out Fortran, Pascal, COBOL, C, Prolog, Lisp, etc. in college were good "exercise" for what I do now as a sysadmin/tech-support guy. You don't necessarily have to get that kind of experience in class; if my friend were the sort to teach himself even HTML, or if he'd ever opened up his computer to fix (rather than just upgrade) it, I might have encouraged him. But if you're not already looking for that sort of trouble in your spare time, you're not going to be effective (or happy) dealing with it on the job.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I'm halfway through college, dont even have a diploma. In college I was actually doing physics since I loved it more.
But here comes real life, and I had to pay rent etc. So the first year I just worked gas stations and other odd jobs. I tried to get into IT jobs but its tough with no paperwork and if you dont know people. I went to an agency told em I can do anything computers. They were a temp agency and computers werent their main thing, but they staffed receptionists etc so they took typing speed tests and filing tests. I was given a one week stint at a place where they needed text replaced in lotus word pro files. Speed wasnt an issue, accuracy was. So the first 3 days there I just programmed up a perl script (Activestate) that did the job for all the files in 5 minutes. I know it doesnt take 3 days, but the first two I had to do things manually to show I was doing SOMETHING.
They put on more work extended to another week and I became friends with the IT guy. I started giving him advice. He started giving me enough work to keep me around. The mgmt didnt like him so they fired him and took me on a contract for 6 months and a raise. 6 months and another Netadmin later I was given a fulltime job and another raise. The other admin didnt last either. The third admin was good and I learned some stuff there (soft skills and the like). 3 years in that company and the economy got bad. They asked me to leave. So I started looking around and discovered the business software I used there had a far greater market value than the fact that I could make changes in a Linux kernel, program up basic drivers and make a gcc toolchain to put uclinux on an ARM board. My CCNP wasnt worth that much either.
I just one day got a call from a boss that had left the company to work in his new company (networking!!! not the computer type). So I moved and got another raise and a real title. Apparently theyre happy with me and I can bargain for another sizeable raise in a year. Theyve been relying on consultants and I'm already really cheap. But like the last company I'm taking more work on, things that are in the grey area between IT and nonIT things. And I know how to do them since I've done them in the last place. I'll do college part time till I complete the degree, and that should be another raise, clearly above the average of degree-holder netadmins around. I will also have a great bargaining tool to look around for work (experience + degree + certs + networking + business apps expertise). Thus I can maintain a job I like (and leave quick if I dont like it).
So I dont really have an answer for you, getting IN is difficult and sometimes impossible without prior experience or a degree. I suggest get some experience anywhere, and some basic certs to get you started. In the beginning expect to eat some dirt. Another alternative is to get back to college and get an IT dipmola. I'd get a degree even if I already had a non-IT degree now, just so I could chase the better dollars.
And I have a degree in Computer Engineering that I busted my ass for. I earn in excess of $100K ($132K last year) and those heavy Chemistry and Physics classes teach you how to think and problem solve. Those classes lead to your basic electronics classes where you are exposed to the creation of the diode. This leads to transistors, logic gates, circuits. On the flip side the computer langauage and automata theory leads you down logic and programming / problem solving using computer algorithms. You take a logic desgin class, a microprocessor class, bang out some labs, learn what makes circuits do their job. Then you get closer, learn how to merge the two. High level languages get broken down into machine code, you learn about op codes, and build a very simple microprocessor out of accumulators, each step piecing together all the foundation you have learned. Finally, you take classes like computer organization and architecture, mix in some networking / communication theory and implementation.
In 97, I graduated with my CE and have never earned less then $60K a year. I'm a sysadmin, programmer and I help run a 66K sq ft datacenter for some of the largest corporations.
Not one regret. Not a single night do I wish I was doing soemthing else. Is the moral of the story that you need a degree? No, but it helps. I wanted it so bad I worked my way through college, building PC's selling hot dogs, whatever because I wanted it. You gotta want it.
John
So there.
The best position to be in is one where they are not looking to hire anyone but you. Networking is one means to achieve that end.
Eight years ago, you could do that, you could grow with a growing field. The field has matured considerably now, and I really doubt there's anything like the computer store - to - network engineer path still viable.