Slashdot Mirror
How Old is Too Old?
NewtonEatPalm! asks: "I started college back when I was too young to carefully weigh options about my future. I entered a prominent art school at age 17, coasted through, and was spit out at age 22 with a film degree that I don't really want nor do I feel qualified to use as the basis for a career. Three years on, I'm still working at my mundane college job, though one thing has never changed in all this time- my love of and devotion to technology, keeping up with hardware news and the intricacies of powerful software through daily reading of sites like Slashdot and lots of home-brew system building and amateur web development. I've decided that I'd like to pursue a second degree in Software Engineering at one of the major Cal State U's, but that would place me in the tech job market at nearly 30. My question is, how old is too old? Are severe changes in career direction in this sector commonplace/successful? Or have I truly already let my best chance for entry pass me by?"
If your radical ideas happened to be annealed in post-hoc math, you may just carve out a niche for yourself; feral engineers are too goddamn down-to-earth for my taste, anyway.
Carpe Momento
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Everybody's life and goals are unique. You shouldn't try to judge your progress based on what you think others are doing and have accomplished. Sometimes that can be useful. But you should just ask yourself one question. What do YOU want to do with your life and what do you think you need to do to accomplish that.
Some people "start" their life at 15 and burn out when they are 30, some start at 30 and continue on until they die. Everyone is different.
"It's true that the neurons harden as your mind differentiates itself (much like a fetus' maturing organs); "
And yet some of the best work has been produced by men and women well past 30.
This doesn't help much, but helped me to get a deep sense of urgency. YMMV. At some point, the cost of switching carreers increases too much. It doesn't become impossible, tough, but it takes much more determination and drive to accomplish the change.
Why don't you focus with the stuff you've already got? Try specializing, finding fun in it. But you'll have to commit to a certain course of action. The search for your dream job (the one that makes you feel you don't work at all, according to Confucius) is a very valid one, but one must be practical.
Get comfortable with commitments and then come back to tell your story.
-jsnx
Ok now that I got that out of the way...
I finished my EE degree and entered the engineering workforce at 28. If anything I found my age may have helped me. Most of the people you end up working with won't know when you finished your degree, so they end up looking at you as someone who is probably more experienced. Throw in the fact that in a technology job you have to stay current and not everyone does. Coming fresh from university you'll most likely be current.
Age doesn't matter it's your skills and drive, boy. (And stop asking questions that make me feel old)
I just turned 33 today. Way to remind me that I am old. :P
You're never too old to retool or change. Every day, someone your age (and someone 2-3x your age) leaves a successful career for a completely different field.
You only get One Life - and one chance to be whatever age you are. There's no dress rehearsal. Figure out how to "do" your passion for enough money to maintain a lifestyle sufficiency, and then go do it.
Remember, this is a one-life game. Use it up.
I didnt graduate college till 30, started
my second ( third? ) career as a programmer then.
Had to work my way thru college. Tisnt easy, but
doable.
You are here, it is now. Start.
emt 377 emt 4
Three years on, I'm still working at my mundane college job, though one thing has never changed in all this time- my love of and devotion to technology, keeping up with hardware news and the intricacies of powerful software through daily reading of sites like Slashdot and lots of home-brew system building and amateur web development.
I'm a little suspicious of this. If you have a "love and devotion" to technology, then what's stopped you so far from learning programming? You say you've done some amateur web development, so that's a gateway that normally might've led you to it.
I'm assuming you haven't learned any programming to speak of. If that's the case, then I suspect you have some romantic notion of what programming is all about that probably won't live up to your expectations. Coding is not all hot tubs full of babes. :) I'd say that people with a passion for programming already know that's what they want to do and don't need to "ask Slashdot", especially when you're looking at a career change for a job you think is boring.
I could be wrong, of course, but I think you need to consider that the career grass isn't greener on the other side.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I changed jobs and started programming for money at 37. I may change again later on if it suits me. Do what YOU want to do, and screw the norm.
Dead.
You should however be certain of where you are going. Building PCs and doing light web development are not what most software engineers do in their day jobs. Teach yourself Java or Python or something and try your hand at some more substantial software development. And that is good practice - in most software engineering classes, the focus of the class is more about basic concepts and you are expected to teach yourself whatever you need of the language du jour to implement projects.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
You're too old to do it when you personally cannot do it.
A friend of mine is in his early 50's, and he recently landed his first "real" (paid) linux system administration job. Prior to this he had worked in construction his entire life. If he can do it at fifty-plus, you can do it at thirty. If you can't, there's a reason for it other than age.
People generally have more power than they think they do, and are limited not by what they can do, but by what they allow themselves to accomplish. So, be bold! Thrust your trepidations aside and throw yourself in the direction you want to go. You may surprise yourself.
-- TTK
I decided to I worked as a private contractor and took sub-contract jobs for minor network installs (Doctors offices, dental offices, law and accounting offices). I did that for about 5 years. One of my clients, a smallish lab, offered me a full time job. Over the years, that smallish lab has grown to around 200 workstations, 5 servers, 3 remote offices, etc. I went from a department of one to being a manager of 8 (both IT and Data processing departments).
Advice: Find a small or medium sized privately owned company. Learn to do a lot... SQL, networking, admin, support, word, excel (show some pivot table magic), etc. Forget working for anyone or anything with stock-holders. You'll enjoy the work, probably like the owner/boss and add a few years to your life.
I also got into this field fairly lately, compounded by completing my Computer Science degree part-time.
To cut a long story short, life experience counts a hell of a lot more than people think, and being older when coming out of uni can be a distinct advantage.
The right employer will value life experience. Additionally, most of the people I kow of that finished uni later tend to be more focused, as well as progressing towards a senior level far more rapidly. I know this is kind of a blanket statement, but it's what I've seen.
So my honest opinion? Go for it. You'll be working for a hell of a long time, and whether you start at 25 or 30 isn't going to make one iota of difference in the end. You'll come out focused and hungry to make up for lost time, and that's a big advantage over the kids that just fell into the field from choices made while still in school.
If you choose to make this type of career switch you better make sure you really love this field. The starting pay probably won't be good. The work hours will be demanding and the respect from business management will never shine down on you. More than likely you will not be able to pursue a project that you are passionate about only one that management wants done. Just make sure you really love this field before you make the change. Enjoying technology as a hobby is one thing doing it for a career is whole different story.
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
I'd think you would be in the catbird seat guy, the film industry is using shit piles of CGI FX eating up tons of storeage and using unimagineable amounts of processor resources, lots of custom written shaders, tweeked renders and specialty programs, and you'll not only be able to work on all those cool technologies, but you actually be able to comunicate with the artsy types using it! A freind of mine is doing the 3D animation in collge, he does his homework on a two processor opteron with RAID 5 running Linux. That's about as geeky a student machine as you can get.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
You should absolutely enroll and begin taking classes. It will not matter that you're thirty because what you will also be is a brand new graduate with the most up-to-date training and information. Which means that you are a prime candidate to be hired. Your age will be a plus because employers know you are ready to make a long-term committment because you have settled into your life. Your biggest mistake would be to try. Go for it.
I don't think 30 is too old. If you have the passion and determination to guide you through, I think you'll do just fine. Not everyone knows what they want to do in life at a early age. Hell, some people just coast through life not ever knowing their calling. It's not uncommon for some people to change careers several times throughout their lifetime with some going back to school to start all over again.
I worked for six years after college, and decided to go back for a PhD when the small company I had joined was bought out by a fortune 500 predator and I realized that I was facing a life of cogness in the machine. I finished my PhD at age 32, and have never regretted my decision.
Don't go back to school. Degrees don't guarantee jobs, and you can (and should teach) yourself in a few weeks what takes months to cover in school.
If you really need instruction, you should consider some instructional videos (well, DVDs). When I was just starting out in VB (after 10 years off from coding), watching just a few Ken Getz videos helped get me kickstarted.
Getting a certification of some kind can help because it proves to interviewers that you really know whatever skill you are advertising. However, actual experience will beat a certification every time.
I'm 50, and I think I'm as creative and sharp as ever in coding. Since being laid off after twenty one years, I have written two major applications on my own, and hope to market them successfully.
But, as for companies, they're interested in how much you cost, not how old you are. Unfortunately for those over forty who have accrued knowledge, experience, and expertise, that usually comes at a premium. A premium on paper many companies are willing to forego for the "cheap" labor.
A more correct question would be: how little are you willing to work for, and how many benefits are you willing to waive compared to the competition? Competence? Expertise? Pshaw. That's not the most important part of the equation for most companies. It should be.
Well I'm 40 and I'm thinking of becoming a slashdot editor. Is it too late for me?
Look at it this way: how old will you be in 4 years if you don't do this? What will you be doing then? (nb. the answer better not be "posting another 'Ask Slashdot'... ;-) )
Too many people use the excuse that they will be 'x' years old when they get out of the schooling they need to pursue the job they really want instead of the fry-slinging they are presently doing. Do yourself a favour: get the buy-in of the significant people in your life, take a deep breath, and pay the first year tuition all at once. Then instead of having an excuse not to go to school, you will have an excuse not to skip/stop.
CPD.
it's about your desire.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
You might want to read "What Color is Your Parachute?," the best-selling job-hunt book that isn't really about landing the job so much as it is about defining/redefining your career.
People coming out of college think that the straightforward way is the way things work. Get degree X, get job Y. Bam. But it isn't really like that. Think of the job you really want, and then build yourself up to become as close to a perfect candidate as possible; it's AFTER you think of what you want, that you can become interested in your education. If at every step of the way you keep wanting it and wanting it, you're on the right track. If you lose interest in something, that doesn't necessarily mean "stop," but it does mean "this should not be a major part of your final destination." Jobs in tech aren't all engineering, programming, hard-math, hard-science work; someone has to run the business, keep the books, answer the phones, and make life good for the development team. This is the rationale that probably leads to the glut of MBAs we have going now, and it could be one path you take(it's one I plan on in a few years); but if you aren't doing it just for money, and are trying to build complementary skills along with it, you have a leg up in the job market and will be a better fit for the position.
The existing market is dominated by a few major players whose file formats don't play so well together. There is a slow but steady rumbling that CAD data should be easily-readable without having to spend piles of cash. This notion is being largely driven by smaller municipalities who think that the data they generate belongs to them and not the software vendor. BRL-CAD was released for Windows recently and I foresee this forcing the hand of the big guys after smaller, dedicated teams of programmers start customizing it and denting the established vendors' licenses and support fees. This is a huge, mature, fragmented market that needs a technological kick in the pants.
Sure, you've probably let your best chance slip by, but late college is still a chance. 30 even isn't terribly late. You'll still have about 30 years to advance, tread along or suffer through.
I'm 35 years old and finished a degree in mechanical engineering 6 years ago. While I was in school and for a time before, I was a mechanic for an armored car company. For a short time, I worked designing a portable hybrid energy.
I currently work for a civil engineering firm (specializing in issues related to transportation) supervising CAD (et. al.) technicians. I have approval to and am working for and eagerly anticipating working for this same firm not as a supervisor, but as a traffic engineer, specializing in models and simulation. (While I was working on that ME degree, I wrote several fluid-flow models for classes. Traffic an fluids bear surprising similarities in how they are modelled.)
As a side note, I regularly recruit and have hired people ten years my senior and watched as they were promoted out of my area.
Don't worry so much. There may be somebody living just down the street from you, twenty years your senior, contemplating a similar move who stands similar odds of success.
Today, thirty is still quite young. Stop dithering though, and get started.
p.s. Did you know that you don't necessarily need a C.S. degree to get started? I've written software in C, VBA scripts, visual LISP and was fiddling with BASH scripting earlier this evening. I don't claim to be nearly as good as some of my friends, but I know just enough to notice that I find it useful, sometimes fun and challenging, and that I won't be programming as a primary career. Pick up Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language and give it a whirl; you might actually learn whether you're romanticizing your hobby or if you're barking up the wrong tree.
but that would place me in the tech job market at nearly 30
Wow. Your story (other than the art school) just about parallels mine. High school, then post-secondary, then a crappy job for a bunch of years. Been there, did that, got the t-shirt.
A few years back I realized people would actually pay me money to do what I enjoy doing in my spare time (that is, mess with computers), but the big cash was in the degree'd jobs. Like it or not, that's the way in these days. So, I left the job, swallowed my pride and moved back in with the family, lived like a starving student otherwise for 4 years, and graduated with a B.C.Sc. when I was 29.
I got a job right out of school (actually, while I was still in school - internships RULE), and one day I got bored and did the math: it will have taken me only 3 years since graduation before I break even financially. That's including all the income lost over those 4 years, and tuition. I more than doubled my take-home as a result of the career change, and love every minute of the job so far.
Oh, the other nice thing: going to university/college as a mature student is FUN. People are very friendly to you (even though we're only talking 5-8 year age differences they think of you as the "old fogey"). You don't do the stupid things (frat parties every night during finals). It's also FAR easier to study, do homework, whatever - because you know damn well what awaits you if you don't get this degree finished, and with good marks. Personally, I found doing university the second time around to be just about the most fun I've ever had in my life. Only problem is, at an older age it seems to go by FAST.
If I won the lottery and didn't need to work for my rent, I'd do it a third time.
Best decision I ever made in my life.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I quit engineering at 19, hung out with rock bands for a few years, then went back to EE school at almost 25. Had to take a few mre courses because some previous ones were deprecated as prerequisites, but the new ones were _way_ more interesting anyway. I figured my touring days were over when I graduated at 28 -- was I wrong! My first engineering gig was Application Engineering for a Montreal company, which sent me all over the US and Europe in grand style instead of the dive hotels where I'd stayed as a roadie.
My then-girlfriend's mom was seeing an engineering prof, and when I was still looking for work, he claimed that because of my advanced age I would never score an engineering job and always be a bum. Later on, whenever xGF went to visit her mom, I made sure to tell her to give the bum's greetings from San Jose, or Hamburg, or New York, or Paris.
All this is to tell you, GO FOR IT! It's never too late.
If 40 is the new 30, then 30 is the new 20.
Seriously, 30 is not too old. Given the current economic trends (global capitalism) we're all going to need to reinvent ourselves every 10 years or so anyway - yes, that probably means going back to school in your 40's and again in your 50's... maybe even later.
"You only get One Life - and one chance to be whatever age you are. "
Obviously not a fan of reincarnation.
Your homebrew system building and web development is great seat-of-the-pants training for what works. I can tell when a system's been designed by engineers who've gotten their hands dirty, as opposed to straight book-learnin' types who never soldered a wire in their lives. The difference is not subtle.
Don't go back to school. Degrees don't guarantee jobs, and you can (and should teach) yourself in a few weeks what takes months to cover in school.
People I know who got a CS degree know fundamentals that are important to understand and can better evaluate the buzzword of the month. When you try to do it yourself, you are left with holes that can mislead you.
You already know your best advisers. You have a degree in film. There's plenty of tech in film, so see if you can't get in from that angle. Ask some of your former professors what they think. If they don't know, they know someone who does and what kind of career paths there are. They should also be able to recommend schools that fit. The people at your "mundane" job may also know things, if it's in any way related to film.
It's no where near too late if you manage not to dump everything you already know.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Do you have any idea how stupid this entire article reads to someone who is 34? Old at 30? You're in for a shock.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Software Engineering is the nice way of saying Computer Science which is not the best industry to try hitting at 30. While it IS and industry and a great one, you may find that pursuing a Computer Engineering degree will place you apart from the dime-a-dozen computer science guys. Software Engineering is NOT an engineering degree any more than Forest Engineering is (and it isn't at all). Computer Engineering IS an engineering degree, even if it's for the tech geeks more so than lab science geeks.
Just my opinion.
-Tim Louden
The only time you're too old is when you're dead.
I got my first degree in Microbio back in the early 80's. Later on, I decided to go back to school for a master in CS. I never finished it due to money ( which was a mistake ) but I did complete the bachelors (but without the paper). Since I got out at age 32, I have found lots of good jobs. The trick is make sure that you are at a decent school, get good grades, and learn. You are more mature now, and know what you want. Chances are, that on your first degree you did skate by and really did not learn it. Now, you will have to study harder, but will learn more.
If you are going to do, please consider coding hard until you get into school. You may find that if you code for awhile (not just websites), then you can focus on the abstractions rather than the technical stuff. Finally, consider using your first degree connected to SE. By combining film and SE, I would guess that you will find lots of jobs in Hollywood.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm 44. I graduated in 2001 with a C.S. degree. It was my first actual full application of my efforts in college. Cum GPA : 3.96. :)
I had one "B", in COBOL 101. I was spending too much time playing "Ultima Online".
Before that, I was a Medical Lab Tech. I found that I could make $50,000 a year doing that again, or start at $30,000 in an IT job.
Well, I couldn't take that pay cut. Once my son is out of college, I can maybe go back to IT. The one guy has it right: the only "too old" is DEAD. Do what you LOVE, within limits.
I was a math major in college, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a programmer, a physicist, or a vulcanologist. In the end, I became an airline pilot. It was, at the beginning, thrilling, exciting, interesting, different, and I used to look forward to going to work.
Fast forward about 15 years, and I'll tell you that the things I thought little of, like career stability, retirement funding, long term mental stimulation, etc., are a lot more important to me now then they were in my teens.
I just earned more this past month, in doing network consulting and database development than from my "career". It was exciting all over again, that I had a mental challenge, people appreciated my work, and I had some independence from the Mother Company.
I'm 35, and slowly building up what used to be a hobby fiddling with computers into a side business. And if (or, as I suspect, when) the airline industry really tanks, I can just pick up the pace a bit on my second career. Perhaps I wouldn't enjoy it so much if I didn't have career A to start with, and perhaps I would have advanced far more in career B if I had started there, but who cares? I DID do career A, and I am now really ENJOYING career B.
I have an aunt who just retired from senior management one of the largest corporations in the world after 38 years. She scratched through college with a 2.01 GPA. The secret to her success? Don't let yourself get faked out by people who seem to know what they are doing. Ask questions until you understand, or research on your own until you understand, and you will be surprised how many people get by on 90% air and 10% knowledge. If you want to understand and learn, you will get far.
Go for it - good luck!
Credit Guy Kawasaki for that, maybe someone before him, but anyway dead is definitely too old. If you're not dead yet, you're not too old.
45 and back in school because I enjoy learning, will I succeed in my new carreer, if not, well then my old one is still there. You know when you're too old, 24 hours past dead, 48 if your willful.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Different people's brains are wired differently. It shows up in personalities. It shows up in ability to solve complex problems. Some people are just good at manipulating a heap of related details to understand them and reach a solution. Others just aren't as suited to handling complexity (but might multitask better, or be easier to get on with, or whatever :-) My high school results were good enough to get in to medicine, but I'm lousy at biology (and never liked it) and my hands aren't steady enough to do surgery.
The problem is self-assessment. We've all seen far too many people consider themselves "gurus" that don't have a clue. Typically you can only assess those close to or beneath you in a given area, as you can't estimate what you don't understand. Do you have evidence that you handle complexity well? Do you know anyone really credible who can comment on your technical aptitude? (and how do you know they're credible?)
Try stretching your skills even without more college, and see if you can find someone credible to comment on your progress. Or take a subject or a short course and hope the presenter is good enough to give the right feedback.
-- All your bass are below two Hz
In my eyes, if you still have functioning neural pathways (no Alzheimers, not dead) then you can pretty much do whatever you want. After that, you have three options: Be Buried in a box, get burned, freeze.
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
And I couldn't be happier, even after 4 years med school, 5 years residency and 2 years fellowship. I certainly don't regret the time I spent working in research(Human genome proj) for several years before I got into med school. Usually the people who start something when they're older have made a more rational, wise choice then the people who went straight thru the mill.
If you want to stop your life and start a new phase of it, then probably you really want to do it and therefore you should.
Just don't do anything half assed -if you're going to do it, then go all the way - be dedicated. What you get out of life is what you put into it.
..........FULL STOP.
I really screwed up on my original degree. I was already quite late doing it since I messed up my O levels so had to do some of them again which put me a year behind. When I got my degree it wasn't a high grade so I ended up doing various unrelated jobs. Eventually, I learned I wanted more from life so I got a loan and paid my way through a Masters, got a good job and then started my PhD at age 27. When I finished it three years later I was 30 which was quite old to do a postdoc as most other PhDs were in their mid 20's. However, I kept at it and have continued to work in my field of choice and am now 40 and getting paid very well. So, I have decided to learn to fly and next week I take my first solo. Hopefully, I'll get my PPL by the end of the year. Whether I'll do anything with it other than recreation I don't know but the fact is, I couldn't have afforded to do it when I was 20 when it would have lead me to a career. There are benefits to being older. You are more focussed. I remember older students when I did my first degree who seemed to work way harder than I did. When I did my PhD though I found that I had learned a work ethic which I didn't have during my first degree.
So, what am I saying? If you want to do it, do it. To hell with people say you should and shouldn't do because of your age. Heck, 30 is nothing in an age when people are living longer and productive lives. OK, so I'm 40 but at this point in time it is looking like I might have another 30 years of working in front of me, maybe more. You just don't know. If you want to do something new and can get the qualification, do it and stuff conventional thinking.
I don't know where the fallacy that kids are great at technology and old people aren't comes from. I am constantly preseneted with kids who supposedly know computers who help my mum with her PC and screw it up and I have to fix it (she's getting a Mac next I swear). These kids can't program and know very little beyond Windows and yet are treated like they have some sort of fantastic talent. Sheesh. I think the difference is that the young are more willing to try new stuff so if you keep that same attitude, whatever your age you will still act and feel young.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
In ten years, you'll be 40. When you look back, what you did for a living may not be as big a deal as you think. Your relationship(s) may be a bigger solace.
If your parents are still living, see them at least once a year for the next 10 years.
After 28, you can't rely on your metabolism to keep you in shape. If you don't already have one, pick a physical activity you won't get bored with, preferably something not too dangerous.
Do you play any instruments? If you start practicing now, you should be able to play by the time you're 40, and even better by the time you're 50.
Sometimes the best job is one that lots of people aren't after. Yes there are lots of jobs for coders, but there is lots of supply too.
If you don't keep a journal, start. Some things in life are cyclic, and you won't notice them unless you can review what happened in past years.
I've done computer support work for about 10 years and web design for the past 2 years. I'm 31 now and I just decided to enroll in school for software engineering. I had some credits from previous college experience, so I'm a sophomore. I'm going with an online college (CTUonline.edu) because of the convenience and acceleration that it offers. I'll graduate in early 2008. So far things are going very well. I have a 4.0 GPA right now and I plan on keeping it. Do I consider myself too old to change gears? heh...hell no. Not even close. I realize that it is easy to be fearful about things like this, but you can always count on the fact that there are intelligent business people out there (I swear) who can make good decisions about hiring people. I've found that at least half of the people in my classes are older...some of them are in their 40's and even 50's. There are a few that already know how to program, but they just want to get that paper that says so. It's also probably a life goal for them, something they want to accomplish. Some are moving into programming for the first time...in their 40's. This doesn't mean that they will automatically get a job upon graduation. However, if an employer sees someone who has lots of job experience (and life experience) and is a good programmer, and graduated with a high GPA, that might turn a few heads. In fact, that person may even be considered extra valuable due to their mix of experience and work ethic. At 40, they have at least another 20 years of hard work in them (and possibly more). 20 years is a lot of time. Why wouldn't a company hire a programmer while knowing they can put in a good 15+ years? Most workers tend to change jobs after just a few years anyway. Someone in their 40+ will be very loyal and dependable. I feel like I'm in the perfect position. I have a good amount of business and work experience behind me and I'm sure of what I want to accomplish now. I happen to have as much fiery energy as any 20-something year old techie that I've ever met, and my creativity and desire for challenge is very high. I now have a polished work ethic, and I'm VERY motivated now, which is different than a lot of 20-somethings that I have worked with in the past. I will graduate after just turning 33, and I don't see how most 20-something graduates would have any advantage over me. That is, of course, in theory. People see things differently, and I can't jump to too many conclusions about how employers might assess someone like me as a potential employee. But I have more reasons to be confident than I have reasons to be concerned. Remember, most people in business are "older", as in over 30. 20-somethings are in the minority in business. Obviously business owners are hiring people who are 30+ years old. I'll tell you another quick story that changed my mind about college. When I was 28, I worked a temp job doing tests on medical equipment. A guy from some company in San Diego hired us for 2 weeks and trained us to run the tests. I did a very good job and he offered me a job interview with his company in San Diego. I was surprised by the offer, and very interested. Then he asked me about my degree. I told him I didn't have one. That was when he gave me the long story about how he worked as an electrician for 10+ years and then decided to get his degree in Electrical Engineering at age 30. He said that, even though his 10+ years as an electrician didn't really do much for his resume, going to school and changing careers was the best decision that he ever made and he would do it again in a heartbeat. I think he was in his early 40's when we had that conversaion. He was doing very well working for a medical equipment manufacturer in San Diego, where everything is expensive. That was 2-3 years ago...and now I happen to be following the same path that he did (except I'm doing software engineering). Hope that helps.
At 30 I still had not really chosen my career - had played with electronics and even computers from pre-teens to university - but took 10+ years "walkabout" (New Zealand, Australia, and back to Canada) at many different jobs to decide that the computer industry was my wide focus. As for a narrow focus - sorry, can't say I've had one - except maybe the Internet - but that was kind of a timely thing. What I've learned is that if I'm doing things I enjoy, it really doesn't matter what they are - I'm where I want to be. Doesn't matter if it is particularly profitable - just that I enjoy it. Today I enjoy putting cameras up close to eagles - maybe next year it will be something else.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
"I just turned 33 today. Way to remind me that I am old. :P"
Jesus died when he was 33... I'm just saying.
I'm just about to take early retirement (55).
Sometime in the next two weeks I'll be enrolling in a DipEd (one year full time) so that I can start teaching at high school level after a lot of time working (mostly as) a chemist.
If I can do it so can you.
Dunno about you young people.
When I was your age we had to walk 10 miles to go to school - uphill - after the early shift at the salt mines, then walk 15 miles - uphill again - to go home to eat last week's leftovers before 2 minutes' sleep before getting up before midnight for the paper round before the salt mine - and not all of us had the luxury of a home, I shared a hole in the road covered with a groundsheet with 18 others... but why am I wasting electrons, you youngsters just won't believe a word of it...
Just do it.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
My mom got a CS degree in her mid 40's, and found a good job soon after.
Just get a job. I've got a degree from a prestigious European artschool (painting + photography), and I'm working as a full time programmer. However, I'd also been programming as a hobby since I was twelve, so.. if you're in a similar situation, just get a job and do your tuition on the way - from the web. It'll save you money (make you money, in fact), and you've already proven your creativity, so there shouldn't be a problem. One note for creative people, though: don't get started in a really big company. It's likely to give you such a bad impression that you might not want to try it again. Big companies are bad news for really creative people - start small.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
I'm a 31-year-old student and finishing up in 12-18 months at the rate I'm going.
I'll mirror what most other folks here have said, namely that you're not too old for college or to enter one of many CS-type careers and that you should go for it. I will make one small detour from the norm, however, and suggest you might want to make a small adjustment to your major--and not for the reasons you may suspect.
The only CSUs that appear to have actual SoftE programs are San Jose State and CSU Fullerton. Since the Fullerton program is a Master's-only program, I'll assume that you're probably looking at SJSU.
And I just happen to be an SJSU student.
While the SJSU SoftE program is terrific, there are a LOT of very specific courses in the program. It is simply not well laid-out for folks looking to transfer in from other schools (or for those looking for a second bachelor's) IMHO. When I transferred over, I initially applied for SoftE, but changed my mind once I worked it out on a spreadsheet. It turned out that, even though I had previously earned an Associate's in Engineering (and therefore had taken a bunch of engineering classes), SoftE was 9 credit hours (or about 1.5 part-time semesters) more than plain old CS. The problem is that SoftE in particular is a fairly inflexible program with a lot of boxes to check off.
Then again, SJSU has one of the best CompE programs anywhere, and many of the SoftE classes correspond directly with CS classes, especially at the start (so you can change your mind later if you want).
The moral of the story (regardless of where you go) is that you should scour your requirements and see what will suit you best. For someone who's coming in as a freshman, it probably doesn't matter too much, but it's huge for a returning/transferring/second bachelor's student.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
JM Keynes (economist) said it first.
I'd say a career change is certainly possible and not such a big deal, but I don't think you should go to college for a second time.
The most important things you get from college (some maturity, the ability to digest hard books on your own, to finish a large project) are things you hopefully already have after the first time. College is good, but it's not the most efficient way to get specific knowledge on a subject; if your first degree was decent, it'd be a waste of time.
So learn to program, get into the habit of reading hard books on software regularly, and go find a job in the field. Added plus is that you'll find out a bit sooner whether you actually like the new direction.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
A lord asked Takuan, a Zen Teacher, to suggest how he might pass the time. He felt his days very long attending his office & sitting stiffly to receive the homage of others.
Takuan wrote eight Chinese characters & gave them to the man:
Not twice this day
Inch time foot gem.
(This day will not come again; each minute is worth a priceless gem)
My mother decided she wanted to be a doctor in her mid 30's and got into NYU when she was maybe 38? She did fine, and became a great doctor. Before that she worked as a lab tech for a few years. Before that she was a waitress. A lot of my friends in college were "returning students" in their 30's getting CS degrees and went on to do good stuff. I've never personally witnessed anybody being "too old" to pull it off.
I'm approaching my 53rd Birthday at the end of the month. I know I write far better code now than I did when I was 43, 33 or even 23. (I started writting code in 1972)
Now, my code is far more Right First Time than not. I spend less time debugging than I did before by a long way.
As you get older the experiences you accumulate help do the job better if you take the time to keep on learning and imporantly, learn by your mistakes.
Don't be afraid to tear up your design and start again if it is going nowhere.
I started out using Fortran, Cobol & Basic.
Now I program in Java, C# and SQL
I'm far more producting today with the tools available now than even 10 years ago.
I went to college at 38 while making a major career change into IT. And this was mostly to get credits for what I had already taught myself. Now as a silver back I am a very well paid SW architect.
The short answer is that you will be as successful in a career change to the extent of your motivation, natural talent, and some amount of luck. Choose an evolving area of interest and stay current, aggressively so. I got to where I am by being a generalist - knowing and doing a little something with everything in computers from building boards with wirewrap, designing and wiring networks,to hacking in a couple dozen langauges from 8080/Z80 ASM to mainframe COBOL. Some of my peers are specialists and are just as successful. That is the luck part.
So pick something you really like and attack it like a tasmanian devil.
Too lazy to create a sig...
I left school at 16 with a fistfull of exams at not particularly stunning grades and started working in a bank. At 18 I got my first computer (atari 400 :-) ) and learned to program and everything about what made it tick. By 25 it was clear I didn't get on with banking so I asked if I could move in to IT which I did although initially it was just logging tapes in and out. I'm now 42 and have used VMS, various Unix (including scripting, sed/awk etc), raw x-windows coding, Windows/DOS, C, VB/VBA, C#, asp, html and a whole bunch of odd stuff. I've done analysis, design, build, test, debugging, documentation, warranty, support, training, writing for various magazines, beta testing for games companies, building/fixing hardware and God knows what else.
IT is a constant learning process so age has its uses although I do feel my ability to work long hours has diminished, both physically and as a result of marriage/kids. Age does have a bearing on some aspects, if a company wants someone who can cut code fast and late at night, they want youngsters. When they want something a bit bigger/more complex that requires experience, they go for the older types.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I'm looking at doing something similar. Ditching IT (there are no good IT jobs in the UK any more it seems) and learning a language, moving overseas etc. I hope to spend a year full time studying the language.
For me, there are two issues: cost and employability. Cost, well I'll just have to save up. Employability... I'll be 29-30 with two years work experience in my entire life (was unemployed for 2.5 years after finishing my degree in CS). That could be an issue, especially if looking to work overseas. But, there isn't much I can do about it really, so I'm just going to try it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I have every sympathy for the guy - I feel he has every reason to pursue his goal, and that your comments (while clearly an honest attempt to inject some sobriety) may be a little too discouraging.
I say I have every sympathy because I'm in the exact same position, save that I'm in my mid-twenties. I coasted through school, college, uni just doing what seemed easiest because, basically, I was very intelligent and immature, and just wanted my adolescence to continue indefinitely.
It's only over the last couple of years that I've started to wake up and realise how important it is for me to pursue a career that interests me if I'm going to have a fulfilling work-life. I have comparable experiences to this man, a similar level of enthusiasm and understanding (very broad, but not very deep), and I also have enough experience of coding to lose any romanticism I might have once held about it - but I still find it deeply intriguing and attractive! Ask yourself: why did you get into programming? Was it a big misguided mistake? Are you so jaded by it that you regret your career choice now? Of course not. I appreciate that you don't want to see this guys hopes worn down by a career which is often falsely portrayed, but you must admit you're still passionate about your work, yes?
Although you may not realise it, your attitude is somewhat elitist - you suggest that someone who's only dabbled in the field does not truly understand things, and is clearly not motivated enough to make a good go of it. ("Like those people who suddenly shave their heads and say they've always been into punk" - High Fidelity)
Be fair. People do change, and as long as he's kept his mind supple and receptive through continued learning and mental activity, he shouldn't find it too much of a struggle to pick these things up. Speaking as someone who's recently started a part-time CompSci degree, I can say that it's your motivation and attitude that makes all the difference.
Ability is nothing without character. If he really wants this career, and has the discipline to clear all the hurdles, he should find that his experience of life and zeal for the subject will see him in good stead when he enters the workplace.
Still, you do make valid points. I just wouldn't want them to discourage him if he's serious.
Meta will eat itself
I always remember a careers evening I went to with my father 16 years ago. The careers adviser stood at the front of a large hall and asked all the parents "How many of you are still doing the same job that you did when you left school?". Out of 200 parents only a small handful of them raised their hands.
I left school at 16, took an engineering apprenticeship and slaved away at that for another 8 years. When redundancy called at the age of 25 I decided a change was needed. Many people told me that my 4-year apprenticeship would be wasted if I left the industry; I ignored them.
I too have always been interested in computer and suchlike. I had some HTML knowledge under my belt. I also had some knowledge of the core MS Office applications. An office life for me this time!
Once in a low-skilled role I learnt some Javascript to complement my HTML. I spoke to people and they said "learn how to store and retrieve data from databases and you're laughing" so I did. My manager learned of my new skills and asked me to build a few simple business applications. "What about VBA?" he said. "No" I said. He then sent me on some courses to learn that.
These days I write small browser based applications that help the business no end, crappy Excel spreadsheets, crappy Access databases - someone's got to do it. If I had the motivation to learn more then I could progress more.
I am 32 and I have another 38 years left of my working life.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
17.
Of course, I live in New Jersey (AoC is 16).
Though my warranty has definetly expired somewhat. Still somewhat sharp if by sharp you mean beating an entire research team in inventing a new algorithm though they may try to patent it anyway as their idea (you can do that since the uspto will approve almost anything you apply for). The big problem is not that you are less creative but that you are perceived as being less creative. So expect more menial jobs with less opportunities for creativity.
Not unless you let yourself fool you into thinking so - Me myself I'm 35, my classmates are 20-25 with one exception that's 41 - We were 13 students at the beginning now with 3 semesters to go there are 6 left. And those dropping out, let me put it this way it wasn't the older people ;o)
My interest and experience have carried me very far and I've been able to use it during my studies.
In 1 year and 3 months hopefully I'll be able to call myself an advanced computer studies graduate.
The thing is - That if you have a dream, follow it, don't let anyone stop you.
GO it's the most important thing you can do in your life. My mom went back to school, and ended up graduating when I was 13 and she was in her mid 30's. She had "a degree" before but nothing that could give her the earning potential our family really needed. So she want back to school and thank god she did. When I was in school, the were plenty of almost 30 undergrads in the CS and IT courses. GO GO GO! IT'S NEVER TOO LATE.
Good luck.
Disclaimer: I am from the UK so this may not apply. I also decided to skip university myself so I may be biased.
However with several years playing with hardware and software and a natural aptitude for IT you should be most of the way there. Get a book or go to an evening class to learn enough SQL and your preferred programming language to write something simple like a shopping basket. Then you should be able to get a job that can match a 'mundane college job' wage and learn the rest as you go.
IT moves so fast that you always have to learn on the job anyway, ability to learn new stuff outweighs the value of the stuff you have already learnt. Your degree shows you can learn, and stick at something, not many people will care it is not in CS if you can show you could do the job.
Some time ago I took an evening extension with graduate credit at a Big 10 in Norwegian painting from 1750 through Munch. (And who wouldn't?) One evening the professor came in and with some exasperation in his voice said, "I've got to tell you a story. I haven't been distinguishing between the evening class and the day class. I just put all your papers in a pile and grade them together. Today, a self-appointed committee of my graduate students came into my office and complained that I wasn't being fair. The evening students were raising the curve and hurting their record. They said the evening students were just there because they were interested in the subject and we are here to train for a career! And I said, 'Yes, I can see that there is a problem. And if any of you come into my office and bring this up again, you will be in trouble with me.'"
The moral? Don't knock maturity. Don't knock motivation. You can probably build a better relationship with your professors and forge better contacts for internships and jobs.
Companies my use your age to your advantage especially smaller companies where your job needs to deal with people. It is not about technology if you have a Tech Degree they expect a level of competence in technology. But what a lot of companies need are people who can deal with other people. (A lot people on Slashdot are either to young to realize this, or are to Anal about their lives to allow themselves to grow socially). Tech workers who can't deal with people well are often the ones that are made to work long hours and treat them more as laborers. The ones who are more sociable are treated more like humans (because they act more human). Being coming into the field late it shows that you have some experience in other areas of life and you can use this to your advantage. I really don't see a place where your age will work against you. Heck I am waiting for Gray Hair myself so clients are willing to pay more for my work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A lot of people did it during the first high-tech bubble, survived its burst and still working successfully. The only drawback is, that you salary is based on your current proffesion expirience, so if you enetring the tech job market in your 30's prepare to be paid as much as a fresh worker out of college/universety. Severe career changes in the later age (up to 50's) is a common place in tech job market both to and out of it. I know several engeneers and scientists who switched to software development in their 50's, and some person without tech education in their 40's (but latter are not so good).
While it has been my experience that a degree is helpful, it doesn't matter much what that degree is in. What you've done is sometimes more important. First, figure out what you want to do, system admin, web programming, application development, etc... Once you narrow that down, pick a specialty. If you go the system admin route choose Windows, Linux, OS X, etc... if you go the web programming route, choose php, perl, python, etc... see where I'm going with this? Choose something that interests you and get a few books on the topic. Learn as much as you can and code as much as you can. Not suprisingly, I've found the best way to learn to code is to code. You'll make mistakes but hopefully you'll learn from them. There are also a lot of good web forums out there with a lot of helpful people.
Read other peoples code. It may sound boring but I've picked up a lot of neat little tricks going through other people's code. This is one area that makes open source invaluable, just pick an open source project, download the source and see how it works. Even if you don't start something yourself, contributing to an open source project is a great way to both give back to the community and gain some experience. Let the project maintainers know you're a noobie looking for experience and hopefully they'll help you out. If not, look for another project that is willing to help you.
Uh huh. So what does your post have to do with the post that I replied to? Let alone my point in itself?
But at the end of the day, if it's something you love doing, DO IT! Don't poke around with 10 more years of college. If college has drilled anything into your brain, it should be, "Never stop learning!" After all, college is just a resource that provides the materials and contacts you need. To actually get anything useful out of it, you should be pulling the information yourself! And with such a wealth of awesome written information on Computer Science, how could you not be learning if it's what you're interested in?
I have to disagree with that. Getting a degree always helps. A degree will help you get into the final select group of 10 or so people that eventually get past the 'evil director of human resources' and are invited to an interview. If you are only self educated and experienced you stand less of a chance of getting into that group each time you apply than if you have a B.Sc. degree and experience, if you have an M.Sc. degree and experience your chances of getting an interview increase even more. Degrees are frowned upon by a lot of people, I have even been told they are pretty worthless, but degrees and other academic credentials one of the key methods used by many human resources people to sort out the interview candidates form the ones whose application gets dumped in the paper shredder. To many PHB's a degree still represents a certain baseline guarantee that you are able to perform the function you claim to be qualified for. After you are hired you can still turn out to be a bad bet because you are lazy and stupid but a degree will still make that less likely since you don't make it through 4-6 years of University if you are lazy and stupid. The same pretty much goes for certificates. A PHB will, for example, prefer a person with an MCSE degree for a Windows sysadmin job over somebody who has no qualification other than his experience and a person with a computer related degree and an MCSE over the guy who just has the certificate. As for being to old I don't really think that is the case. I graduated as an engineer at 26 years old and 30 is no death-warrant as far as I am concerned. My advice to the guy who asked the original question is to go ahead and get his second degree. If he is enterprising and ambitious the fact that he is a little older than the other Junior programmers will not matter all that much if he proves he is able and industrious. Just expect to have to put up with some pretty shitty jobs for the first few years. I do agree with you on one thing: "...Never stop learning!...". To to stay on top of developments in the industry you have to stay current by sacrificing some of your spare time to muck around with Linux or Windows programming, for example, to gain experience with stuff you don't get to gather experience with at work.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I am in a similar, and yet worse, situation than the submitter of this Ask Slashdot. While he has already obtained one undergraduate degree and is considering another, I am still working on my first. I will thankfully be graduating at the end of this October, but I will then be turning 30 two weeks later.
First off, I would argue that you're never too old to go back to school. I too thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do straight out of high school and went to a prestigious school in Florida to do just what I thought I'd be doing. Long story short, I ended up back in the city I grew up in, and began working full-time for a technology related company as a customer service rep. I was at the bottom of the corporate ladder. I began working my way up, and on the way up I decided it was finally time to get that undergrad degree. I went back to school, and spent 5 years doing school part-time, in the evenings to get my Computer Engineering Technology degree. Now I'm considering pursuing a Master's in Statistics after I graduate, which leads me to my second point:
Secondly, consider the possibility of obtaining a Master's degree. Certain master's programs will allow you to "make up" some of the courses you would need to get a Master's in a field that is wholly unlike your undergrad experience, BUT this would give you more specialized, more informative information on technology than a simple undergrad in Comp Sci or Eng. will be able to do. Plus, since you're already working at a college, you could probably take classes there or at a nearby college for potentially much less than any of us in the "real world" could.
All this babbling of mine is to merely show you that indeed, you're not too old yet. I'm even further behind than you as far as educational achievements, but I'm doing it, and I am glad that I have stuck it out this long to do it. (I wouldn't be able to consider going on to get a Master's if I hadn't!) Go for it, dude!
Yeah, I'm 34 and plotting a course that will get me to PhD by 41. What got me started on that is that I've got 30+ years of work before I can retire. Of course, I started one career (programming) right out of college and have 12 years of experience at it (15 to 19 when I get my PhD - I'll still work for some overlap). I'm looking at it as even at 41, I have a good 20+ years working *AFTER* that. In 20 years, you can make a pretty good career out of something, you'll have 30+ years.
I say go for it.
Layne
Nearly 30? A child. You shouldn't even be asking the question. Especially if there's something you enjoy that you might be able to make money doing. Most folks aren't that fortunate.
Good luck!
can get a job at any age. That whole "talented" thing is the key. You will need to have demonstrable ability at some level. However, 30 isn't too old to move into the software business. But you will probably need to figure out right away what kind of programming and programming language you are most interested in. In my experience, companies look for programmers who specialize in a specific language and can tie it in to other languages...Like a Java programmer who can tie things back to C++. Or C++ programmers who can tie back to assembler.
Sounds like you and I got switched at birth (or something). Without much soul-searching, I got a comp sci degree after high school, but got bored with just bits and gigabytes, so I went to art school part-time and graduated with a second bachelor's degree in illustration/digital media at the ripe age of 39. Kind of blows to hell any chance of ever being the next "hot young talent", eh?
I won't shine sunshine up your skirt. There are people who'll look at your late-20s razor stubble and the hint of creases in your skin, and especially the resume that says "art school" and "film" on it, and figure that you're a flake who couldn't make it in Hollywood, and who's trying to get into "high tech" because the folks at the unemployment office keep telling him that's where the jobs are. There are probably potential employers who'd take your creative background as an advantage to them, but for others you might have to spin it as a youthful indiscretion, with your new career in technology being a mature and responsible choice where your ability to think outside the box can be put to productive use instead of wasted on silly little movies... etc.
If you're debating whether to go back to school now, consider: Which would you rather be in four years: a 29-year-old programming newbie trying to get a good entry-level job despite his age, or a 29-year-old art school grad with a dead-end job, wondering whether he should go back to school and worrying about the prospects of getting a good entry-level job at the age of 33?
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Ok, apply the over-used and ill-understood "drill-down" metaphor that business types seem to love so completely ---
Where are your deep pockets of knowledge? Which of them are clustered? You have one or more pockets in film/directing areas. You have a shallow pocket in HTML. What other pockets of knowledge would you need to create in order to interpolate between these? Is there an interest in trying to find small time directors for whom you could "direct" the web presence of their project. I am suggesting you create an inventory of what you know (which is probably more than you think) and see if there are ways to connect them. Pursue the connections adding competencies as necessary. If you go back to school try to tailor class projects away from what you know -- as this expands your space.
since I'm used to seeing carpe diem. As in seize the momentum that you've built up.
did not read article / skimmed post...
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.
I'm about 26, I'm sure not too old, but I've been doing software engineering for the last nine years (believe it or not) and I'm about burnt. My (counter) question is what's the lifecycle of a software engineer?
Actually if that was the first thing you think of when someone asks how old is too old, you're too old.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
almost 30 /gasp!/ do you have your AARP card yet?
dude, I didn't get my PhD till I was 33. I left the academic game behind at 37 and started my career as a software engineer. No I don't have a degree in 'software engineering' (not there's anything wrong with that), but I did have lots of programming experience, in lots of different environments.
Do what you really like, do it well, be honest about your strengths and weaknesses. You've got at least 30 good years of employment ahead, make it work for you.
Remember that you've already got experience in the Engineeering industry.... how many people there did you meet who were also CS people and could write enhancements to the software they used on the job???
Build on what you know. Go to school get a CS degree and find out how you can focus on Engineering related CS ASAP... there is a lot of demand for CS people who also know a particular industry from real life experience. You'll be able to talk with your bosses about their problems from a place of knowledge and will be better prepared to write the kind of software they are looking for than someone without your experience.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I got my first programming job when I was about 21, with a small company that didn't really want me to finish community college. 11 years later, I thought that maybe I was tired of programming, so I finally got my degree in mechanical engineering... just in time for a big slump in the engineering field.
However, since I had the magic piece of paper, I was able to get a temporary programming job at a manufacturing company that wanted someone familiar with 3-D geometry, and I still remembered enough of my calculus to satisfy them. So I was back in programming.
Looking back on it, my age and small-company experience helped - I had more work experience than Danny Newbie just out of college, and was willing to be paid the same (it was nearly half again what I had been making!). And after that, I was back to being a programmer - just a better-paid and better-treated one.
Since then, I've come to the conclusion that I probably would've made a competent engineer - but I'm a happier programmer.
To quote Arthur C. Clarke, "There may be a moral here. For the life of me I can't figure out what it is."
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
Seriously. A 22-year-old coming out of college isn't as desirable as a 30-year-old with the same degree; the 30-year-old is more mature and clearly has the work ethic to have gone through school at a later age.
Actually, your age may play to your advantage. Most people I know would rather hire a 30-year-old straight out of college than a 22-year-old. The older candidate would have a more solid work history, would have developed a good work ethic (espeicially since they probably put themselves through college), and is more likely to have relevant experience. You might find yourself a little bit behind those who graduate early financially; so what if the kid six years younger than you makes the same money? You probably won't be retiring until you're close to 70, there's plenty of time to make your money.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
I'm learning c/c++ at the advanced age of 31...
pointers are giving me sleepless nights, but I'll get it sooner or later.
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
If you think you're too old to do it, then you are. Otherwise, go for it.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
Men commonly change careers at age 30. I switched from consumer lending to computing at 31 and have had a very successful career. Find a job that you enjoy, life is way too short.
There was a guy in university department a few classes below me that had been working for years as ... either a doctor or a dentist I believe ... some fairly well respected professional degree. At any rate, he developed an quite a bad allergy to some of the materials he had to use fairly often (latex I believe, but I can't really remember). At any rate, instead of changing his specialty he basically just took it as a sign to move on and he came back to school for an computer engineering degree. He's one of the best students in the class and he's just BREEZING through the degree while other people are stuggling. There's a lot to be said for even fairly unrelated experience and a bit of age. Not only that, but all the prof's know and completely respect the guy. It's not easy to go back to school after working for a while, and it shows a real dedication to what you what you want to do.
Meanwhile, 30 is nothing. My eventual plan is to go into academia. I came back for grad school in engineering and by the time I put in the industry time to finish my licence requirements, finish the master's the phd and the postdoc, I'll be lucky if I'm 35 by the time I even start my career.
...no two people are not on fire.
Why do you think you wouldn't be entering the job market until 30?
Just because you won't have your degree until then, doesn't mean you can't get some sort of a job. I worked part time all through college as an undergraduate while school was in session, and full time during the summers. By the time I had my degree, I already had years of experience as a professional programmer. You can do the same.
Even if you have a hard time finding a regular paying job, there are plenty of good causes you can donate your time to, which will allow you to learn on the job and gain valuable experience. This will make you much more marketable in the future.
Getting a second degree will take a very long time, and won't actually buy you anything. Most companies want someone who (1) knows what they will be doing; and (2) has graduated college. If you've graduated college once, you fulfill the second requirement; if you take classes in your topic, you fulfill the first requirement. Getting a second degree may require that you take a lot more credits for general education and to fill out to 120 credits, which will waste your time and will not impress your future employers. If you are going to get any degree, a master's is much more likely to be useful than a second bachelor's; many programs will let you get a master's in a field unrelated to your bachelor's so long as you do the undergrad prereqs.
But don't believe me! Or anyone on slashdot. Go talk to a recruiter, or someone who works for HR in a company. Get a second opinion, and maybe a third. Ye gods, man, you're planning the rest of your life! Spending a little time to get professional advice has got to be worthwhile, and will probably be free.
- Morty
"Your only as young as the women you feel."
you need to give up and make way for the fresh young folks. Face it, you are undereducated, incompetent, incapable of making a decent decision. Why would anyone want to hire you!?. You should give blood and perhaps sell your organs on Ebay. You are a few short years away from being some young, capable citizen's Soylent Green.
Come on! you need to change your belief about what it means to be old (and useful)
"Old" is not measured in *years on the planet*
Old is measured in your personal belief of your capability to contribute.
- Some companies, generally big ones, will rule you out. Cynicism aside ("all companies are evil"), they, or rather the HR departments, use age as a shorthand for value, even though it's illegal. At 30 you'll be in the sweet spot for many of them, but without the necessary experience. Conclusion: most large companies will probably not be right for you (though exceptions exist, but they are few).
- When I hire, I look for people with drive and the ability to control their lives. E.g. completing a degree is not crucial (some of the best never did) but shows that you can complete a long task. If you go back to school, especially after a hiatus, it shows either that you don't know what you want to do when you grow up and are aimless, or that you know how to pick yourself up and take control over your life. I don't expect 20 year olds to have that kind of understanding; hence doing it at 24 is actually a positive sign to me.
- As another poster said: make sure you will be doing what you want and that you're not going back to school as a tool for decision avoidance (see previous point!). Try some somple programming out -- get a book, poke at your computer, take a short course at the local community college (need not go on your resume if you don't want). javascript, surprisingly, is a good introductory interactive tool since you can just press reload in your browser to see what happened.
Finally: from your post, you might find being a sysadmin fun. That's good because with a small amount of skill you can get a simple sysadmin job, even if it's just flipping backup tapes or babysitting servers at night. Once you're in the job you can go to school at night and you can also work your way up -- the "age thing" won't matter anyway. And the best sysadmins are programmers, but the vast majority are not, so again you can slide in and decide how much you want to have. Oh yeah: to contradict myself: these super-entry-level sysadmin jobs only exist at big companies, and are the kind they are least likely to worry about age at. Though again, they might worry about pointless certifications.Anyway: seize the moment and go for it. The longer you dither the longer you will answer the question by default.
My position is similar. I have a degree in Audio Production and no formal training in computers, electronics or the like. My career is as a technologist supporting the Audio Post industry. People in specific fields are always looking for technically inclined individuals who understand the industry in which they work. If you are good at the technical things and troubleshooting, and you understand the film industry, see if you can get a job as an apprentice engineer at a studio somewhere. It will combine both the technology you love with the field you have studied.
But going to University to get a Math degree in addition to my 'Computer Programmer' college diploma.
My wife works with a lot of physicians, and it's scary how many don't keep up with the latest developments. Sadly, the pharmaceutical industry is kept up-to-date much better than your average physician who has been out of school for a few years.
Please don't consider yourself finished with training!
Seriously, dead is about the only real stopping point. I like to use the logic of following a recipe. If you can learn new recipies, then you are learning new logical flows and new structures to obtain a new result. If you can do that, then you can learn new logical flows and new structures in any field that your mind is suited for to obtain a new result. In the end, learning is learning, application is application. If you can do both, you can do both.
I limit the above to what your mind is suited for for a reason. Not everyone has a mind that handles abstracts well. Not everyone has a mind that can produce chains of logical deductions at the drop of a hat. Not everyone has a hat. This does not mean such people are incapable of doing what is difficult for them. People overcome such difficulties all the time, although it takes effort. Sometimes, however, it does take more effort than can be put in and then it really is impossible for that person. The only case that can be proved as learnable at any time is the effortless case, because then you can provably always put in more effort than needed.
There is a sort-of exception - transferrable skills. Where a skill is valid in multiple fields, you do not need to learn it again if switching between those fields. In some cases, two fields that are distinguished by society are, at a more fundamental level, the same. By understanding one such field and the mappings between that and what you wish to switch to, you automatically know the target field - at least to the degree that they overlap. You can, in the extreme case of having 100% overlap, switch freely between ALL fields that overlap in such a way, even if you have not formally learned the others.
(Mathematically speaking, this is saying that if set A maps onto set B in a 1:1 relationship, AND that you know both set A and the mapping function, you can derive set B. You do not need to be told it as a distinct thing.)
Switching to a new subject that (a) fits in your mind, given the way your particular brain is laid out, and (b) has enough overlap that you can transfer skills and knowledge, will always be something a person can do. It's often worth doing, in fact, to keep the mind flexible and alert. A lot of modern research suggests that a bored brain is far more likely to deteriorate than an active one.
Switching to a new subject that (a) your brain is ill-suited to, and (b) has no connection with anything you've already done, learned, discovered or practiced, will always be extremely hard and tiring, and may be too hard and too tiring to be achieved.
Those with a strong breadth of knowledge (eg: classical education) are more likely to be able to transfer skills than those with a strong specialist knowledge. Generalists (people who know a fair amount about a lot of things) may not be able to always do as much, but will have a far better selection of skills they can choose from to transfer over. Specialists (people who know everything about nothing) will have very few transferrable skills and no real idea on how to transfer those things that could be.
There is an ideal point, however. Overgeneralizing means a person knows next to nothing about absolutely everything, which is absolutely useless.
As a person gets older, their mind is not so maleable. It's harder to learn new things. If many of your skills transfer, that's not a problem, as you never need to learn anything new, you merely apply what you already know in new ways, which is a whole different thing. This means generalists are valuable for their entire life, as they can set their mind to anything. However, they probably won't discover anything new, or do anything radical, as they won't have the in-depth perceptions necessary to gain the insights required for revolutionary thinking. As such, generalizing can be very boring.
Specialists focus on a much narrower range of things, have far greater insights,
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
People who have nothing, or are working dead-end jobs have nothing to lose when they make a career change. What about people with sucessful, at least on a financial level, careers? I have always thought that America is famous for "Rags to Riches" because you can afford to lose alot of rags before you get that lucky break and make the riches.
It is harder for people who are married, gainfully employed, have children, mortgages to just change direction. You often hear people say, "Work is called work for a reason. Find something else that makes you happy, and use the money from work to pursue that."
Sometimes a career change is the best thing for someone. Sometimes what you are looking for will not be found in any job or career. I guess each person needs to decide how much they are willing to sacrafice for a chance at something better.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Yeah, too old. Curl up and die.
One of my great grandfathers was originally a music teacher. His parents paid for all of his siblings to go to medical school, and they eventually become doctors. When he asked if they would pay for him, he was told it was too late. His wife (my great grandmother) told him not to worry and that she would help him. So he started medical school at age 40, while she looked for ways to save money. She would go to grocers and ask for any vegetables they were throwing out so that she could feed her pet, and then they would eat that for dinner. They would eat bowls of rice near restaurants, and pretend the good food they smelled was part of their meal. Their daughter (grandma) would get picked on at school because her box lunches looked the worst. It was hard times, but they survived and he eventually became a doctor in his 50s. They also survived a nuclear blast, invested in real estate that everyone thought would be irradiated for centuries, and became quite wealthy.
So if you really want to do something, just go and do it, because it's really only a state of mind.
... as all the SW development jobs will be done in India eventually. I wouldn't recommend anyone enter this field at this point. If you enjoy programming, do it as a hobby, not as a career. Otherwise 5 years from now you'll be going back to college to retool.
It seems that, in these cases, the true difference between a Bachelor's academic program and a Master's is that the Master's is geared towards people who have any degree, even film. It's more a matter of motivation; Bachelor's is for people who are there because they are supposed to be; Master's is for people who want to be there.
No, I will not work for your startup
If you think you are too old, then you are.
I'm turning 53 in month. Still program everyday.
It is *much* harder for me to learn something entirely new now than it was 25 years ago. But then you just work at it harder.
The real key is keep learning and keep your brain young.
Now get off my damn lawn you punk!
I'm just sayin', even on /. I don't think he get's enough press.
"You can't take three from two, two is less than three so you look at the four in the eights place..."
I have just spent the last 2 years fulfilling the pre-reqs for medical school. I will take the MCAT a week from tomorrow and will enter medical school in the fall of 2007. I will graduate in 2011 and enter a residency - hopefully surgery, which lasts 5 more years. I will finish my residency about the same time my oldest child finishes his first year of college. I will be 44. If you don't follow your dreams, in ten years you will simply be 10 years older. If you do what will make you happy, in 10 years you will be 10 years older, but you will also have been a lot happier for those 10 years. Like someone already said in this thread, the only too-old there is, is dead.
There's just way too much to go into here, but I'm going to have to disagree on most of this having graduated from a good CS program.
Practical knowledge is exactly the kind of thing that you can learn without school, but theoretical knowledge is the structure to hang it on. Instead of learning C or Java or whatever, my college taught language and library independent concepts that can be transferred to picking up any new language or library. Give me two weeks of study, and I'll probably program circles around any trade-school or self-taught programmer. I know that I was looking at most of my self-taught code from high school with shock and dismay after only a year of college.
Next, where is one supposed to learn about solid software construction and tight coding? Not in any real-world company, I've worked in, that's for sure! Most real-world code is horribly designed and sloppy by the standard you learn in college. In fact, a lot of practical experience is learning how to improve poorly designed code without making it collapse on itself due to all the hacks to meet deadlines that make maintainability difficult. In addition, I've unfortunately never seen someone fired for not commenting their code at work, but I have seen people failed for it in college.
As for Big O, while optimization is the last thing you usually need to concern yourself with, a lack of understanding of algorithmic complexity leads to incredibly poor designs. I've even made simple mistakes in this when having to rush to implement a project without sitting down and designing it properly first when just trying to "get it to work." I ended up with a tool that would've taken a month to run but that I was able to redesign to work overnight after profiling what I'd done. Someone without training wouldn't have realized the boneheaded error that I'm ashamed to have to admit that I'd made. (I was doing something in O(n^2) time using arrays that could've been done in O(ln n) time by using hash tables.)
At least that has been my experience with Comp Sci majors lately.
I recommend hiring from a different school. There are worlds of difference between CS programs. Some teach the fundamentals, and some are just expensive trade schools.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
In short, if a 50 year old mechanic can do it missing a middle finger on one of his hands you should be able to muddle through.
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
"I finished my EE degree and entered the engineering workforce at 28. If anything I found my age may have helped me."
Also, returning students tend to be more serious about their studies, and many do much better in college than they would have when they were younger. I knew a number of returning students from their 20s to their 40s when I was in college, and they all seemed to be doing well -- and none of them seemed to regret going back.
Honestly, you're still young! I'm 33, and I just started learning electric bass about a month ago, and I'm forming new pathways in my brain so fast, it's simply shocking. Brains are one of those use-it-or-lose-it things. You keep it well exercised, and it'll be as agile as you need it to be for a very long time.
The only way to truly fail at anything is not to try.
If you feel like you need a change, you need a change.
What would you be doing with that time otherwise? Watching TV?
A life of learning and growing is far more entertaining than anything humanity can devise.
This "too old" shit is talk show fodder. You can do what you want at any age. If company A won't hire you, why would you want to work for them? The right company will recognize skills, talent and initiative. Someone who likes to learn is an asset to any company, but HR people are as statistically incompetant as the rest of the planet. Worse case scenario: work for yourself.
If you're competent---which, in this industry, means you're way above average---then you'll do fine. If you're no more useful than somebody who can be hired from India, then you don't stand a chance.
http://outcampaign.org/
One could say I have been coding in some form or another for the past 25 years - I am no where ready to stop, either.
So many unanswered questions, so little time. If there is one question that remains unanswered, though, in all of computers and robotics, it is the question that drives me (and I suspect many others) forward: Will one day there be a machine that has hopes and dreams?
I strongly suspect that one day that will be the case. It is why computers and robotics is so compelling amongst mankind. The question of creation of sentience, and maybe emotion, in a machine - the quest for creation in our own image. It is one of the oldest of dreams and quests of mankind...
When I code, I help in a very miniscule way to push the species onward toward conquering this goal - how could I ever stop?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The key is that these guys know that this is what they want, and have worked bloody hard to get there.
At your age, get out and live. Get some work in an area that interest you. With Degree Number One lots of doors are now open that weren't. And do it while you don't have a mortgage & mouths to feed.
Me? I'm still trying to find degree No. 2 that makes sense. I'm one of those people who spends as much time as a suit (selling, managing and doing business planning) as I do as an engineer (technical, management or process). It's fun - and useful, particularily as my technical speciality (chip design & verification) is, ah, not big where my family lives.
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
A friend of mine gave me some sage advice when I was in my early 20's, and so far, he's been right.
"Turn anything you love into your vocation and there's always a good chance you will lose your passion for it."
Now I'm not saying that passionate people haven't been rediculously successful doing things they love as a job, but most of those people started their own businesses and/or work for organizations that are doing exactly what they love at the pace they want to do it at, or for a division of a large organization that does. All this talk lately of "work where you're passionate" can have a dire backlash if you have to pay the bills and take the first coding job that comes along.
By the way things work in the heirarchy of Business, you're far more likely to find a job where you have almost ZERO creative control over your daily work than to find one where you have complete control.
In other words, if you're not the boss, you're not the boss.
If you are not the personalty type (numerous tests abound for finding out generally how you react to various situations and thoughts) to crank out code to a completely arbitrary (or at least that you had very little input into) formal specification -- writing code for a living really may not be for you. Because any real serious formal Engineering effort will require that level of formality and structure for any low/entry-level coders. And you might be there for a very long time.
If you love technology for the "new-ness", the thrill of trying and doing new things, etc... the usual reasons people "love" technology in their personal lives, then writing code for an established company could really kill your motivation and enjoyment of such things.
Frankly, it's depressing (to different degrees for different people) to watch your organization staunchly hold on to "what worked in the past", whether it's for good business reasons or bad ones.
I love OS's and working on new things. Actually what I really love is building new infrastructure. I'm a sysadmin, but the day-to-day sysadmin chores are just that. Chores. I do them, and do them well, but I'd rather be building something new, usually under a deadline.
But... I've found that the "chores" job is more stable and almost always pays better. Doing things no one else wants to is both a blessing and a curse in Information Tech jobs. It means you have stability until the next-big-thing wipes out your usefulness, and it means (to use a popular phrase right now) that while you're on the "long tail" of that technology the longer you hang around, the more you get paid -- as you watch contemporaries drop off the ride.
Some COBOL programmers make a VERY nice living right now. But the numbers were against them and they "lucked out" by getting to keep their jobs this long. That technology is shrinking in use.
Specifically to my case, my current role is supporting a system that runs on an OS that's tried and "true" and we're MAYBE going to upgrade some customers in a year or two, if the customers agree and are interested in upgrading -- and that's a big *if*. My customer base values stability and lack of change -- especially if it affects their customers with outages, far more heavily than they value new things or new features. Only if there's a chance they might lose a multi-million dollar contract would they EVER consider speeding up a very VERY slow upgrade/certification process.
By that time the OS the systems are running on will be at least 8 years old.
(I work in Telecommunications, by the way. Upgrades are ONLY done to fix specific, defined problems, and part of the definition is in how many customers are being affected and how big they are. I see this type of "mental juggling" in telecommunication management meetings every week. In fact usually those meetings themselves are structured to specifically address those types of questions and happen formally at least twice a month or more.)
To be as far behind on technology as my chosen
+++OK ATH
A new career at the advanced age of 30? Heavens, no! You're only a few years away from the nursing home! Enjoy your golden years while you can!
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
When I was 29 (back in the 80's), I was an English teacher who taught a math course or two because I had enough math hours on the transcript. I decided to go to grad school and wanted to earn Math certification as part of the process. The Dean of the Graduate School suggested I think about a math major. They had an assistantship, etc.
I became a Math major and essentially recreated myself.
I am still teaching, and just finished my 25th year in the classroom.
I'm 29 and will be 33 when I graduate with my second degree and re-enter the IT workforce. I've worked in the IT industry for most of my 20s, but I've never had a formal 'computer science' education.
The decision to go back to school was one of the hardest decisions I've made to date. I had to give up some financial goals and a comfy lifestyle, but I know that I've made the right decision.
I had to endure taking a high-school refresher course in mathematics last year (it's amazing how much you lose after 12 years without school). It all came back to be after a month or so and I found that I was still able to learn new tricks just as well as the young pups. The good news was that amongst the kids in my class, there were a handful of us soon-to-be-30 year-olds preparing to go back to school - so I didn't feel too lonely. If you're worried about being the oldest student on campus....I can tell you that you'll most definitely NOT be that person. I was very surprised to see how many of us were back at school.
Oh...and 30 is NOT OLD. I may have a few grey hairs now, but I've got something I didn't have in my first round at university....EXPERIENCE. Trust me, it's much more fun the second time.
I finished my (roughly) Master's degree in CS when I was 28. Only to go on to a Ph.D., finishing in 2003 and pretty much immediately getting a very interesting and challenging job. I definitely, absolutely don't regret going through the universities, it was a wonderful time, and I learned a *lot* that I would not have picked up otherwise. I also don't regret going into a programming job where I've been learning a lot of *other* things I didn't pick up at university. The two complement each other and make for a very strong mix; I can definitely tell the difference in programming quality between those who've had an education and those who've just picked it up -- the latter tend to make more random hacks and create unscalable, hard-to-maintain code. Yes, I know there are numerous exceptions both ways, but that's my experience. You aren't likely to "happen to" pick up big-O notation in the workplace, and useful project planning is rarely taught usefully in universities.
I finished three years of study toward a bachelor of arts degree in journalism in the mid-70s, dropped out, worked in the field for a decade or so, transitioned to being a legal secretary and word processor, and enrolled in college in 2000 to earn a bachelor of science degree in computer and information science. Not only that, but -after- I finished my degree, I went back and took Calculus II, 28 years after taking Calculus I, just for the heck of it.
And for the record, I've been employed as a database programmer and IT manager for two years now. My work experience, breadth of knowledge, and maturity were major factors in my ability to make a career shift as a middle-aged female into a field that's predominantly young and male.