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?"
"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.
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 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 remeber something about a study of brain pathways and activities on UK taxi drivers. Evedently, the test to get a taxi license there requires you to memorize the map and be able to recite the most direct way from random points to random places.
In this study they used a die of some sorts that when new cells grew, showed up a different collor on Xrays or catscans. It turns out that 50 some year old people learning to become taxi drivers there, developed new brain cells and pathways (for lack of remebering the exact term) in a somewhat large amount.
I think the conclusion was that the brain continues to grow deep into old age. here is a link to a news article, if it still works.
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.
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.
- 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.