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With a Computer Science Degree, an Old Man At 35?
GrApHiX42 writes "I pissed away my 20s and now I want to go to school and get a bachelor's degree in computer science. The thing is, I'll be 35 when I get out of school, and I've read on numerous sites that there seems to be some ageism going on in the IT industry when it comes to older geeks. What have some of the 'older' Slashdot readers experienced as far as being replaced or just plain not getting hired because IT is a 'young man's game'?"
To paraphrase what someone once told me, in four years (more or less), you're going to be 35 anyway. There's not a damn thing you can do about that, except die. if you don't go to school and get your bachelor's degree, then will it be any easier for you if you're an "old man" without a CS degree?
If you don't have a degree at all, then jump through the hoops and get one. My personal experience is that my salary almost doubled literally the day after I got my CS degree. If you do have one but not in computer science, then I'd suggest that you might be better off pursuing certifications relevant to the field you're working in.
If you're not currently in a computer-related field and you're asking if you should get the degree and go into it in an entry-level position, that's your call. You'll probably need that degree to break in, even at 35. If it's worth starting over from scratch, go for it.
Fortunately, I got hired by the company I'm currently at when I was 27. Unfortunately, they're going through the RFP process to outsource all of our jobs. If I'm lucky, I'll be spared. If I'm not, I'll be working as a contracter doing the same job I'm doing now. If I'm really shit outta luck, I'll be a 37-year-old in the job market in the worst economy I've ever known. It won't be easy, but at least I do have my CS degree to help me stand out from, with all due respect, people like you who don't. I don't mean to be cruel, but if it means the difference between whether or not I'm eating cat food, I'll use every advantage I can to beat you out in the aforementioned job market, including the fact that I have a CS degree.
So knowing only what you've asked in your question, my advice is that yes, it is worthwhile having the piece of paper.
but I've seen the opposite when it comes to age and programmers.
People have grown tired of these "young whippersnappers" fresh outa college with their executable UML and agile methodologies.
Where I am experience is huge.. especially just plain familiarity with software in the real world and not some acedemic fantasy land. Someone in their 50's with 30 years of dev experience is pure gold .. and companies will fight tooth and nail to recruit the old veterans... assuming they arn't off "consulting" for serious money.
Now obviously this doesn't apply in your case.. it's the experience not the age employers are looking at.. but I can't see a company turning you down based on age.. unless you're in your 50's and/or only plan on working for a few more years. Even though you may not have any programming background.. you are probably going to have more social and team skills then most people coming out of school. Just the ability to communicate ideas is massive... and a skill that just doesn't seem to be taught any more.
I think I'll make tacos for dinner tonight.. havn't had them in a while.
And I need to get my hair cut this weekend.. starting to look like a hippy.
And in base 17, you'll be 21.
The honest thing to say here is that ageism is very real in *most* (not all) software firms. Its just the reality. If you are older, people will expect you to be experienced and thus fulfill a more architectural or managerial role.
You can succeed, but its going to be more difficult for you. If your heart is set for it and you really enjoy software development, go for it.
Takes care of the gray.
Say dude frequently.
Don't let high-fives go hanging.
Keep up with the paris hilton and the new-fangled rock and/or roll music.
Don't use the urinal as the slow starting and stopping of your stream will give the secret away. And then you will experience the horror of the point along with the alien screeching and then the gig is up and they force you to have a retirement party with cake.
... going to school and getting your degree is nothing short of an awesome experience. Best of luck to you!
I am 32. I don't think ageism is a problem yet. My boss is 38. It's a about the quality of person you are and the quality of your work. Namely, communication skills.
The one concern I would have is that you're set in your ways. Younger guys have the "right way" built in. But of course, what you learn in college rarely applies in the real world.
I also have several friends who have no degree. They are well-paid. In the end it is about results.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
How long do you plan on staying in the field? Much do you think you're going to gain per year from having it?
Personally, I'm 36 and I plan on working until I'm around 70. It might sound dismal but I'm guessing 70 will be retirement age when I get up there. That's nearly 35 years in the field. How much would I have to get paid extra in those years to make it worth my time? Not very much. That's the same reason I wonder why so many scoff at certifications.... for the couple hundred dollars most base certification cost you're going to make that back so fast as an entry level geek. It sounds cheesy but it's a little bit extra you can put down on a resume that will help you get up the ladder a bit faster. It's worth it.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Tell them to get off of your grass.
Do you have confidence in your ability to learn? Will you stick to a four year commitment? You need to answer both of those questions honestly before you head down this road.
The other question is "what will your opportunities be like when you get out?" and that is going to depend in part on what you do during these four years. You might consider trying to get into a company now that might need your skills later. It's sometimes* easier to move around from within a company than to get your foot in the door.
* Guarantee not included.
John
I'm pushing 40 this year. Been programming most of my life. Never completed my CS degree. Worked on some fairly high profile projects in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco. I would say tho, at this point in my life, I'm definitely at the Sr. level and if I was to apply for a 'real' job it would be a Director or VP/CTO position - probably in a small startup.
I know of friends consulting companies that have guys in their 20's-40's. Other friends work for big software companies and have similar age groups. In the end, if you're a good programmer and not over 50 ;) then you shouldn't have a problem. But at some point, you're going to probably start your own company or be at a level above 'straight out of schoole 20-something coder'.
I wouldn't worry about the ageism thing at 35.
there will be naysayers. You could listen to them forever and be paralyzed and always do nothing.
So there are rules of thumb. There are always exceptions, work on being an exception. The shelves of libraries are littered with biographies of successful people, almost none of them achieved it "by the book" or had the ideal life, pedigree, grades, what not.
Perhaps something like Napoleon Hill's Lessons of Success may be an inspiring read, although if you understand "I think I can" story, it gets you as much content.
Look at it this way: you'll only be 35. With 30 more years to retirement ON AN OPTIMISTIC note, assuming SS hasn't forced everyone to work till their 70th birthday.
Do what you want. Invest the hours to get good at it and stop having regrets. Having read numerous times about how it takes 10,000 hours to get world class great at something, I'm more convinced now that many of the great people are the ones that started young are because they're the ones without responsibilities and have the time. Not their youth alone. So it isn't too late, just start it and stick with it.
People over 30 use computers?? I thought it was just a myth...
I'm pushing 60 and only recently left the technical-production field (I'm still "technical" but more as an expert consultant than producer). Even when you're so long in an industry that the degree itself no longer matters for your day-to-day work, it will still open avenues for you.
You'll find you may be managing those same younger competitors. While you're at it, throw in some business management courses to help ensure you are positioned to mature in the industry.
Education is not a substitute for experience. Remember ISA cards, IRQ settings and COM 1,3 vs 2,4 problems, and how to work around it? Kids today don't. They depend on PnP to magically make it work. A lot of hiring monkeys don't get this but it is true. Show me any snort-nosed kid that can build a network using printer cables or old-school DOS hacks to get something to work in WindowsXP.
You will not find it, because experience teaches us 'old farts' how to work around a problem. If you have no previous experience and are starting from scratch then it might be tricky, but if you have the skills don't worry about it. Social networking is your foot in the door.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
My husband was 36 when he got his Computer Science degree. It was a few months before getting his job but this was also at a time when the job market was in a slide. Once he got his first computer science job and some experience he had no problem getting other positions as follow up. Plus, he met me and have been relatively happy together now for 23 years so his degree helped in other areas as well, at least in my opinion and my husband is smart enough to agree with me. So I would definitely say go for it
I used to be an adult but then I grew up.
The key thing is to keep your skills up-to-date with whatever training and certification you can get once you have a degree. I had a roommate who did nothing to keep his skills up-to-date, took a six-month long unemployment vacation when he got laid off, and found out that no one wanted to hire him because his skill set was obsolete. He ended up fixing cash registers at Longs Drugs and still has no clue on how to restart his career because he won't listen to anyone.
Yes, you will be treated differently at software firms/corps. You have until you are about 40 though to really put in the time, after that you will be treated as crufty unless you stay current with the younger crowds and stay sharp on new skills. For example, at this point a lot of older devs are still using C++, when they should be looking at Ruby and newer languages for rapid development. But you'll still find a huge swell for C++ because people don't like change, and it is the most useful for a few very particular things (ie. drivers, operating system kernels, etc). I like older devs because they have the wisdom and skills to ask the right questions.
I know a guy who still does database testing at a local company, and he is approaching 60, but he puts in the long hours and keeps himself contributing. He would never expect to advance or get ahead at that age though, even if he performed like a kid.
The other alternative is to do contract work over the Internet where age won't be quite so noticeable, especially where you won't meet in person until later in the contract and at that point it won't matter.
The corollary to this is: if you care about ageism, then pick a field where age is valued such as medical doctor, juris doctor (law), or Ph.D. But almost all of those paths are long and hard and you'll be 38+ by the time you complete them.
It depends on who you work for. In many shops, it's become increasing clear that you don't want to hire anyone under 35 or so, though without the experience you'd be right there with the kids.
The sad truth of it is many of the grads for the last 15 years are junk. Not as people - fortunately, the career still attracts a great crowd - but the curriculums now create people who think that the compiler, the runtime, and the OS are a black box. They rather literally think in terms of South Park's gnomes .. Step 1) write code, Step 3) Profit! And that mindless dependence creates people who have no idea how or why their code works or more often doesn't.
That's fine for school, but you can't ship a product writing code like that, which means we've turned out a legion of coders who are fit for writing reports for accounting instead of firmware for an engine controller or a new comm protocol. And even then, that only works because the penalty for failure in accounting reports is so low. On any meaningful project, assigning work to this generation is like building in bugs, bugs that take a loooong time to fix because the team simply doesn't understand what the machine really does.
Not to worry, there are still plenty of businesses that basically have no idea of how the software sausage is made and will merrily hire anyone with a degree, but in businesses with more experience [and more on the line] it's more the exact opposite is true. They only want the previous generation of coders, and use CS grads for tech support, or if they're lucky, to apprentice.
Honestly, I've worked with guys in their 40s and 50s relatively new to IT. I've never heard of ageism in my experiences. Hell, the fact that you posted to Slashdot probably is enough reason to hire you!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Just the opposite. At 40, I'm not as quick as I was at 25. On the other hand I recall every moronic stupid mistake I made, in design, in code and I don't repeat them. I deliver software that is consistent and reproducible. Maybe not bug free, but with a good deal less bugs than someone who's not made the same mistakes.
So, there my be ageism out there. Screw'em, they're the the same idiots who keep the business people in peoria and outsource the development to VietNam (because India costs too much). You don't want to work for that company. This recession has an upside in that it will get rid of those companies that are run by morons. Too bad we can't build a mini death camp for our captains of industry (idiocy?)
Honestly, this is something I have never, never, never understood. Why do you want to run the race in high heels? Go get some sneakers and run it right. My only suggestion to you is to treat this as an investment, an investment in yourself. Please for the love of god don't go to some school and pay 25,000 a year in tuition, find a deal, you can even do degrees online now so shop around, even better start off at community college. When you are done you will be much better off, and don't forget to enjoy the experience, school can be a lot of fun, obviously working full time it's harder, but try.
Unless you're much hotter than the chicks, you're still a techie dweeb.
I say go for it. Consider that we live in a generation that will probably live to be 100. And you'll likely work till 70+. You'll have 35 years doing what you want, to earn enough money to support you for the following 30 years.
I'm 47 and going back for Geology. I'll probably finish at 55, but I'll still have 15+ years to work. My motivation, is that I don't see my career in Electronics being able to warm down to retirement. You're either in or out, nothing in between. But I see Geology as being something you can take on smaller jobs, and slow down to retirement. From what I see, it's much broader than Electronics. Hey, but that's my rainbow...
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
CS used to be an old man's degree anyways.
When I was in college in the mid-90's, a lot of my upper level CS classes were filled with "old people". In fact, traditional students were the minority in the CS program.
If you are through your 20s and have the experience under your belt, exiting college at 35, with many years of experience won't hurt you. You still bring knowlege and real work experience that your "younger" counterparts won't have. This immediately makes you more valuable. I also think the 'IT being a young mans game' is sincerely a misnomer. Although, you probably are right and would be at a loss if you were considered a "junior developer" at 35, having your experience should not put you in that realm. As you get older, your technical kungf00 leads you into bigger and better positions in IT, such as architecture and team leads. The older you get with more experience, your management kungf00 begins to show itself and you are given more responsibilities and teams to take care. I still have yet to run into 20-something architects whose management and technical/architectural skills are outstanding. That generally takes many years of experience to be able to get right. How many "real" CTOs and CIOs do you know who are in their 20s (or even early 30s). I mean real by folks who actually move up a big corporate ladder and rub elbows with some powerful folks. Stick with your path, do your best and build on your kungf00 and you will do fine.
Assuming agism, I of the opinion that companies don't engage in agism just for the hell of it, but because they see some correlation between increased age and employee attributes that they prefer not to have. If that is true, your actual performance will probably be more important than your age.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I went back to school when I was 31. I went to a trade school and graduated with an Associates when I was 33. I got a job for about 35k a year (midwest). I am now 41 and make 80k a year.
The main reason I did not get a four year degree is the same reason you are having concerns - at my age I felt I was too old. However, by being ambitious and working hard I feel I am doing as well as I would if I had a bachelors degree.
If IT is what you truly love, then learning on your own is what will drive your career. The degree just gets you your first job. After that it is experience that matters most. There is no job I could not get now even though I don't have a bachelors.
i.e. Spent my 20's....experimenting.
I'm not sure it was pissed away, as I did learn a lot that isn't really taught anywhere, and keeping your head, while all about you are losing theirs, is a excellent ability that I feel my life experiences has given me. Early 30's decided I needed more direction, and of course I wanted to earn more than unskilled pay.
Cisco certs were the answer for me, easier than a degree, but still requires a certain level of self discipline.
They gave me the leverage to enter the internetworking field, in my 30's, and now with a decade of experience, I still look fairly secure even in these tough times.
I don't even want to think about where I may be if I hadn't got those pieces of paper.
It's almost impossible that you will be facepalming "If only I didn't have that pesky degree", and almost certain that it will be an advantage.
The correct piece of paper, will open doors.
This is NOT a signature.
I'm working for a leading worldwide business software provider in their SaaS division. I'm 35. I'm the youngest person on the team. While I have no doubt that ageism exists in IT, I'm very encouraged that the folks I work with are dedicated geeks of varying ages. This is also the best job I've ever had.
Go for the degree and keep a positive attitude.
When you say you "pissed away" your 20s, were you doing something where you got to know part of the world that kids who went straight through college in IT generally are ignorant of? Years ago, I could say "I work with computers" and it meant something. Now, to say "I work with computers" merely means you have a job. They're in everything. For most businesses, computers are not an end, they're a tool. Nobody hires somebody for their degree in hammers. But if you've learned a special sort of carpentry, and can demonstrate your ability, it will be assumed you know how to swing a hammer well. That's not to say you don't want to study the tools, even get the degree in them. But focus on the craft, on what you'd love to build, because that's what people really get hired for, not their tool collection. Not except for truly hack work.
Anyway, if you've gotten to know some part of the world well while pissing away those years, can you leverage it? Have you seen some aspects of life that can be improved with the right computer tech? If so, start studying how to do that. Make your own niche. Take advantage of where you already uniquely are. It can be your strength.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Jsut don't be one of those really annoying fuckers that think they know everything about anything. They piss me off ... limit the number of questions or everyone will think you're a douche ... not brilliant.
.
You're only as old as you think you are... I started working with UNIX at 17, 24 years ago, and am still at the bleeding edge, working with many up and coming technologies. I skipped college in favor of real world experience, and it has served me very well.
If you want to go to school, then go. If you run into ageism at a place of employment, you don't want to work there. At 35, you'll hardly be old, and you'll have more experience and knowledge under your belt.
I try and teach myself something new everyday, just to stay abreast of this field and several others. Science periodicals, journals, a little experimentation on the side.. It's all good. It keeps your mind active and able to learn and adapt.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
I don't know that Computer Science classes really prepare you for IT... one is developing applications and writing code, and the other is managing computers. Many, many people in lower-level IT positions don't even have bachelors degrees... they have associates or often less than that, but have gone to trade colleges or done some studying and gotten their MSCEs or other certifications.
If your heart is in computer science, then go for it. Go to college for 4 years, write a lot of code (really... many places when interviewing for entry-level positions with bachelors candidates will ask you how many lines of code you've written), really understand CS and a couple key langagues or paradigms (e.g. OOP or REST or whatever they're teaching now... I'm older than you ;-) and don't worry about it too much.
Again, IT is different, and who knows how IT in 4 years will look compared to IT today. I don't think 35 is too old for an entry level position... the key concern about age is desire and the ability to work. Few people at 25 have a wife and kids and other associated "lifestyle influences" to prevent them from regularly working 10-12 hours a day. People in their late 30s have all manner of excuses or other distractions they may deal with in entry level positions.
I'll be 38 next month, and I'm a way better programmer than I was when I was 25. I just can't write code after about 11:30 any more.
I've got coworkers between 26 and mid-40s, and my non-coworker programmer friends are around my age. I see some evidence of ageism, but it seems to be in force more for fifty-ish than forty-ish.
If what you want to do requires a CS degree, or you're trying to hide from a high-unemployment economy for a while, then do it.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
If you are older, people will expect you to be experienced and thus fulfill a more architectural or managerial role.
He's likely to get a managerial role relatively quickly anyway. Unless he spent the last ten years in a coma, he should have more mature people skills. It's not something that you can easily shortcut.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
To the original poster:
I quit a decent (in many ways) programming job because I discovered the company was stealing from me and reneging on some contract terms. I felt that with my experience (though I had no degree) I could find something else, no problem. My timing was bad... this was literally just before the "web bubble" burst and the economy went sour, right after the turn of the millennium.
Despite my experience, jobs in my area of expertise became impossible to find. I ended up getting two separate menial jobs, and even those didn't quite pay the bills. I finally said "Screw it... if I'm not finding decent work anyway, I might as well go back to school."
So I got some student loans to cover the gaps, and went back to school. It was a struggle, with two jobs and school too, and I had some other life setbacks. But eventually I did get my degree, and shortly after that (actually before I graduated), I started finding some pretty good work. This was in the same field I had been in (programming), but in school I had learned the "latest and greatest", and I found myself working at bleeding-edge projects, with skills that were in demand.
And I am, let's just say, a bit older than you are.
My observation is that smart as lots of young programmers are, experience counts! Not just programming experience - life experience too. In the card game bridge, people refer to LOLs - Little Old Ladies. The term arises because although they might appear to be naive, soft, and quite possibly silly, they are often fearsome opponents precisely because they've seen it all before and know how to deal with it. I see much the same thing happening in the places I've worked. A bright young thing puts up a clever idea, only to have a gray-bearded old-timer politely ask an apparently simple question which shows a subtle flaw. Tom. DISCLAIMER: I'm in the no-man's-land 'twixt being young-and-bright and old-and-wise. :-)
took a six-month long unemployment vacation when he got laid off
Some employers contractually require such a vacation of all terminated employees. Was this the case of your roommate?
After being out of programming for 25 years (I was and am a lawyer) I went back and earned a MS in computer engineering at age 57. Now I am out of the lawyer work 3,000 hours a year rat race. I now make a decent living consulting and managing a number of small systems while working less than half as much. Breadth of experience, business skills and people skills are all essential additions (but not a substitute for) programming competence, all of which comes with age. Don't analyze this to death, just do it.
Seriously, if you want to avoid ageism become a sub-specialist. Becoming yet another programmer, network engineer, etc is a doomed career path as you age (well without luck).
But, become an expert in a sub-specialty field is a "real" profession. For example, security experts are worth their weight in gold no matter what the age, or experts in financial IT systems, etc etc.
Doing what? Surfing? Waiting tables? Cleaning pools? Reading /.? On 4chan?
If you haven't been in IT for the last twelve years working your ass off somewhere in the 'real' world, your fancy 'book-learning' and 'college degree' is going to get you, at best, -especially in this 'down' economy- an entry level position in a cubicle doing TPS reports all day. You won't be coding on the 'big' project, you'll just be putting up with all the 'Lumberghs' in the office.
If you do get a job, just get used to hearing, "You can just go ahead and move a little bit to the left. Yeah, that's it. Great."
Sig this!
This may come off as a little odd, but bear with me. I will soon be one of those "20-something-fresh-outta-school-coders" in two years, assuming everything goes well. I am willing to bet you have several things that most of my generation is lacking: respect for your employer, a good work ethic, excellent communication skills, and most importantly - the ability to think independently. Seriously, I can't get over how many of my fellow students are essentially programmed robots. They can't think on their own, instead they would rather their boss told them everything to do and how to do it. Also, I'm willing to bet you haven't been babied and spoiled like most of my generation has and therefore you won't whine about everything and demand the same benefits from day one as someone who has been with the company for 30+ years. Most of the young employees care nothing for their business while the older employees understand that if the company goes under they're out of a job. So considering all of that I would say definitely get that degree. Also, from what I've heard from all of the employers I know (I own my own IT / Do-Everything-And-Anything-Electronic business, so I talk with a lot of other business owners), the only reason they want to hire younger employees is because we are generally cheaper. Otherwise, most of us are worthless compared to the older generation, not to say that we won't smarten up some once we're out in the real world. (Key word being "most".)
In most of my professional experience, many of my coworkers were 35+. People older than that tended to migrate to management, but there are still some older programmers around. I've mostly worked for large corporations.
Simple - lie about your age. Be 28 for the next 5 years, then bump it up to 32 and stay that for five years, then colour your hair and be 36 for 10 years and eventually you just remain 40-something forever. If you don't smoke and don't drink, then your skin will look good and you will get away with it. Legally, people are not allowed to discriminate against you based on your age, so therefore you need not be truthful about it, since it should not matter in any decision. I have two problems: Age and place of birth. Both should not be held against me, so I simply picked another country of origen for my resume and I dye my hair - problem solved. Cheers, F.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I flipped burgers while studying for my CS degree til I was 32, and then started my IT career in a family business as the single employee. Reading a book called MS Self Learning 70-290 which I downloaded from P2P network for 10 odd times prepared me to work on servers. A couple of certification in IT later made me less sweating. The desire to live better inspired me to constantly stay up to 1 or 2 in the morning experimenting everything I see at work. Now I can confidently call myself System Engineer at 35. In the place I work, I am not young, but not old as well. 35 is just the age to show your mature and confident people experience. To start late may also gain you some technology edge, as you are not capped with old school knowldege, and will dive into the latest trendy words. In my opinion, to master the constant change is a challenge to all, so do not worry if you are new to them. So mate, get up and do something.
The above post is great except for this one line: "If you're not currently in a computer-related field and you're asking if you should get the degree and go into it in an entry-level position, that's your call. You'll probably need that degree to break in, even at 35. If it's worth starting over from scratch, go for it."
If you're already programming, but are not employed, getting a degree to reinforce what you know is a good idea and will help you with salary.
On the other hand, if you're not already programming, you're wasting your time. Programmers are (mostly) like writers or artists. You can't help it. You get sucked into it even if you fight it. If you didn't get sucked into it, you'll be a crappy programmer when you get out of college no matter how good an education you get, because you've already proven that you're not, at core, a programmer. You were handed the test and you failed. LUCKY YOU, REALLY.
Furthermore, 35 year olds usually have a life. 20 year olds don't. You really need to do something for 10,000 hours before you get fantastic at it. 20 year olds can accomplish that in three years. A 35 year old with a wife and a family won't accomplish that in a decade.
What DID you get sucked into? What did you spend your 20's on? Dig through that time and figure out what you loved. Do THAT. You'll be good at that. If you weren't a programmer, you won't get hired as a 35 year old programmer not because you're old, but because you're BAD. If you don't fail the first fizz-buzz question you get, you'll fail the second follow-up.
Set yourself up to succeed, not fail.
Yes there is ageism at some companies... maybe even in general. You don't want to work at those places because you will likely be treated like a drone anyway. If you are truly passionate about computer science go for it. Become a lethal ninja of the computing sciences. You will probably have to work harder than the whiz kid peers you will meet in college, but you are older and wiser. Go in there, expand your brain, kick ass and just ignore everyone that says this is crazy (it kind of is).
You may have to work harder than a lot of people in the industry to make up for your lack of experience, but if you really love doing this you won't really notice. Just go for it. If you have little holding you down in terms of financial obligations (family, mortgage) you are even better off. If you work hard and show your value you can find good work in this industry. And if your previous experience can be applied to a specific industry you have a huge leg up :)
So to paraphrase Duke Nuke'em -- Fuck emm all, let god sort it out. This is a great time to be in school with the recession as well...
I have been around the block a couple of times by now and you will definitely encounter ageism from time to time. I just ignore it and show my worth and that is that.
Lack of experience in a given field at 35 will hurt you far more than lack of a degree. If you have neither, yes, you're competing with 19yos who will work for probably a fraction what you will, or at least that is the perception.
If you can, try to find 'your field' that the last 20 years backs up and gradually migrate to IT. Study formally or informally as you see fit, but your real problem is in appearing to be starting from square one. Find your 'domain knowledge' and move toward IT and you'll be able to compete with mere CS grads who haven't a clue about the broader implications of their work and often that is more important than the minutiae of An undergrad CS degree.
I have 29 years experience in operations and system administration, and I'm a little more than halfway through a CS degree program at a nearby state college. Yeah, I feel old, and I'll be well over 50 when I finish, since I also have to work at least 40 hours a week to make ends meet.
Will it be worth it? Only time will tell. I will have the benefit of decades of real-world, plus the latest take on programming & engineering. I guess it's just a matter of finding the right spot for the last decade or so of my career.
You must be aiming pretty low if you think that 35 is old.
My father made this observation:
"Old doctors and old lawyers are like old wines. Old engineers are like old fish fillets."
There probably is some outright age-ism out there, although I haven't had it smack me in the face yet.
But I suspect that what is much more common is a desire for the latest shiny technologies. When I went to school, Java hadn't been invented yet, and most of my classes were taught in Pascal. The colleges now are presumably teaching the new cool stuff. So, while you will be 35, you will be 35 with a fresh degree.
As I would advise any college student considering a computer career, I recommend you do projects on the side as much as you can. Find an open-source project, learn your way around it, contribute a few lines of code. Figure out what your college isn't teaching you, and study it on your own. For example, if your school teaches only Java and you don't get any assembly language or C programming, study that on your own. Joel (who writes Joel on Software) says he won't hire anyone who doesn't know how to work with pointers; he may be an extreme case, but knowing pointers can only help you.
Study the want ads now, and try to figure out what the employers are looking for; make sure you are learning it. But you can't learn everything... I don't have any Visual Basic experience, and I was never interested in the jobs that require it. So I guess what I'm saying is, try to figure out an area you would like to be qualified for, and get the skills for it.
I highly recommend you study Python; a good book that walks you through the whole language will expose you to some cool stuff. Other people would urge you to study LISP; that will stretch your mind a bit. (When I was playing with LISP, I used the book The Little Schemer, and the DrScheme environment to run my code.)
The point of the last few paragraphs is to make you stand out a bit when you have your degree. You won't just be a 35-year-old with a fresh degree, you'll also be able to write cool Python scripts, juggle C pointers, maybe write mind-stretching LISP functions. I believe those sort of extras will help someone decide to hire you.
If you have to work full time and support a family while going to school nights, this is going to be hard. I have a friend doing this right now, and sometimes he does his homework from midnight to 4am, then gets up and goes to work. He's doing it and he's probably ten years older than you, so I'm sure you can do it too.
The good news is that if you are really right for a computer software career, and it is right for you, you will actually enjoy a lot of your work. Building software projects and watching them actually start to work is a special pleasure.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I did it. I managed grocery stores through my 20's and early 30's. I got my degree at 35. While in school, I quit the grocery business and went to work at Comp USA (Yeah yeah I hated the place too). Started as a sales weasel until there was an opening in the Tech dept (repair and service).
When I got my degree, I had a few years of IT (yeah yeah, Comp USA and IT don't go together.) under my belt and got a job in a University IT department as a Help Desk Service Coordinator (one man complaint department). I got this job because of my dual abilities of being able to manage people (from the grocery business as a manager)and because I understood technology with my repair bench experience. I hated every minute of it but it got me in the door.
One of my responsibilities in that position was to work with the different IT departments that were constantly bickering over whose job it was to take care of any given situation. I earned a reputation as someone who could troubleshoot AND get things done. When a position opened as a domain/exchange admin I jumped at it and got the job.
So 9 years after getting my degree I now manage the windows admins, unix admins, mainframe admins, and DBA's at this University.
Yes, you can do it.
Now the bad part. In order to do this, I went into extreme debt paying for school and working for peanuts at Comp USA. It took me most of those 9 years to pay off the debt I accumulated while getting to where I make a decent living now. It is a lot of hardship, a lot of dedication, and some luck in landing a position.
If you are ready to take the step, good luck to you!
I'm 61, and last year found myself in an environment of people in their mid 20's and younger. They didn't have clue 1. They were good programmers, some of them were genius level, but their social skills and teamwork sucked big time. Furthermore, they were all into "agile" programming. The lack of planning on the project caused massive support problems. (This may have been OK in the early iterations of the product, but it was starting to show up as a major tech support problem. Once they shipped a product that didn't even work because they hadn't tested it thoroughly.) What drove me away was the lack of a plan and a clear set of performance standards. I never really knew what I was hired for, and I had no way of knowing how well I was doing, but I had a strong sense of "not fitting in" and falling below expectations (even though nobody stated the expectations).
Somewhere it occurred to me that these guys took for granted the elemental programming concepts that my generation had to invent on-the-fly back in the 60's and 70's. None of them could do assembly, none of them knew how to manage a decision table, and the idea of a formal systems analysis was foreign to them. My computer game was chess (which I've had to take off all my systems in order to get work done), and these guys think a "game" is WoW.
I suggest you decide what you want. To me, CS is designing the hardware and structure. CIS is designing the administration and apps that make the structure work, and MIS is is the design and apps that produce tangible results, especially for a specific end-user. These definitions don't necessarily match up with what the colleges are teaching under those names. In my experience, MIS environments have a little more respect for age and experience, CS has a high regard for innovation and results.
Good luck.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
If your good at what you do then you'll be fine... hell even people that aren't good at what they do are sometimes fine. I know young guys that kick arse, I know old guys that kick arse and I know young and old guys that make eveyones life difficult because they suck. Don't underestimate wisdoms value along side intelligence, dealing with customers, understanding ROI, TCO, office politics... all things that young grads may not have.
Users... the only thing keeping 1st level support from being the bottom feeders.
I would say that it definitely depends what job you want to be working in four years. If you want a public sector full time employment (FTE) job, you pretty much need the paper. Competition for those jobs and even promotion is done so "fairly" that the best people on paper will always get them over better practitioners that don't qualify as much on paper. These are jobs with a lot of down time, red tape, and job security. A lot of people want that. If, on the other hand, you are looking for a more challenging and dynamic programming job at a private company or as a consultant; then experience, know-how, and reputation of those are what keep you in rolling in the dough. As a hiring manager with a FTE staff and that hires consultants, I can tell you that for me, age has nothing to do with it.
Yes, it's a great place to hide out.
But there's already a glut of lawyers, and have you talked to anyone who dropped out of law school? Did you ask them why? Will you want the same experience? (I'm not going to go into this. If you've dated someone in law school and watched the effect it had on him or her, you already know about this. Some people like it, some hate it.)
Secondly, many people go into law school because they're avoiding the working world and don't take the time to look at other areas of study.
Do yourself a favor and consider study something else. Are you sure you're not more interested in studying alternative power systems? Or studying to be a statistician? What about pursing a masters in economics? How about linguistics? The average lawyer (thanks to the lawyer glut) makes something like $35k. A lot of them wind up paralegals for their entire career, which is often very short.
I've been told by my manager that there are very few programmers past the age of 40. Yet, some of the best programmers at my company are older than 40. It's probably not ageism but simply a high attrition rate as the years go by. To stay in the game for any length of time requires incredible skill and experience. I know many older programmers who have this attitude that they've seem everything and done everything and everything is a repeat of the old. That might be true on a very high level but subtleties matter. These programmers refuse to learn new ideas or technologies or they map new technologies to what they already know or what they've learned in their youth. They become close minded. As time goes on, they find their skills less and less in demand until they decide to leave or hang on to maintain old code, which is rarely ever fun. The reason youth people get hired is the passion and new ideas they bring to a company. When the day comes when you think you know everything there is to know about software engineering it's time to leave because it's either going to be very boring or you're going to become obsolete by closing off your mind. In Buddhism they say that at the end of mastering it, you truly become a student. The same probably applies to computer science.
It's a beautiful field to be in.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
AND THROUGHOUT IT ALL lamenting that he won't get a job.
Like I said, quit pissing and moaning (and predicting your own failure) and go do something useful.
No fries with that, thanks.
E
ok.. I'll admit it's my MS at 35. Still I wouldnt change it.
Storm
Well, you're 30 or 31 right now, without a CS degree...and who knows with what work experience. Clearly you're not too thrilled with your prospects down the road if you don't do something. I can't say that a CS degree is the right thing for you. However, let's assume that it is (as opposed to another 4-yr degree or a 2-yr vocational). In which case you're going to be 10-13 years behind the curve, but that's mostly written off already. If you stick it out, struggle through the first few years of entry-level stuff, you'll be intermediate level at the age of 40, and still have decades ahead of you to move up. Pick your mid-career jobs well and you have every chance - depending on your choices and skills - of catching up to or surpassing people who didn't start late. I myself spent my 20's in the military. I didn't get into professional programming until I was 32, and now I'm 47. I'm a consultant, which is where I want to be. I haven't encountered ageism because (1) I have never worked for a coding sweatshop, and (2) I know what I'm doing, and (3) precisely because I am a consultant - serious customers tend to look askance at 20-somethings purporting to have experience. So the short answer is, this won't be a bad choice. It may not be your best choice, but it's not a bad one.
I'm 31 and left my "career" in IT sales last year to finish my BS in MIS (yeah, it's not CS, but similar). I was recently turned down for an internship in the IT org of a major financial institution because I was "overqualified."
I'm still not really sure how to take that - does my sales experience overqualify me to intern as an IT analyst, or is "overqualified" just a nice way of saying that I'm too old. If anything, I'd say that I'm underqualified: I know some Java, C#, SQL, UML, etc. However, even with a 4.0 GPA, I don't feel like I'm learning enough in the classroom to comfortably slide in to a full-time IT position. It leaves me questioning what exactly recruiters are looking for and if I'm overqualified, I feel bad for the people who end up working with some of the dumbasses that are less qualified than me.
I returned to school slightly earlier than you at 25, I'm 27 now and will be finished at 29.
The 7 years I have over other students has had its advantages, for example if your school has a Co-Op program you should have a much easier time networking since your employer and co-workers will be much closer to your own age.
The real question is do you like where your life is now, and do you think the CS degree will get you to where you want to be. 4-years is a long time commitment if it isn't going to take you where you want to go.
(currently trying not to piss my 20's away)
Misspending is what youth is for. The wine is never so sweet as it is upon the lips of youth.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Older developers tend to be skeptical of new fads and gimmicky stuff due to seeing the hype game played before. Thus, they are not popular with the younger "fashionable IT" crowd.
Table-ized A.I.
I'm in a similar boat as you; I'm 36, have worked professionally in IT since the mid 90's and now I'm back in school to get my bachelors. Except, instead of returning to engineering, I'm setting my sights on the future, say 10-15 years from now, in a completely different field. Why you ask? Read on...
The IT field grows by leaps and bounds on an almost daily basis. Sure, the tried and true technologies that have always been here will always be, but it seems like every day there's a new language or protocol or standard to master. This leaves you with one of two choices from a professional perspective: either spread yourself so thin trying to keep up with all (or a lot) of them, or become so focused on a narrow slice that you effectively get pigeonholed for the rest of your career.
If you're already accomplished in IT, there's far less room for you to grow than the young 20-somethings who have just gotten out of school. If you stay in an engineering capacity, you'll soon find yourself competing with them; being that they're still junior, they'll have more freedom to run circles around you with the latest and greatest.
It's better to pursue a (gasp!) management degree or similar, and take your IT accomplishments with you into the next realm, where you'll be the one with the whiz bang skills that beats the snot out of the resident Excel or PowerPoint wizard.
Insert witty comment here
Thanks, Will
LRN 2 SWM
The reason you're finding curricula that don't include things you consider necessary for CS is that the number of things that a significant proportion of people consider necessary for CS has ballooned to the point where it doesn't fit in 4 years. Since there's strong resistance to turning CS into a 5-year degree (my alma mater actually suggested it and got shot down quickly), something has to go.
Different schools make different choices about what, treat the rest as block boxes, and people agree with those choices to varying extents. You seem to be mainly focused on what's sometimes called "old-school core CS", the low-level bit-banging and compilers/OS level on top of that. Many schools do focus on that, but the tradeoff is that they treat other things as black boxes; e.g. instead of knowing how to design an algorithm with good asymptotic running time, you look up an algorithm in a book, and focus on how to implement it efficiently on your current hardware. There are lots of other elements; a big one is user interfaces, which are a core part of building apps that anyone can actually use (some people argue that the entire field of CS is about communication, between humans and machines), but treated poorly in low-level-focused CS programs.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
My story is similar to yours, except that I am 42 now and got my bachelors degree at 40. I am currently working on my masters degree and will finish in 2010 - at 43. I have been working in the IT industry for about 10 years so that is an advantage, but IMO I am just reaching my prime in the industry, and have plenty of growth ahead (and $$$).
As opposed to many certifications, a college degree LASTS FOREVER, so get one whether you think you are an old man or not. You will be thankful down the road. You will get hired upon completing the degree and after a few years in the field you will have many opportunities. You will be promoted to management faster (if you choose to go that direction) and will grasp concepts quicker than the younger crowd if your mind and passion is truly in the IT field.
The thing you have that no 22 yo graduate has is life experience. You know how people behave in situations from living many years more than the younger crowd. If you have a house, wife, kids, car payments, etc., this shows a level of responsibility that a youngster cannot claim at that point in their life.
As Nike used to say - Just do it! You will have no regrets - until the student loans come due of course...
He who gets the last laugh, laughs last.
After everyone else has turned the job down because the employer wants to pay entry-level wages to somebody with 10 years experience, this guy will get the job.
I'm about to be 45, and I've been a software engineer since I was around 18 (started way before, but didn't get my first "real" job until then).
Since then, the highest title I've reached is... Sr. Software Engineer, which is where I've been pretty much most of my career. Never had an interest in management, Lead, or anything that would take me out of the trenches of coding.
This also means my salary has been capped where I live at around $125K or thereabouts.
I had some strange idea that the more experience I had, the more money I'd make, no matter what my title was... but I've hit the wall.
There are some who are good at managing people and projects, and some, like me, who just like the CRAFT of it all, and not the overly-serious nature of the responsibilities one takes on in a management role.
Do you have any opinions on that to add here? Maybe I should Ask Slashdot myself? :-)
- Tim
that is doing the hiring.
Some companies hire young people because they know:
#1 They aren't married yet and are willing to work extra hours for no extra pay. have no spouse or children that need them at home after 5pm.
#2 They are willing to work for less because they have less experience than a 35 year old and up, so the company hires them at a below average salary.
#3 Management knows that younger people can handle stress more than older people, so they work the younger people harder.
#4 A younger person is less likely to need more benefits skips the 401K and insurance benefits, that help save the company money.
In reality these companies are run by scumbags and dirtbags and you are better off not working for them. They will cause you to get sicker until you eventually become like me and get too sick to work and end up on disability. If they do hire you, it will be at a below average salary with minimum benefits and a lot of overtime for no extra pay or bonuses.
What you need to do is research a company before applying for them, search the Internet for feedback to see if they are run by dirtbags or scumbags. There used to be a web site named f*ckedcompany.com but now I think people just resort to writing blogs or forums about their employers. But others exist Boss B*tchers Office Whisper Jobvent and My Boss is a Jerk to see if any of the companies you want to apply for have people complaining about them.
For older people you can always get a contract right to hire opportunity where they start you out on a six month or one year contract and if you work good enough they hire you on as an employee. You might like working as a contractor instead of an employee and you might earn more pay and fund your own health insurance and donate to an IRA.
Another option is to start up your own small business. Go to a community college to learn how to run a small business by their continuing education department and learn Quickbooks and Turbo Tax for filing the accounting and tax papers.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
first off you should do what makes you happy. if making lots of money makes you happy then a cs degree at 35 with no prior experience is probably not it. you should probably go for a business degree or maybe MIS (or CIS, whatever it is called, IT management type degree).
I started with a IT tech job when I was 22, I am now 48. I didn't really start to make decent money until after about 10 years and changing jobs 3 times. This was all during the very fast paced "pc revolution".
there seems to be some ageism going on in the IT industry when it comes to older geeks.
There is age discrimination in EVERY industry, not just IT. Oh it may be "illegal", but age and skin color are things that are far more difficult to hide at interview time than marital status, sexual preference, religion, etc. Funny how all the older guys seem to be the ones sweeping the floor, or running the company. There's a hint there, if you're wise enough to see it. Welcome to the real world?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If you have the skills for programming, you can break into the market based on experience rather than a degree. But if you don't have a rich resume of experience built up during the boom, you don't have the leverage for a job during the bust.
That will still be an issue in a few years when you complete the degree. Many places won't even look at a resume that doesn't mention a degree any more. (And it's all automated, so they literally don't see your resume!)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
do you want to do it or not ? IF you do just do it fuck the rest. Honestly, I was 18 when i started college for computer networking, there was a few people 30+. No one seemed to care. Just don't become like that Transformers guy know one wanted to get near... all he did was talk about transformers... wouldn't stop ! what was the point.. oh yeah just do it
I am in my 50s and am making twice the average salary in my discipline as a DBA. My goal this year is to move to triple.
Going to school will give you a piece of paper. So will getting a certification. No big deal. Rote memorization of the answers without comprhension of why the answers are correct will get you a piece of paper.
You need to ask yourself two questions:
If you are not working on improving your skills, knowledge, expanding your experience every day; then you will be a low end guy no matter what paper you have. The paper may be a key to enter a new career, but what you can do when you enter the door sets your salary.
Education is a life long process, not milestone.
If you are in your thirties and have not discovered how to teach yourself anything you need to learn, then all the schooling you have taken to date is a waste of your time, as well as any future schooling. You will always be surrounded by people making more than you doing the interesting work.
When I was young, I had to rub sticks together to compute.
I've been hired and retained quite a few times because I have "more time in the chair". I've seen all sorts of stuff. Hell, my first networking mystery at work involved Novell 3.51 over ARCnet. I've actually run gopher servers. I've written java programs before the language even had regexes, and still have trouble with perl that uses OO stuff (and what was so wrong with chop() that we needed chomp()?). My first linux install came on 13 floppies. From all that to now I've come across an incredible amount of randomness that isn't easily searchable on Google. And all that adds up to a serious ace in the hole when things get really strange.
So when the young college grad new hire has questions like "full-on RDBMS or little serialized hash table" he gets not only the right answer but a why as to how come it was the right answer. And sometimes that answer doesn't use the latest newest shiniest thing, but he has to learn what that's a good thing. Sure, the kid wants to play with toys. But if the right tool for the job happens to be mundane, then that's what should be used. In a boiler room full of recent grads, you can get a really serious case of Techno Lord of the Flies. Old dudes can temper that (though some old dudes can go overboard in not embracing new things).
I wrote my first BASIC program well before the recent crop of college grads were born. I'm my early 40s and, yeah, I have a life. I wouldn't want to work at a company that would trade a widely diverse set of experiences for fresh-out-of-school book knowledge. Plus the social skills come into play. You know the old guy isn't likely to call in hung over on a Thursday.
The reason you hear all the talk about ageism is that college grads can get worked harder and longer for cheaper to do crappier work (until they burn out and snap). Us old guys know enough not to put up with that shit, and most employers know it too. But sometimes the balance sheet is what matters most. You shouldn't be working at that kind of place anyway. Keep your salary requirements modest and you'll be fine.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
I'm a research faculty member at a top 10 computer science department. I work with a lot of undergraduates as researchers and older students compare very favorably to their younger peers. In general tend to be much more diligent and focused. Most older students also seem willing to work through harder tasks without giving up. My sense from talking to employers is that I am not unique in my assessment.
It is far broader than CS and can be applied in so many disciplines. It is where Computers were rooted, in systems, processes and controls.
You won't regret it.
I am completely amazed that such a high percentage of the answers are the same: overwhelmingly on the "pro" side of the argument. So, I want to present an apposing point of view.
:o)
Not really.
Of course I agree that "Go for it" is the correct answer. And it is wonderful to see that so many people are being so encouraging. It may not happen often, but once in a great while, like now, I remember why I bother to visit Slashdot.
I would strongly suggest you consider another line of work. I'm 42, I have a Master's degree and it seems not to be worth the paper it's printed on. I worked for 4 years as a 'senior' software developer (coding Java) in the US after completing my Masters and then elected to spend 18 months in Japan learning Japanese before returning home to Australia. Upon returning, I was completely unable to find work in software. The recruiter's comments I spoke to were essentially 'you haven't done any coding in the last year..well..that will be tough'. Having worked in IT since my late teen's, I couldn't even get an interview. After six months, this became '2 years' and I eventually changed my perspective and got a job working a help desk. Which I still do and in some ways, enjoy the fact that I don't have to think about work when I'm not on the phones. And when you learn how to handle/relate to people, the job becomes easier.
Also, bear in mind, that just graduating out of a CS degree does not mean you are regarded as prime programming talent :-) You are considered as someone who could possibly be taught.
I was once told that you should look around and see where the grey-haired people are working in your workplace. Those are the roles where there is long term employment and if none of them are doing what you are doing, you may need to reconsider your long term plans. I often wonder where all the older programmers go... My personal choice has been to become bi-lingual and so I am working every day towards passing an advanced level language test. There are a fair number of Japanese+English jobs in Australia and I suspect not a lot of candidates.
I was in your exact position 10 years ago. 30 years old, finally realized I wasn't going to be a rock star and no good career prospects. It took me 6 years to work my way through school, but when I graduated I already had a job through an internship, and now I'm still at the same company making more money than I could have in just about any other field with the same amount of experience. If you think computer science is interesting, then go for it.
This whole meme about how software companies are a 'young man's' game... I just don't get it.
Maybe at your way-hip, Web 2.0, here today, gone tomorrow kind of outfit, that might be true, but perhaps that's the reason why those companies always tank.
At 36, I am the youngest member of our operations in the US. My boss and our CTO cut their teeth on punch cards. As an aside, our CTO never completed college, which leads me to my main point.
Do you want this degree because you believe you'll pick up some more marketable skills, or because you're interested in CS? If you can already write code, you won't learn any more of that getting a CS degree.
If you want to boost your paycheck, getting a BS in CS may or may not help you.
After having spent about 15 years in the software business, I can safely say that only about half of the engineers and developers I have worked with have formal education in CS. The rest have a wide variety of backgrounds. I myself have a BA in Sociology. One of our developers was a veterinarian!
I have also worked with some people with CS degrees who were shitty engineers, and difficult to work with, as well.
Go get your bachelor's in CS, but do it for the learning, not because you think it will get you a higher paycheck.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
When hiring "no experience recruits", a degree was a critical selector for me. If you can show that you were willing to go through the 3 years of ups (and particularly downs) to get a degree then you are showing a willingness to take the medium to long term view of something. I wanted this in my people.
Your Resume would stick out from the crowd if I were reading it, due to "starting CS at 30" and I would want to know why. Whilst personally I would probably find the phrase "Pissed away my 20s" entertaining in a Resume (it would certainly get your Resume passed the first cull for me) it is probably not true for most. But there is real value in the experience that you have gathered if you can "spin" it right. Particularly since the 3 years to get the degree shows that any delay is unlikely to show complete flakiness on your part. Get a degree from an excellent institution, even better. The quality of the institution is actually quite important. If I have 100 resumes to pass through the first cull into 20 that we might pass around internally to find 5 or 10 to interview then the quality of your degree (GPA, pass level, institution) will be a factor.
As for the ageism, yep, its real. You are a much more formed person at 30 - 35 than 21 - 23 (the age of the other recent recruits). More formed means more issues. Not that there is always a direct intent to "form" employees. Just a subconscious knowledge that older means more idiosyncracies (sp?). Plus you are much more likely to need more wages sooner in terms of family and Life planning needs. All these are factors that increase the likelihood you will have an issue for me to manage. That is not to say the younglings don't have their own issues but they are more likely to be the common ones and we have seen most of them before.
Again this just means spin you Resume. Don't lie, the kind of employer you want will detect them. Just be frank and make the glaring fact of your age and lack of direct experience something of which you are aware as well as them and they will much more happily discount it.
I have been responsible for hiring several tens of people over the last decade or so, so I have seen hundreds of Resume and conducted many, many interviews (oh so many interviews). Several hires were late-comers to the CS field (PhD in unrelated fields, Working history and CS conversion degrees or like yourself) and many were less than 2 years experience. We had great success with many of our older latecomers but the trick is to get passed the Resume cull and into the interview room. Some of the ideas above might help you there.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
I'll be 57 when I retire from my current position and then plan to return to school and get my CS degree. Just for fun, you know .
I switched careers from air-fright driver/dispatcher to C++ programmer in my late 30's, on the strength of a two-semester community college certificate program that I never even finished. The key for me was enthusiasm. I had done some futzing around programming at home, and if you haven't been (or whatever equivalent aspect of IT you are interested in - make the appropriate substitution from here on), then you are barking up the wrong tree. One thing that will help you in early attempts at getting a job is expressing that you not only want the job, but you want to be doing programming. If you really want to do programming, then you already are. If you are a good enough actor to fake the enthusiasm, go to Hollywood, you don't need to waste your time as a code monkey.
My first job was an internship, for $8.00/hr while I drove a cab at night. It wasn't even a programming job, it was a data entry job. The data entry system sucked donkey balls, so I rewrote it to be fast enough to make up the lost time and still finish the project ahead of schedule. That looks good on the resume. If that's the kind of thing you can see yourself doing just because it is fun, or because you see crap and know you can do better, you will probably do well.
My current job I got partly on the strength of a recommendation from one of the young hotshots already working there. He had gone to the same community college at the same time as I did, and noticed me helping out others in the lab, and told the boss about it after my interview. Enthusiasm again.
So the first criteria is that you really want to do programming. If you don't, your age won't matter. If you do, your age won't matter... much. You'll have some explaining to do as to why you are starting so late if this is your "life's calling", but experience, skill, and enthusiasm will overcome those doubts.
This isn't a business for young hotshots and cowboy coders anymore, its all business, and there is big money on the line. Companies want people who will produce, and not just produce "beautiful" code, but code that will sell. At our age, we have one advantage over them young whippersnappers: we have experience at providing business value to those we work for. We have experience at gaining and using experience. What we lack in drama, we might just make up for it in consistency and reliability.
But don't expect it to be easy. The first few years will suck. The pay and the hours and the working conditions will suck. And unless you've already written some kind of take-the-world-by-storm software product in your spare time, your code will suck. You're starting from scratch no better, and no worse, than a kid fresh out of college, and your position at the bottom of every totem pole will be just like it is for those 20 year olds that don't have a mortgage and car payments and kids to feed.
Keep at it and use the experience you already have and the experience you'll gain every day. If this is what you really want to do, the thrill of learning and mastering a new skill will carry you through it. You'll have to prove yourself just like anyone starting from scratch does, but don't try to do it by out hot-shotting those kids, prove yourself by being reliable and professional. It is harder to break into this kind of business at a more advanced age, but most of the difficulties come from you yourself (we have different expectations, flexibilities, stamina, and abilities at 40 than we do at 20), not from predjudice on the part of those you'll be working for.
Insightful and funny are really the same thing, except one has a punch line.
Bone up on OOP, learn Objective C etc.. it helps out in other areas of life as well. I'm a 41 YO CpE who learned on Borland C and am now teaching myself Objective C. "The Objective C Programming Language" book from Apple (free) has some good philosophy chapters that explain it rather well.
..you're right. If you think you can't, you're right.
I manage about fifteen programmers and programmer/analysts. Most have CS degrees, some have CIS degrees. Typically when I hire, I look for someone who has a CS degree and has been doing work on the side. Three of my best guys were ones fresh out of college, who co-wrote a game on the side just for the fun of it.
However, I can say that a CS degree is nothing more than an entry point. (I personally have a PolySci/German degree, but have been programming since I was nine - oh, I'm 40 this year.)
I'd suggest this. Get your CS degree. Go out and find jobs doing stuff in the area or write your own apps either for friends, for a market you think might exist or just because you want to.
When you graduate, you'll have a degree in CS along with a few years of professional-level work to back up your degree. You can then market this either to employers and get paid a salary, market to potential customers and get paid per job, or market in general your skills as a contractor.
I've done all three. Since I have two rugrats, I currently limit myself to working my 50-hour workweek (often at night after they go to bed) and a little work on the side for family.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
If your goal is to be a programmer, you may find that only a fraction of the courses that you take are relevant to your career aspirations. CS degree requirements are usually more than just learning how to program. A lot of places will require that you take breadth credits from the humanities or social sciences. Besides that, you'll probably be required to take a number of courses within the CS department that are theory related. Although the material you'll be exposed to in these courses is incredibly interesting (IMHO), you may find yourself becoming cynical about why you have to learn material that doesn't really help you become a professional programmer. You'll also have to take a number of math courses (calculus, linear algebra). This stuff is important, since a lot of areas in CS (e.g., AI, graphics), require that you have a solid math foundation.
Depending on where you want to land a job, and what type of software you want to program, you may or may not need a degree. For example, if you want to land a job as a software developer at IBM, you'll probably need a degree. (The work itself doesn't necessarily require a degree, but IBM tends to hire degreed people.) You'll also need a degree if you want to do any hard-core graphics programming.
However, there are a lot of other types of programming jobs out there for which a college diploma will suffice. A college diploma will also cost a lot less money, and you'll be able to complete it in a lot less time.
Your best bet is probably to look at what kind of jobs are out there now and identify which ones appeal to you the most. Once you've identified this, look at the requirements that these jobs list. Do they want a degree? Will they settle for a diploma? Job ads sometimes say "degree or equivalent experience", which usually means that as long as you can demonstrate you'll be able to do the job competently, they don't care whether you have a "B.Sc" after your name.
Good luck, whatever you decide to do.
I'm 30 and in school now, and I love it. Computer Science has always been something I enjoy. I will probably be 32 when I graduate. I am also lucky that my wife is very supportive and doesn't mind us being poor as dirt while I'm in school. After I finish here, I plan to go to graduate school. I will probably end up in the 36-38 age range by the time I'm done (depending on what program I pick). One thing I've noticed is that as long as you're not incompetitent the professors treat you differently and give you more opportunities then the younger students. (However, more opportunities almost always means more work!) Also, expect weird nicknames from the younger ones. I've been called Gandalf a number of times. I think it's the beard. ;-P
In my software engineering department, every new hire of the last 2 years, save one, was over 35. One is over 50.
Maybe ageism occurs but it's the kind of ism that tends to rely on majority and since most of the employees in my department are middle-aged, I'm the recipient of the small amount of ageism that goes on... at 27.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
I pissed my 20's away in the military in an unrelated, but somewhat applicable, field.
I graduated with a CS degree in December. I was lucky enough to land a job locally during my senior year.
The truth is, I started as entry level despite all my other experience. I think I'm doing well, but that is only somewhat attributable to my past experiences in the job market. It is, of course, a factor when dealing with management, teams, leadership and all of the intangibles that are difficult to teach in classroom.
I also managed to do well in school, though that is more eye candy than anything. A strong factor in my success at my current position is the dynamic of the shop where I work. I think there are likely other management systems I would not do as well under. I also tend to take drinks from the fire hose on my own time, so that surely benefits my standing in the field.
My experience as an older grad is surely as unique as any. And I'd have to say a number of factors will determine how well your degree serves you, including your own level of motivation and the luck you have in finding the right entry level position.
I think you already know that you need the degree. If it's an option, I'd probably recommend going on for the graduate degree, and as others have said, getting as involved in a variety of projects while you pursue your studies.
I am 21 years old and just finishing up my computer science degree. I was at a job interview the other day and companies are definitely looking for 20 somethings coming right out of college. One of my interviewers told me specifically that the company was looking to hire younger people because unlike the older generations, we have grown up amidst all of the technology and with the internet. He said this makes younger people branch out more and be more creative/take risks and try something new.
While I am not necessarily in agreement with him, it sounds like for those of us 20 somethings coming out of college with a CS degree, we should have no problem finding a job. However, who wants to work in a company that you know is hiring a lot based on age. That does not correlate very well to job security.
Yes, there still seems to be ageism, but not in the way you expect.
There's an older gent I work with, perhaps in his early 40s at the oldest, who was promoted to "Principal Software Engineer" even though he writes worse code than our greenest newbie. Turns out he was an electrical engineer and has something like 5 years of software experience.
Compare that with one of my friends who is only 27 but has about 11 years of experience if you count hobbyist stuff starting in junior high. Nine if you're only counting professional experience. But at the same company he's not a "Principal", yet is one of the best software engineers I know or have ever met.
So just act like you've got the experience (but don't lie) and you'll probably get more promotions, faster, and more pay than a more experienced younger man.
I eagerly await the benefits of my own age discrimination.
You can go ahead and mod this flamebait now.
Question everything
I was in your position. I got my CS degree in 2003 when I was 43 years old. I don't recommend it.
It's kinda like a really fat woman asking aloud if she should enter a beauty contest: there are attractive big women but -- to be honest -- it isn't something that I can encourage, not with dozens of young, lean 21 year olds around. Could Big Bertha win? Yes. Will she win? No.
That you even ask aloud is a sign that you already know the answer.
I enjoyed all my CS classes (well, not assembly) but was I never able to find programming work in Silicon Gulch. My degree remains disused.
That's my 2-cents.
--Richard
I'd ask what sort of career track you're pursuing in the field.
.Net or what have you - and get a few projects under your belt you have a shot at getting your foot in the door.
If you're going into support, hardware or networking, a degree won't give you nearly the bang for buck as certifications will.
If you're planning to consult, I'd look at honing skills instead of a degree. A lot of companies are just hiring for immediate results. They could care less what sort of degree you hold - all they're interested in is the task at hand. If you can specialize in a field - say Java or
Web coding - they only care about your portfolio.
Business coding - most people are more interested in your skillset and experience in the real world. Nobody cares about apps to calc pi or what AI classes you took to get a degree because 90% of the time, you'll be playing with user interfaces or making changes to a database.
Matter of fact, the only place I'd recommend a degree is if you're hoping for the traditional tech -> management progression. That may take more time in today's market than you have to sacrifice.
There will be plenty of people out there with your age AND the experience behind it. Your best shot IMHO is to build a very specific skillset and get some experience in using it in the real world. Volunteer your time to a nonprofit or a friends business to get some real world experience under your belt. Set up some VMs so you know how your work will occur in a networked environment.
I'm a 40something currently back in the IT field after working marketing for 5 years. Before that, I was 15 years in IT at all levels. I have a degree as well. But every job I've been given has been because of someone recommending me recalling a real world experience with my work.
But with most of the western worlds economy as it is...
You'll find it difficult to compete with younger people at the moment as companies have to pay young people less and young people are willing to put up with a lot more crap then old people. But the economy will pick up (or society will descend into some kind of post-financial apocalypse feudalism in which case it wont matter) and companies will start to look at more then just the minimum wage and 35 does not put you over the hill, as a 25 yr old in the Australian mining boom I was competing for jobs with 35 and 45 yr olds who just wanted a new career, even the 45 yr olds were getting hired. older means you're more mature and they can expect a better work ethic and commitment to the company but unfortunately it means your wage needs to be a bit higher, which is the biggest problem with getting a job right now.
As always, there are niche markets. look outside the mainstream IT market, government, education (Australian Education, I understand that US schools aren't as good as ours so feel free to disregard that one, also forgive me if you're not from the US), (very) small business and so on.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Make sure you know what you're getting into. A Computer Science degree is a Math degree with a Computer minor. Don't take my word for it, take a look at the degree path & course descriptions. For example; http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.aspx?JobID=67547695 How many of your "Computer Science" courses will prepare you for that job? See any courses in there with "JavaScript / .NET / C#"? You're better off taking a couple of programming courses at ITT tech or any other place and you'll be ahead of all the math majors programming wise.
people your own age with around 20 years experience. Obviously, those people will be more desirable than you will. (education is usually comparable to experience, year for year.)
I haven't seen much obvious ageism, but then I'm 28, (been doing this since 15... I'll have 20 years by the time I'm 35) I've worked with a whole lot of really awesome old folks. one guy had 40 years of experience, and it showed. he was really good. You will, however, have a hard time getting a toehold right now, just 'cause the economy is shit and you have no XP. You need to go grind XP. I would advise starting right now. relevant work experience and college beats college hands down.
my advice to you is to make sure that every job from now on is IT related, even if you have to take one that pays crap. There are always companies around (see mine, though I'm not hiring at the moment) that will hire you as a jr sysadmin if you are willing to work for slightly above retail wages. I know I put in my time at that rate. HE.net around here hires rack monkeys for $15/hr. that's around what I end up usually paying for people as well.
If you really can't get a related job (and that's possible, the economy really is shit right now. everyone I know who is even a little marginal is having a hard time of it.) start your own company. I'm serious. even if you have no money, go buy a $5 VPS (hey, how about you buy it from me? http://prgmr.com/xen/ - but seriously, I have lots of competition. servers are cheap now.) write a webapp, let people use it for free. write a blog about things you are figuring out while you write the webapp. You can then put that on your resume as industry experience. Maybe it will get big? who knows.
But yeah, until the economy lets up, you are going to have a hard time of it. good luck.
In many cases it's a team of individuals that determine who gets hired, not any one person. So while you may not consider age in your choices, it doesn't mean other people don't (and naturally they aren't going to admit it).
Even obama said that 10yrs from now most of the high paying jobs will require at least a 4 yr degree, and even higher paying jobs like in engineering and sciences will requires 4yrs+. I think the president should have a very high level view which most of us cannot possibly have, which means there should be some merit to what he said. Go for it dude, you will be 35 anyway, why not get a degree along the way?
Thus spake the master programmer: ``When you have learned to snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave.''
The Tao of Programming, Book 1, Verse 1.
One of the problems with older programmers is that they cling to archaic concepts like their old favorite programming languages - C, C++, Assembler, Fortran. They worship at the shrines of the old pantheon of Wirth, Venn, and Turing. They don't grasp the modern subtleties of .NET and the modular beauty of DirectX without deliberate effort. They think that security is some absolute virtue having to do with cleansing your inputs, trusting noone and considering pathological conditions.
Pity them. They don't understand the beauty of rapidly advancing the user interface until the end user can with little understanding of the underlying technology create vast perfect representations of his vision until the whole thing seizes up just before he saves it just like it's a Visio diagram. That's computer science at its most cruel, its most perfect. If those geezers don't get it it's because they just don't understand how things are done these days. They've lost touch with the course of modern progress. They'll never be able to code a word processor app that consumes all the processor power of a quad core with 8 gigs of RAM. They'll never get why automatically executing code attached to a word processing document is an essential feature. They just don't know and they'll never know because they're old.
Pity them.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I'm a woman who just turned 30, so I'm curious to see if the supposed want for female geeks will negate the bias against people assuming women of a certain age are going to get knocked up and leave work right away.
I graduate in two years. Currently no spouse or boyfriend - regardless, I will likely not be having children anyway. I don't see myself working so hard to get my career on the go only to make myself unemployable right away.
I'm pushing 30 and I find that many people (including employers) assume that you have experience in your chosen field just because of your age alone, even before they've seen your resume. If the choice for a position comes down to you and a pimply-faced youth just out of college, age can be huge advantage. A lot of employers look for maturity and intellect first, raw skills second.
And anyway, it's never the case that your resume is what gets you a job, although it might limit you to an entry-level position. Either a strong recommendation or an excellent interview will get you the job. And if you spend your next few years boning up on I.T. or whatever you want to do, the interview will be easier than you think.
You say that you "wasted your twenties". I think this will be more of a struggle than your age in the hiring process, especially for entry-level positions. Potential employers will wonder what type of person "wastes their twenties" and ask themselves if they want to hire that sort of person. You need to have an explanation for the past decade which puts you in positive light, even if the circumstances are bad. However, once you do manage to squeeze yourself into a career and have some solid, relevant experience, you can get that all past you.
I think the main thing is that you should love software and technology, not just as a career but as a way of life. That doesn't mean you can't have other interests. But you have to be interested in programming as more than just a way to make a living. Unfortunately this often translates as "no life, willing to work long hours for no extra pay". But not always.
fnord.
On several occasions I've seen posting for IT and Web positions here in Austin that use the terms "youthful attitude." I've been asked blatantly how old I was. But its not "ageism" per se. It was more the baggage than the mileage. During one interview, the interviewer/biz owner commented on how "older people" have a lot more external commitments. For example, people 'my age' (4x) had to be home at night to take of kids or 'old parents.'
It's a game for those who know their shit, CS degree or no CS degree. Causality and effect. Age is an observation, not a cause.
Younger people who know their shit (who're not - yet - in possession of a degree) come to work in this field in droves, yes. It's a field that lends itself well to it.
I've been in this industry for 15 years, been in (several) ISPs, been in the software industry, been in the financial industry, and I can honestly say older people don't get discriminated against if they know their shit and can deliver. Quite on the contrary, they typically carry around an aura of respect (think Sid in User Friendly ;)).
Other side of same coin is true as well - clueless young people get the whip as easily as clueless old. You just don't notice it as often.
Re degree -
I'm 34 and in the middle of a biology BSc (my first degree) after 15 years as either a (self-taught) software engineer, systems engineer, or combinations thereof.
The first poster said it best - you're gonna hit 35 one way or another. Only question is whether you'll hit it with a CS degree or not.
What I can also advise you is to stay on top of your shit in those three/four years. Stay geek, cluey, in the know, in possession of a firm marketable skillset. If you 'let go' of the tech side (as many of my friends who went to management did) and get a degree in 4 years, it's debatable whether you'll be better or worse off without one yet with the other instead.
What's not up for debate is if you walk out at 35 holding both the paper and the geek-who-knows-his-shit-license.
-
Being good in technology isn't something you can just up and decide to do. Working in the field, you can almost always tell the difference between the 9-5'ers who went to school and learned everything they know there, then went to get a job and the people who were nerds growing up, got into computers for their own sake as kids, then morphed that natural interest into a career.
Not saying you won't get a job, but you're going to be competing with people (younger and older) who are naturally computer nerds and who have been doing it their whole life.
Well having the word "Engineer" is a good thing to have in your degree name (especially in countries other that the US where people give a lot of weight to such things).
I studied CS in the US. But I later regretted not studying CE. The curriculum was basically the same (just a few more courses). But the title has more weight in Latin America.
But frankly, all the hardware stuff bores me. I'm more of a software/math guy.
If you really feel compelled to get into programming then don't let anyone talk you out of it.
Having said that, there are downsides to aging in the software industry. This may not be a problem for you but based on my experience, young people are more interested in impressing their bosses by getting code out quickly. Managers usually can't tell bad code from good code so they like people that produce code quickly because it means less money, in the short term anyway.
The more mature/older programmer will usually be a bit more careful and spend more time designing the software. This usually leads to quicker delivery of product but makes managers nervous because they really want to see products in QA/testing ASAP. Once the product is in test then the "usually overly optimistic" manager will assume that they are only a few bugs away from release. If the programmer says the code is not done then you're stuck but if the code is in QA then you can just declare the remaining bugs as features and you're ready for product launch. The manager retains more control that way.
This has happened far too often in my experience and is why I prefer open source software to commercial software if I can find it. More often then not, open source programmers don't want to be embarrassed by releasing buggy programs so they take extra pains to design and test their code, where commercial programmers can be severely for chastised for delaying product release so they will release whatever they have as soon as possible. The saying "Haste makes waste" was never more true than in programming. It's easier to create a patch later and release today then it is to do a thorough job in the first place.
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
Hopefully you don't mind your boss being younger than you? For the most part this probably isn't to bad, however you'll have more 'life experience' likely, this plays a role in the real world. As if you won't at some point think: "What does he know, I could be his father" :)
I work for a defense contractor with a well-deserved reputation for cutting-edge technology. We do seem to discriminate based on age. We only hire the very best recent grads and strongly favor older applicants with great experience and advanced degrees. There is a lot more gray hair here than at a game developer. The difference is: our technology is not used to waste time, but to save lives.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
I once hired an English teacher who had spent 4 years in Japan to write code because I could tell that she could learn just about anything from her many years of experience at different occupations. She was one of the best developers I'd ever hired because of her attention to detail; her testing was amazing and she rarely missed anything in specs and I only had to explain things to her once, maybe twice. And yes, she knew how to code, although she had minimal experience. Sorry guys, but most coding just ain't that hard for someone who has the aptitude for it.
It's true, some companies will only hire people who have proven they can get through 4 years of college. As someone pushing 50 and probably overpaid, I just went through a round of layoffs at my company where older and less experienced people were let go in favor of an old fart like me that can code faster and cleaner crap that just runs.
Get your degree if you want it, but don't wait until you get it to start looking. If you have any aptitude and can demonstrate it, you might get a job. Maybe that job will come with tuition reimbursement and help pay for your college. But it can't hurt to start looking now.
If you're not smart enough or good enough, at least you will get practice interviewing!
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
You should not be asking, "am I too old for this".
You should be asking, "do I love doing this".
My advice would be to piss away your thirties and consider the degree when you're 45.
Nullius in verba
The most judicious, experienced, diligent engineers are the ones with no kids at home and no retirement savings.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
If u r already into programming and love it, don't waste your time, u'd be better off building real systems, and if you cann't find one that pay, build upon a open source and very soon you'll be consulting people using it. If u r not into programming, find something that sucked u(to use an earlier comment) and work on that. If you absolutely sure that u want to start over, don't worry about age, be the best u can be and I'm telling you with experience, it does not matter, what matters is your geek quotient. U'd definitely need to find a mentor to guide in the right direction.
I would suggest spending 2 years at a community college getting an associates degree in computer science while paying much less. I've seen quite a few older people who were doing just that.
Subject says it all. Now GET OF MY LAWN! Damn kids.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You get a multiple of what you give. You lose a multiple of what you take. Somewhere in between is balance. It's really that simple. It's kind of funny when you think about it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
After all, IT is already expensive, a thousand a month more isn't going to break the bank. If for that you get somebody more mature and just plain stable, well then that ain't that bad a deal.
Only sweat shops care about hourly wage. If you got a 1000 packers running around then saving a dollar on each persons hourly wage is going to count. Saving 1000 per month on a single programmer isn't.
What I seen myself is that what companies want is drive and enthousiam. They want somebody they don't have motivate or drive but who just does the work assigned without handholding. Convince the interviewer you are that person and you are in. Being young might actually work against you. Be honest, do you want to hire one of todays super-entitlement kiddies? T
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Excuse you, but 35 is not automatically management age for anybody.
Some people do stay with their field and are damned good at it. After all, 35 is by no means near the word "old".
By your assumption, all working people are 20-31 or something... wow.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
And, as somebody who interviews as well, I can tell you that while I don't personally give a #!!#@ about age, the truth is that damn near everybody I've interviewed who was 'older' came with so many condition.s that it wasn't worth my time. I kept hearing things like 'I don't do ----' and ' I won't ----' and 'You must....'.
Dang it, I have lots of work that needs to be done - mostly programming - and offer decent wages, good benefits, challenging work, flexible schedule, free snacks/coffee/sodas, and a respectful environment to somebody who's willing to DO what's needed! Don't tell me you don't do databases, go spend 50 dollars at Barnes and Nobles, 2 weeks reading, and show me how you've learned to normalize tables! Don't tell me that you don't do Linux, tell me how you'd love the experience of working with a new (to you) technology!
Only want to work part-time on a pet project? Why are you here, again? Didn't I specify FULL TIME on the job posting!? It's not age that turns me off, It's people who want to tell ME what their job has to be, working for me, and this is attitude is painfully common among 'mature' applicants.
Be ready to do the work that needs to be done. I get paid (well) by clients to do the work that they need done, not what I happen to feel like doing. If you get this ridiculously simple idea, I'd hire you in a flat second!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Game companies take advantage of the 'glamour' and offer small compensation because there are so many people begging to work on games. The 'young male' correlation you've made is due to the gaming demograph skewing young-male. People who don't play games and are experienced won't settle for the peanuts gaming companies pay.
Gaming companies are highly unstable and are not a long-term investment.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Mate, i pissed away my 20s, 30s, and 40s - although i did work as an assembler programmer for a couple of years at the start of the 80s and as a technical writer for a couple of years after that. I also built my first web site in 1995 and i've been using Linux since that time too.
I'm 50 now and getting back into IT. I'm currently stuck in a town with very little employment opportunities for anyone, and i'm scraping a living as a freelance web developer while i develop my skills. When i can leave here, in a year or two, maybe, i'll be fully up to speed and have a halfway decent portfolio of web sites i've built. And i'm tossing up the pros and cons of doing a CS degree myself.
35 isn't old. I wish i'd been smart enough to start getting my shit together when i was your age.
You've still got time for two or three totally different careers before you die, anyway - if you're that way inclined and you're lucky!
and I still find plenty of opportunities open to me. If there's ageism at work in the industry I'm not seeing it.
Mind you, I've got almost three decades of experience. It might be that for someone starting out age could be a factor. But honestly, in any of the hiring that I've been involved in all that we cared about was whether the person was good at their job and able to work well with others.
-deane
Yes, there is ageism in IT. There's ageism in just about every part of today's society. That should not stop you from getting a degree. I went back to college at about your age. Just remember that there is plenty of IT geeks with a BS degree and not a whit of experience - it's what you do with your degree that counts. BTW, it is possible to have a career without one.
Whether or not you will succeed is less a factor of your age, but more of a factor of how hard you strive for it. There is no replacement for experience. A 40 year old that just graduated is on a level playing ground with a 21 year old grad. You won't compete with 40 year old with 20+ years of IT experience. Make sure you consider: a) The cost of University. Not only the direct costs but the indirect as well - loss of income etc. b) You will be starting at the bottom of the ladder. Entry level IT is gritty. Can your pride handle younger managers that might seem to, in your opinion, make all the wrong decisions? c) Computer Science at University is a lot of work. Nothing I have ever done has compared to a semester in which I wrote a small OS, and a compiler. It was a lot of long days and nights with little sleep. Can your health handle it? Also consider technical institutes if you really just want to get into the workplace. They can give you the skills that are needed right now and get your foot in the door. Okay, that said, here it is: Hell yes you should do it. University is a great experience. By the end of it your mind feels like a sponge that can just soak up whatever you throw at it. Computer Science at a University was the best choice I made (though at times I expressed my doubts in a colourful manner). It's one thing to "program" but it's another to really understand these systems and how they work, as well as to see the potential. If you apply yourself and absorb as much as you can, and continue to work hard at it, there is no reason you can't be successful.
I have a long and varied history. I spent 16 years working in electronics, doing component-level repairs. Somewhere around age 30, I really started liking computers, starting with games, but quickly moving on to taking evening classes in programming languages, anything I could get into, at the local community college.
At age 35, I changed careers, having been hired by a local development house/sweatshop that kept hiring people from the community college.
I never finished that degree. But here I am now, with 18 years of programming under my belt, making good money, and taking online coursework toward my bachelor's. I've changed jobs a lot, took the independent route for a few years, and just completed my associate's program a few months ago.
I have never been out of work for more than a few weeks, and am so close to making six figures, I could take a weekend job flipping burgers to push me over the line.
It is really never too late.
Mike
Why not start your own company? in this day and age the assumption that you need to get a job offer from someone else is strange.
Nobody cares how old you are when you run a company. I'm 39 and a programmer. No biggie.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I am 22 and work in IT and the only reason why I disrespect any of my older colleagues is when they are the kind of people who learned one language/system 10 to 20 years ago and cling to it while furiously refusing to let go. If you go to the school, learn how to adapt to changing technologies, do not just get glued to whatever is hip at that time and you will do just fine.
I'm (*cough*) in my late twenties and I've gone back University to do an MSc (I already have a BSc). So far the decision to do this is proving usefully interesting (but perhaps more so in areas of life outside of my degree topic). I can't answer your real question as at this moment in time I cannot say what course doing this additional degree has set my life down - I do not finish until September this (2009) year. I can tell you a little bit about the experience of studying at University again though...
On the whole the other students on your course will be younger than you. Even though the age gap between myself and them is not very large, I would argue that a bunch of years is enough to start showing a difference. There seem to be things they can do that I cannot (they really can do real work throughout the night whereas by 12am I am totally dead to the world). The sheer amount of work that some them can achieve is immense - at times it can seem relentless. They often find it easier to relate to each each as they are the same age and sometimes have a similar mindset. Additionally many of them live on campus so things which are easier for them (getting to a 9:15 lecture) require planning from me (a trip to Uni from home takes 30 minutes so I have to be ready to go by 8:45).
The flip side though is that I can occasionally leverage experience. Once in a while a situation will come up that seems similar to something I have seen elsewhere and this can allow me to approach a problem in a different way. I may not solve the problem faster but it can generate a different set of results. Compared to my younger self, I find that I can now relate to those lecturing AND the students thus allowing me to have a different style of conversation. Additionally, learning how to better relate to the other students is often an enjoyable experience; sometimes it feels like by hanging out with them you start picking up on their energy and thus start feeling (and acting) younger yourself (you start trying to do more)...
I do not know why but people are often very willing to listen to what I say and I am now more willing to say it too! The whole thing is a great confidence booster but it's a double edged sword (however both edges are sharp which can leads to speedy conclusions).
I don't find this degree any easier than my first degree. All hope that doing this would be an easy ride were blown away in the first term as my various weaknesses were made painfully clear to me. So just being older doesn't trivialise the degree but it can act as a huge motivator. Being a mature student (and thus announcing that you are prepared to face issues your colleagues will not) often means you are there because you REALLY want to be and not just because you fell into it. This may allow you to extract extra knowledge from a situation to non-mature students and as hinted at earlier others will pick up on this too.
I guess all of the above is a long way of saying that you have to think carefully about why you are doing the degree before you embark on it. What you actually obtain from it may not be the things that land you that stellar job and you will be up against young folks often willing to do the same for less when you are going for that job. As such you need to be offering more than the people going for the job are (so that piece of paper alone is not enough now you are older). Think about what you expect out of degree very carefully and CHECK to see whether your chosen degree and institution will really offer it. I have met (young) students upset with their choice and they feel locked in (although I suspect even they would say small parts have been useful now they are further in). I never knew it at the time but it was the things that I did outside my course (that were available because I was at a University) that had the biggest job impact after my first degree.
As I said at the start of this post I don't know what this will lead to for me (I hope it is something good!) but regardless of that doing degrees has changed
The I.T. industry (development in the uk) is a strange place to be. I've been a professional developer for 18 years and every day problems are the same now as they have always been. Project mismanagment, lack of understaning of the tech involved and persistant scope creep.
Most of this is management managing what they don't understand, but I often wonder if it's also because of the attitude that when you reach 40 you're too old.
In most industries experience is valuable but in it and dev skills easily get outdated and requires that 20 year old attitude of doing a days work then sitting up till 2-3am playing with new tech that you find 'exciting'. When you get older you've seen so many changes you realise its an always changing industry and the latest new tech will be old tech in 2-3 years anyway so why bother.
Gone a bit off track but my point is that young peeps still have that obsession to learn evrything new and they still believe they can fix all problems they come across. Us older folks know that unless you get in with a knowledgable company you'll be in a constant battle between producing good stuff and getting the management to understand what you do.
...means he's not good enough to stand on his own = not good enough for hiring.
The ageism goes like this: in 20's they are all not experienced. Let's fish out the best ones and keep them, let the other ones go.
In 30's all the good ones are taken, or work on their own. Only weed is left out of job, and we don't meed these.
You'll be best off self-employed (user support, service) or as a contractor. In essence being a contractor would mean "he's too good for most permanent jobs and chooses only well-paid challenges."
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
"yeah, but does it run linux?" threads on slashdot.
please restate bitrate in libraries of congress per hour.
If at your age you still have the ability and the will to undergo an academic cursus, it means you actually worth more than a youngster in terms of potential.
I'm 52 and I have no degree. All I have is 33 years of experience, with more languages/dialects, OSes and APIs than I care to remember. I get by.
You, OTOH, may need to settle for an entry-level position, and be happy if you can get that, in the present environment.
After reading this I feel one lucky person. I'm 46, have almost no qualifications (left school in UK with O'levels, did a single A-level at night school when I was 35 or so to see if I could(Got an A grade)). I did get a few MS VB exams under my belt but never got the full MCSD.
I've had two job interviews in my entire IT career. The rest of the time I just bumbled from one role to another in the same firm, surviving staff culls, reorganisations etc when others fell by the wayside. I eventually got outsourced - still there.
I've never planned my career until it was effectively too late. I can't stand politics, networking etc. and hearing the 'youngsters' at work with their multiple degrees go on about their career plans, structured targets etc. just scare the hell out of me. What's even more annoying is the way they go on about how they're the best (what, all of them?) and how they deserve more money, more responsibility etc. when in most cases I'd call them competant at best.
Yet somehow, I've managed to end up earning a reasonable wage. I've already paid off my mortgage once (got another now though). I expect next time I do end up properly out of a job I'll be in trouble but so far, I've got away with a somewhat charmed life.
About the only thing I've got going for me is about 35 languages and 10 OS's under my belt which shows I can turn my hand to pretty much anything if needed and my output is generally pretty bug free based on not doing the same dumb thing twice. I have always worked within time deadlines. My memory isn't what is was so I turn to Google and/or books more than I used to but that apart, when I give an estimate, that's when the code will be delivered.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
If u spk entrly in txt, u r almst crtnly fr 2 yng 2 be qualified 2 answr OP qstn.
HTH, HAND.
I started back to university at 36 and, at 43, I just finished my two year degree and am working on my four year in computer science. On top of that, I plan on at least earning my masters before I throw in the towel. I don't think it's ever too late, or a person too old, to continue their education.
Darryl L. Pierce "What do you care what people think, Mr. Feynman?"
I started for an academic run two years ago, at the age of 37, as yet another cornerstone of a second career in IT. If it hadn't been for me needing to rake in money with freelance projects for my daughter and spouse at the side I wouldn't have quit after a semester like I did. Allthough I do have 22 years of programming experience and 4.5 years of real freelance experience and, despite studying arts, did not piss away my 20ties but did lot's of projects at the side, so I can handle the lack of a defree fairly well when facong employers or customers.
My take on your situation: If you've got no one depending on you and can afford the tight budget and/or dept for the next few years go for a degree. The renewed learning experience is fun and you'll be superiour to any group dynamics your early twen commrades still fall for - which is a huge plus. Nothing is stopping you from doing related projects on the side once you've gotten through the first two tough 'weed-em-out' semesters and a degree never can hurt. You can allways drop out if the opportunity asks for it and you can calculate the risk of doing so.
My two Eurocents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
>If u spk entrly in txt, u r almst crtnly fr 2 yng 2 be qualified 2 answr OP qstn.
LOL
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I hired several developers who were over 40, and one who was over 60. They tended to have better attendance than the graduate developers and they all brought a wealth of experience into the company that helped the younger developers. A lot of skills developers need don't change much with time. Less languages change and the way technology is used changes but the core skills remain very similar. Perhaps we are unusual but we are also quite picky in that we check for skills not buzz words and value experience over degree results. This was in the UK btw
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, y
Go for it, having knowledge and qualifications will always benefit you. I haven't done hiring in a while, but maturity and experience counts for something.
I think there's a great opportunity around at the moment - learning mainframes and COBOL. The people who understand them and who are good at it are retiring, and once you're decent at it you could make a shedload of money as a consultant/contractor. It's not sexy, and it's not leading edge, but I think it could be a really good niche and great earner. Legacy systems are definitely not going away.
Is this something I really enjoy? If the answer is yes then I say go for it and screw anyone that says your too old. If your looking at it for just a source of income, then find something else that you do enjoy.
Hell at my job I'm picking up stuff off the older developers and improving my skill sets, some who have been around since they were using punch cards. They in turn are also picking up stuff off me and improving their skill sets as well.
Don't ever lie to yourself in thinking it's a young buck's game. It's a game for those who enjoy playing the game and working the trade.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Related to this, I wonder if anyone has some advice for me.
I have no degree. I dropped out of a Virtual Reality Design course when it became clear to me they wouldn't teach me what I would need. I felt the bar was too low and the lecturers didn't know enough. Plus being a dyslexic I probably had a education chip on my shoulder. I had been programming since I was a kid, but had come to this degree after doing an art course at college. After dropping out I got work as a C++ programmer speeding up a start ups 3D engine. It was abroad and I wasn't able to learn the language and missed my family and friends, so after 7 months I left. I got another job at a big games middleware company back in the UK and worked there for 4 and half years doing tools, examples, development and technical support. After that I've spent over 4 years at a large independent game studio doing mainly tools. In the last year I have got heavily into shell extensions and virtual filesystems and so am now finding Windows a painful platform to work on. I've being educating myself on Unix history, including Plan 9, Linux and the Free software movement in general. I want out of Windows development and out of games (not that I've ever had much to do with the games ends of things).
Any advice?
I'm in my early 40's and I get hit up by headhunters/recruiters constantly. Many companies want experienced professionals.
And I mean always. A lot of my friends are in that age group (and so am I) and they get snatched in days (some keep getting unsolicited calls at their current jobs to go work elsewhere).
The key is to be good. At 35 you should have substantial experience and evidence of growth behind you and you should really be a master of your domain. Fresh out of college kids have no chance to compete against you when it comes to proven ability to deliver, and you experience.
You also should be building a reputation and name for yourself. People in the industry, or at least local industry, should know about you.
And also if you are not learning something new each day of your life, you are wasting time.
Failing this, yes I can see how it would be hard to find a job at any age group.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
The writing without good grammer and spelling, the meandering commentary (as if you've spent the last ten years in some dimly lit computer room hacking out 1000 line C functions), and the illustration of ignorance about Executable UML and other agile methods all gave an excellent illustration of the ignorant, stuck-in-their-ways programmers pulling down the software industry today. /. to mod your post insightful.
What's really sad is that enough of them participate in
I have a master's degree in English, but I've been working in IT for twenty years. (I'm 38, BTW.) Some of the brightest people I've known in the IT industry never went to college. I think that it's a matter of talent. You either have it or you don't.
There are two questions that I always ask prospective hires. Did you take apart your toys when you were a kid? Do you prefer Captain Kirk, Piccard, or Janeway? Answer those two questions sufficiently, back it up with a decent employment history, and you have the job.
A CS degree will teach you how things work in the lab. That's not real world. You have to dive in, get dirty, and do trial-by-fire to really make a career in IT. At least, that has been my experience.
Regardless, best of luck in your pursuits.
SiO2
Companies don't like to hire experienced IT personnel, because they cost more. This means if you are looking for a starting salary at any age, you are more employable.
On the flip side, where a company is looking for experience, ageism doesn't come into play, and they are expecting to pay market rate for the experience. (which reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon where the PHB syas they only like to hire the best, but Dilbert points out that salaries are based on the market average.)
I work in an environment with several people who are in their late 60s-70s. Some of them have told me stories about the days of punch cards and having to buy expensive processing time on mainframes (One great story was about an infinite loop that cost the programmer's company $10k in mainframe processing time). I will readily admit these older developers are not as quick as the younger ones. These seniors also have a great deal of frustration dealing with relatively new concepts. For example, I'm working with one on a project right now who is pulling his hair out trying to understand object-oriented programming. But you know what? Every one of these seniors is indispensible to our organization. One of them works 60-hour work-weeks because no one else in the organization has been able to rise to the task of learning everything he knows in his 40+ years of IT. Just remember that when you go into Computer Science, you are going into it for life. Everything in IT changes every five years, and you must assume the responsibility for lifelong learning. Plus it sounds like you have one big advantage over all the younger CS graduates: you know how much you don't know. : )
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
I did not pursue a CS degree, and I guess at this point I wouldn't even consider one, except perhaps for laughs.
I spent my twenties as a journalist and bandsman in the military, then studying music in college. Yeah, music, The Degree That Garners No Wage.
But...
I messed around with computers since my teens. I started programming on TRS-80 Model III systems for a science museum. And I never stopped. Not even when I went to college to study music, not even when I studied journalism. I'm one of *those* guys.
Today, I have 10 years of corporate programming experience under my belt. I worked as a consultant in QA and Tech Support prior to gaining my first programming job, and found those experiences worthwhile. And I've only worked for two projects in those 10 years, which should give you an idea of my retention rate (companies want to hang onto me.. I've even survived several mergers).
Some of the folks who did not make it on my projects had degrees. They had certifications. They did not have experience, and they did not demonstrate competence.
At my last job, none of us were under 30 years old. At my current job, we have a better balance of young vs. old, although the older folks mentor the younger ones.
In my experience, the people with the degree really couldn't think on their feet well enough to write even the simplest bits of software, yet demanded more money. The folks with certifications were even worse. If you displayed either of these on a resume, I would try to figure out if you got it after you gained experience (for the sake of having a degree... I live in an area that often requires a degree as a precondition for employment... stupid government rules). I'd ultimately look at what you can do, not what a piece of paper says.
Oh, age? I don't personally care how old or young you are. If you can do the job, great. If you're older, you can probably work with customers better, because you're likely to be a little more patient (at least up to a point). If you're younger, you're probably willing to try some weird things that might be interesting, and at least have the drive to work at a crazy pace. If I were an employer, I'd figure out how best to make use of your faculties, regardless of age.
Get the degree if you want, but you should really ask if that's the kind of work you want to do. Are you really driven to do this kind of work? If you aren't, you will burn out. This kind of work will consume you very quickly. You must have a passion for it.
And so it goes.
You're not real observant are you? There's ageism in every industry. I'm still employed and I'm a lot older than 35.
You're deciding on a career based on money or fame, and not because you love doing the work.
You're not in the right industry. You need to be in mortgage banking.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
It is otiose to buy into the debate about exactly what age the brain starts to decline. What is important is one's ability to function as a useful part of an organisation, and maturity has a large part to play in this.
I know plenty of people in their 20s who are more academically gifted and mentally brilliant than my 46-year-old self, but this doesn't necessarily count for much when one sees them running around in circles without any real focus.
A stupidly simple case in point: just today, I and a younger colleague needed to get a quickie questionnaire out for a project we're working on. It took several attempts to convince my colleague that there was no point adding useless data on respondents' age and other matters, since (a) these things made no difference to us, and (b) there is no point collecting data on something you can't use.
You might find it less fashionable to parrot this idea of the brain declining at 27 when you pass that age and have to watch the young sprouts making fools of themselves and you.
I got my (master's) degree at 34 years of age. Mind you, I had started the studies much sooner and have been working in IT all the time. I got the degree mostly in order to pass formal requirements which many companies deploy to narrow down the number of applicants. It has not changed my life but especially in harsher market situations you get a better edge. On the other hand, I've never had a job that I didn't get by recommendation or contacts, so I don't really know how much it matters.
In Sweden where I live, unions also have quite a large impact on salary levels and having a formal degree makes it easier to qualify for higher levels of payment, especially in large companies. It's not as if it's impossible without, but it removes one obstacle that a manager otherwise would have to make some argument for.
As someone else says, you'll be that age soon anyway. The question to ask yourself is if there some other way to get more value of your time. And I'd take a university degree rather than any number of certifications.
In my experience, when you're too old to keep up with current technology, they make you the boss.
When I'm asked who would I choose between the new candidates I often go for the oldest if I see the passion for computers in them.
Older people are much more reliable, though not as fast as younger, they are less incline to fuck up something.
In the end you need a balance, so experienced people will always be needed.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Over 45 here, STILL no degree, continuously employed, and having no trouble. First off, at 35 you're not "old" by any definition other than maybe Myspace's. Second, by the age of 35 you probably (hopefully) have developed certain habits like showing up for work on time, not sending out ill-advised emails, and avoiding office drama. You'll likely be closer in age to your bosses, which is definitely not a bad thing.
I've been in management - we see a lot of resumes from people who started new tech careers in their 30s. It's no big deal. We figure even if you lack technical experience (like the rest of the newbies), you have some life experience that will give you a different perspective.
I'm 52. I messed around with computers in my 20s and 30s but didn't start my programming career until I was 40. My degree is in anthropology. I've been very successful as a programmer. You have to learn to write the code. However you learn that, there are going to be a gazillion folks out there who can write the same code. What's going to make the difference is how well you can translate what people want into code and translate code into what people want (unless all you aspire to is a line programming job). Do a CS degree, it'll give you some kind of credentials. But, if you can't write and speak well, can't get along with people, can't understand at least part of the big picture you're working in you're going to be stuck doing boring, repititious programming tasks that ultimately won't justify the time and effort that went into your degree.
I got into Computer Science at 35, my friend. Now, with 12 years in the business, I'm flying high. It's never too late. Just be comprehensive in what you learn and you'll do fine. Free Java Lectures
I just turned 51 and I'm feeling the ageism pinch in my office. My company normally hired seasoned guys like me, but lately they've really emphasized hiring fresh-outs. I'm still employed but sensing that there's a cross-hair trained on my back now.
That's why I'm developing my skills for a second income stream "just in case": day trading. Engineers are ideally suited to this sort of thing because it's analytical in nature.
...that someone who goes into a field like CS at a later stage is likely to be more committed to the subject, and also understands the value of quality, personal development and education.
All attributes that make an excellent asset to a software company. I always think that someone who is at least moderately talented and yet committed to achieving the highest standard, is the ideal software developer.
Not to say that a young graduate doesn't have these attributes, but there are lot who don't.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Poor baby, try getting a job at 55. Although I always led and excelled in my field. I too find that unless you are willing to bank on Cronyism ( let face it, this is what networking really is ), you are screwed when it comes to the market place. People are too stupid to tell shit form shinola when it comes to evaluating talent. They are unable and unwilling to see a person's ability beyond a laundry list of buzz words they don't understand. A real sad state of affairs out there. Sorry I do commiserate with you but you got 20 years of youth on me so I am a bit more pissed off than you.
I was in the same boat that you are, I received by BS in Computer Science at 34. I found that my age was actually an advantage when I went on interviews. I was a bit more relaxed and the employers seemed to like that fact that I was more mature. They seem to think that if you are mature you are less likely to miss work due to partying. That you have your priorities straightened out. It seems that the trend in IT is outsourcing, but you may find that the Government sector may be a safe bet for putting your degree to work.
Sid! It's You!
I turned 65 this week and am developing. Go for it!
But they probably knew the difference between "cite" and "sight". Assuming that the two people you worked with are representative of everyone over 50 simply demonstrates how much you have yet to learn and experience.
I have a good friend who did exactly what you're describing. We actually met in the CS program in college. He's now an IT manager doing very well. One of things he did well was take his previous work experience and leverage it in useful ways in IT.
I say go for it.
As always, there are some seriously flawed views on education and the job market in these replies. I question whether some of the degrees people have "earned" on here actually exist. "Network Engineering" degrees, did they come from an online school? Or do you mean a degree in in Computer Science with an emphasis on networking? Also a degree in Computer Information Science, Computer Decision Sciences, or Digit Arts and Sciences is *not* a degree in Computer Science. Finally whoever says "programmers" (I doubt anyone calls them this nowadays, its always Software Developer or Engineer) don't make a fair amount of money is nuts. /rant
I just turned 48 yesterday, and am still going strong as a professional (& hopbbyist!) programmer.
There are different benefits to being young - under 25ish say, and more experienced. The advantage to being young (and very inexperienced, even if you believe otherwise!) is that you have a huge amount of enthusiasm and energy and everything is new and therefore exciting and challenging to you. You'll be willing to work crazy hours for months on end to get an interesting project completed. This is what companies like! I remember working 16-17 hours a day 7 days a week for a few months at one stage (for a small company), with commeasurate results!
OTOH, when you get older and hopefully more experienced (of course you'll be somewhat more experienced, but how much more so depends on how lucky/smart you've been in getting increasingly challenging jobs to work on over the years) the lack of raw hours you are probably willing/capable of putting into can be MUCH more than compensated for by the experience you bring to bear. I'm sure I can finish complex projects at least 10x as fast as a new hire simply by working smarter - better design, no bugs, etc. Some projects the new hire would never complete due to being out of their depth. As a more senior developer you'll get paid more than the entry level guy, but no where near the multiple that your productivity - when called for - justifies. Figure 3x the salary for that potential 10x+ productivity, so you're also a good deal to the company assuming that you are that good.
Where ageism is going to kick in is where you have neither the benefit of youth nor of experience - if you're an older programmer, expecting a senior programmer position/salary, and a 9-5 work day, but without the talent/experience that justifies it. As long as you don't mind starting at age 35 at the salary of a fresh college grad, and appear to have similar energy/enthusiasm then there's no reason companies should not be willing to give you a chance.
The worst that can happen is you will expand your own knowledge, which is always good. Also the knowledge gained will be valuable tools for you to use in life no matter what the fates have in store for you.
Go for it.
There is a real shortage of talented programmers out there. Most programmers are completely awful and write disgusting lumps of buggy spaghetti code, regardless of their age. Nobody in the market for a talented programmer -- nobody worth working for, anyway -- is going to turn a talented programmer away because they have a receding hairline.
Yes, there is mild ageism. It's not because people in the industry have some sort of innate hatred of people over 35; it's because older programmers tend to lack the geeky dedication and up-to-date skillsets of younger programmers, and tend to have higher pay requirements because of their families, mortgages, etc.
Tend. Tend.
Show yourself to be otherwise and you'll be on an even footing with the younger coders. And if you do carry those drawbacks, well, it's not really your age that's holding you back.
(Of course, there are enormous numbers of older programmers who defy that tendency and are superior programmers because of their experience, and enormous numbers of younger programmers who are absolutely total crap)
For whatever it's worth, I'll be 33 in a few months and the most talented programmer currently in my personal/professional circle is over 40.
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Guys, don't piss away your 20's like I did but... I received my BS in CS at age 33 at a regular state college. I was interviewing the last semester of my senior year and had two offer letters both from defense contractors. I am working for the same company 10 years later. They try really hard not to lay people off...I was one lay away from being laid off last time and am worried about it now but I trust things will work out. And at 43 its getting harder and harder to learn the new technoligy for the positions/projects I get switched to and am wondering if I should look into something else. Oh yea, BTW: Don't piss away your money. Debt is a terrible monster.
My friend was a painter almost his entire life. Years ago he got a degree and was a teacher. The only computer experience he had was playing the occasional video game. When he was in his late 30s he left painting to work desktop support. After a couple years doing that I got him a job as a Junior Sysadmin with my company and took him under my wing. Now he's in his early 40s and a solid mid-level sysadmin (4 years later). I don't see any effect on his career due to his age. Most hiring managers are probably just happy to have someone who knows how to fix the servers.
======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
. If I'm really shit outta luck, I'll be a 37-year-old in the job market in the worst economy I've ever known.
On the other hand, all those changes in banking regulation means tons of new IT jobs. IMO, IT will get a kick out of all these new regulations to improve the economy, in fact IT should be the first one to see a boost, kinda like how doctors make money when there is an epidemic.
In four years, you'll be 35, right?
Then you can either be 35 with a degree of 35 without one in four years.
In other words, if getting a degree is something you want to do, then every day you put it off is another day longer before your task is complete.
It took me about 12 years to finish off my stupid 2 year degree due to various life circumstances (in the beginning it was money, later on it was time and dedication). Am I glad I did it? YES! Will it matter to my career? probably not, I've got 10 years professional experience DOING what I got my degree in. For me, it was personal... finishing what I started really.
A 4 year degree in ANY feild is better than no degree no matter what career line you end up in.
The Digital Sorceress
The degree is important to get your interview, but what really matters on the ground is whether or not you can pick stuff up and learn it for yourself.
Training classes, etc. are all well and good, but if you can't get up to speed on a new technology without a lot of help from teachers, coworkers, etc., then you have earned the label "old dog, no new tricks."
If you can jump into a technology you don't know and get up to speed relatively quickly without undue stress on your home life, then IT can be a good field for you, whether you're 15, 25, 35, or 55. If you can't, I'd suggest looking into another field for work. Whatever you learn in school will be mostly useless in the workplace, and what you learn in the workplace will likely be useless within 5 years. IT is a constantly moving target, like tax law. Sure, you can be a basic accountant and not stress too much about the new stuff, but if you're going to be someone who gets promoted to higher levels (and doesn't get cut at the next layoff round), you need to be better than that.
Bah. Stupid stripping.
0 <=x<=1
How is that different from any other party full of hotties, other than you're paid to attend?
take the classes. get comp sci degree. then get an mba. don't stop. will you be happy if you do nothing? exactly...
A hand up and a foot on every chest...
The mistake made in hiring exclusively young employees is expecting young blood to vitalize a project with new ideas,cutting edge concepts and be up to date and full of energy.
The bitter truth turns out employees with little experience, fumbling and scheming, with no real work ethic, ready to plagiarize, full of the most modern mood stabilizers to flatten any extremes that might lead to innovation while dealing with the personal problems of inexperienced youth. They lack the experience of being at a job for more than 4 years plus.Loyalty is taught as a handicap rather than a virtue. Clueless about the big picture of company goals their contributions are often self or dept. centered.
You can't teach an old dog new tricks(because they already know them having invented them), but you can sure waste time and resources training unloyal pups new tricks so when they leave after 6 mo. of "actual work" your competitors may benefit from anything they managed to absorb.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
If not, then prove your assertion.
Bah. Stupid stripping.
There you go. Did you need anything else?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's a myth.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
I have a deep resume work-wise (33 years) and a shallow one in the Ed. dept. (some college, no degree.) I've never had a problem finding work until the last 6 months but I expect this period of doldrums to end soon. In the last 10 years, I've been involved in a lot of DB (installation/design/development - SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle), code (C++, Java, C#, VB.NET), and applications (Windows, Linux, web). My bookshelf and reference links are wonderful resources - as are SlashDot and other web sites. When I grow tired of learning, then it's time to lay the body down. Going back to school for me would be solely for the ability to learn something new - something that I might not be able to absorb by myself.
Older, seasoned programmers will always do better than younger unseasoned programmers. It's a matter of knowledge, and skill. Older people always beat the younger, less knowledgeable, any day of the week.
Now, where it does make a difference is in the pay scale. Companies can always pay a younger person less than an older person, and work them to death because the younger person doesn't know any better yet. That's where they get you. Oh, the younger will talk about 'mad skillz', or doing it because you love it. They don't realize that their skill really aren't that 'mad', except perhaps as in nuts, and love only pays if the person is a whore. HR doesn't care how good you are if you are older, they just know that you will 'cost more' because they can't work you 80+ hours a week, pay you less, and treat you like shit.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Just say no to a CS degree. I don't know what your motivation was for choosing a CS degree, but working in the CS domain is no picnic.
For starters, are you aware of the exception to labor laws that specifically targets programmers and IT personnel? Our employers are free to work us as many hours as they like and we have no recourse. Don't believe me? Look it up.
But to answer your original question, yes, there is ageism. One of the problems with Computer Science and programming as a work discipline is that there was a huge need for programmers and there was little in the way of experienced people to mentor and manage all the new programmers. Managers were promoted from the ranks of the new surge of programmers and there are absolutely no experienced managers to pass on wisdom.
More specifically, I was on a team of engineers who would interview prospective programming candidates. The hiring manager was a younger fellow, in his 20's. Even thought the practice was for the interview team to make the recommendation and the manager normally accepted the interview team's recommendation, the manager did have the authority to make his own decisions. I quit the team after watching two older, experienced candidates get rejected and a younger man of limited abilities and with only technical experience, not programming experience, be chosen despite the teams rejection of that candidate. It was plainly ageism. That younger nebbish, hired to be a programmer, is still on the job, doing technical work. It's strange to see.
Younger managers are uncomfortable managing workers who are older than they are. It's natural; they're intimidated, afraid of having someone around who knows when they screw up. And they do screw up.
So, yes, they would rather hire a younger, just out of school, CS major. Some companies, like Microsoft, simply wouldn't hire experienced programmers. The speculation was that they wanted to instill their own corporate culture in the freshly minted CS majors. Hiring someone who had learned practices of another company could be a disruptive to a young, growing culture.
I recently worked with a smart young man, just out of high school, who wanted to go to college. He was going back to school and thought he'd go into programming. I advised him to get a degree in finance and accounting, and he took the advice. My logic is that it wouldn't be hard to get some additional CS training and get into programming if he wanted to, but that the life and lifestyle of the finance people was far superior to that of programmers.
Good luck to you whatever you decide.
Best regards.
Having a B.A. from around the customary age, I "went back" and got a CS degree at 33, then went back again and got a BA in another field at 44. I've done some other things, but programming/software development/systems analysis has invariably been in either very small IT shops (1 to 4) or outside of the IT department (the "shadow IT", as one CIO called it when he couldn't do anything to bring it under his control). I see IT departments hiring youngsters and a lot of H-1Bs, but managers in other departments who need general business experience and knowledge and communications skills and aren't billing their department's services out by the hour don't seem to have the same mindset (not to disparage those groups or attract complaints about run-on sentences).
So yes, go for it, IF you're interested in the subject matter. If you don't care to know about a lot of the things taught in CS, I cannot recommend it.
I went for CS degree when I was 33 years old. My salary didn't go up (our local laws of small market), but I've met new challenges, changed my profile a bit, got to know interesting people etc. I could easily be at the top of my class (I guess experience with fields) and I got straight A's (actually we have different scoring system in Europe). Backed of course with 15 years of experience working in the field. Starting with CS at 30 is a completely different game, though.
I'm 36 and I have to say that I've found that the 'younger geeks' are, while talented, very immature. They have few social skills and do not comport themselves professionally. Now, in some places that might be fine, but in this economy and with the importance IT staff have now, that's unacceptable. I say, get the degree, I think you'll find more willing employers than you might think.
Pax Vobiscum
Speaking as somebody who does a lot of interviewing and recommending for or against hiring, a CS degree is completely unimpressive to me, at least at the bachelor's level. If you don't have experience, I won't hire you for anything but the most menial technical position. At 35, experience is even more important. If you want a degree that matters, pick something more specialized. Health Informatics is pretty hot right now, for instance.
I went back and graduated a year ago at 30 with a BS in CS. I think the ageism is more "knowledgism" but slanted towards new technologies. By that, I mean it is important to keep up with new technologies and gain experience with them continuously over your career. Some people gain most of their experience in school and find that they slowly fall behind. There is the kernel of truth though that IT is definitely slanted towards the new even when the older solution/product may work better.
You might also consider going for a Masters on top of your BS. You should be able to do that at most schools within 2-3 semesters if you put all your time into it. I strongly recommend the advanced degree if you know a particular area you want to work in after school. I plan on going back for one within the next few years.
What I liked about going back to school as an older student in a field I was already involved in is that I knew what I wanted to take: compilers, programming languages, databases and networking. All of that has helped me after school. I only had two years to finish all the CS courses when I returned (I got the general classes out of the way earlier) and it was hard to fit it all in. I did 17-18 credit semesters and my last was all CS. That was difficult due to stress and not well developed time management skills but immensely enjoyable (after decompressing for a couple of months).
I pissed away my teens and early 20s (left school at 16 without finishing 10th grade) and got a job in computer operations in my mid 20s, after trying my hand in the music and photo industries. It was easy then (1975) because so few people were trained or had any aptitude for it.
My employer eventually insisted that I get a high school equivalency and take some programming courses at a community college. I excelled at that and moved on to programming. By 1980 the big money was in COBOL -- yes, COBOL -- programming so I got a diploma from a trade school and moved up to the big bucks.
Over the years I learned IBM PC operations and programming, SQL (bet you didn't think there were SQL programmers in the mid 1980s) online programming (CICS), SGML (Standard Graphic Markup Language) and some networking.
By 1990 I was the "old man" on the floor so nobody trusted me with the cutting edge CASE tool code generators. Eventually I got stuck learning HTML and TCP/IP which none of the hotshots around me wanted to be bothered with.
So there I was, over 40 and useful for nothing more than tinkering with that new internet/world wide web stuff that wasn't going to last while all the young studs around me got to work with the future: Lotus Notes and FoxPro.
You don't want to read the story of my life so I'll cut to the chase. I just turned 58. Late last year I enrolled in a bachelor's degree program. Since I have accumulated some college credit over the years it won't take me forever to graduate. I should have a bachelor's degree by the time I'm ready for early retirement in 2013.
I'm hoping the sheepskin will give my career one last boost to keep me going for another eight or 10 years after that but, really, I did it for myself, not my boss. BTW, I'm just about to take my PMP certification exam. I found that training to be the most useful of my career, despite the fact that I've been a project manager for 20 years.
Part of your data is not quite correct.
/F
I'm 52 and started using computers at 14. Granted, it was at a university where they had programming classes for high school students. They had an IBM 1620 that we were free to use almost any time of day...
Stupidity... has a habit of getting its way.
I am 54 and still writing code for a living. I know a guy who just retired at 75. He was still good because he never stopped learning. I doesn't matter how old you are, it's how good you are. Instead of thinking in terms of putting in 4 years for a degree consider spending the rest of your life educating yourself. That is what it takes to make it as a software engineer. The game never stops so you have to keep up. This is like surfing not swimming. If you tread water then you'll miss the wave.
I was slinging code ten years before you were born and I'm still at it.
I didn't say "management". Managers are also hired by someone, and are pretty much somebody's lapdog. I mean more of a supervisor role, but doing "real work".
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
If you LOVE computers and programming then go for the degree. If you are only getting the degee
to "find a job" or "make money" then do something else.
As far as ageism, I haven't noticed it much but I work on mainframes which are an Old Mans game.
It is far more likely that your possible job will be outsourced to India, Eastern Europe, etc than not
being able to find one because you are 35. That is the danger of getting the CS degree today.
But even as recently as the Internet Boom and Y2K booms in Data processing, I met many people
who didn't like programming or computers and just thought they could make a lot of money.
Almost all of those people now are gone doing other things - real estate, etc. Whatever the
lastest money making fad is.
So it is pretty simple - if you love it then persue it otherwise don't.
The problem with older developers is that many hadn't kept up their skillset. I knew one woman - now about 60 - who had gone for the equivalent of an associates degree in feeding punchcards to the computers of the day. No matter how many times she interviews, her skills are dead, and she'd need to start over. If you're good with general theory, keep up a modern skillset, and interview at least moderately well, you will never lack for work through your retirement years. Go for the degree, but also make sure that it gives you both a decent basis in theory, and some hands on experience with modern skills. A CS degree won't often teach you all you need to know, and that's important to recognize that you'll need to pick up other languages and tools yourself along the way.
Upfront: I am 30. I do not have a degree. I have been a sys admin for 11 years. I wish I had taken the time to get a degree of any kind (I wanted to be an elementary school math teacher in a small town).
In my experience I tend to not enjoy working with 'younger' IT folk. Whether it's their lack of experience in the field or their attitude or personality, I do not know. The time spent with them is often not enjoyable. It's regularly a refreshing exercise to interact with an IT person who is older than myself. Be it because they usually know what the hell they're talking about, have good business sense, or just get to the point - I don't really know. But younger people seem to be excessively arrogant and spent more than enough time bullshitting around without accomplishing anything. I think it has most to do with 'life experience', and perhaps not so much with technology capability. But the point is still there, for me at least.
And there are definitely exceptions to this rule. I work with a couple guys younger than me who far exceed me in 'practical business sense', even though their technical expertise is somewhat lacking. I really enjoy working with them and it's fun to help them learn as we work on projects. And there have been a fair amount of old dudes who are just fucking clueless bastards that won't do the simplest of tasks.
But on the whole, the 30 to 50 age group has been the most pleasant co-working for me.
I just realized this doesn't help answer the question. But I'm posting it because I wasted time typing it.
Have a nice day.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I wouldn't bother with the CS degree, unless you actually need to learn about basic computer operations. You will get passed over by the 20 year old that's been coding flash sites for 5 years and is thinking about going to school. You will get passed over for anyone with actual experience in the field. A college degree is nice but certainly not what I am looking for in systems analysts, programmers, or helldesk operators. I'd suggest getting certified (either RHCE, CCNP or MCITP enterprise- whichever is your poison of choice) then getting an entry level job in the field. Then (if you choose) go to college part time.
I never said anyone was irreplacable, so it seems the one using the strawman (replying to a point that wasn't made) is you.
However I have met people who thought they were irreplacable. Probably been guilty of it myself, on occasion.
Great that you take the big view, but the necessity of feeding your kids needs to be addressed today.
Again, not many people are 4 digit superstars that can afford to be that fussy in these times.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Don't go with the mentality "Go to college", "???", "Make lots of money". What do you want to get into? Robotics? AI? Operating Systems? iPhone SW Development? Game Design?
Knowing this will let you tailor your courses to your ambitions.
From there, start a pet project. Linux is free, SW development tools are free. Pick something and use the facilities at your college to their max. You'll have access to their libraries journals, other students and professors.
When you have a goal, lectures can become much more interesting. "Aha! This fits perfectly with my pet project!"
Let me offer you my perspective on this question.
I am now 35, and I have no degree, no certifications, but I have been in the IT field since 1997. I personally have not seen anything that hints at age preference, except maybe the other way: looking for older geeks.
I would never recommend not going to college and getting a degree to a HS student, but that's the choice I made and it can work. I am currently one of the highest paid folks in my field (according to those salary-comparison web sites) by a fairly high margin.
In short, I suggest being a general technologist with some specific knowledge. When someone has a question about how to do something, either know how to do it or know where to go to get it done the fastest, least expensive way, and know how to check the work for errors.
Where I lack in formal education and certification I make up for with a WEALTH of experience, from several different industries. That's the key: You have to offer something that no one else will offer. I worked in hospitality, legal, medical, and computers. Are there that many IT people who are able to draw on their legal knowledge? No. Medical? Same thing. And I also keep a portfolio of projects that I have done so that I can show specific examples of my work.
Now that CS degree might help you get your foot in the door. But I guarantee you, if they let me in for an interview, they'll hire me over someone with just a degree or a cert.
Just my $.47 (adjusted for inflation).
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Am I the only one reading all these comments and thinking "oh wow I sound like an old programmer, but I'm only 22!" ? Is there anyone my age still coding in assembly? Hello?
You just got troll'd!
Go for it. You won't have any problem getting a job if you have energy and talent. I'm 50 and even in this market I get interest from recruiters at least once per week.
I've been interviewing developers for about 20 years now, and age has never been a factor. It is so hard to find competent people that it would be silly to reject someone because of age.
If you get the degree, understand most of the material, and can convey your understanding in an interview, you won't have any trouble getting work.
About to turn 54 here soon and I just got my CS degree. It would be best to get a degree earlier in life but you should get one no matter how old you are. I have always performed well in my jobs and seem to be able rise within the companies I worked in but the people with the degree always had the edge.
Going to school is a great when you are older, the other younger students do not know what to make of you. I think I helped a few of them take school a bit more serious than they would have otherwise. I was able to help a few on how to study, its surprising that so few have learned how to study.
Came out of school with a 3.9, would have been better but I got into arguments with the instructors in the philosophy (liberal arts requirements) classes.
So anyway, I am now a NCG with over 20 years experience. Makes for a great resume.
I started college at 28 and graduated at 32. Not pissing away my twenties but working to save enough to pay for college. OK, and some pissing it away on 60s muscle cars
I'm now north of 45 and am not even the oldest member of my team. My boss is the same age as I am, and two of my team mates are older. I work for an IT company whose name is a household word. Before that, I worked for another one like that. I've never had a problem with age when it comes to hiring, although that probably does happen. If you have skill, you're a personality fit, and you have passion for what you're doing (that's really important, at least at the best places to work), you should do fine.
My experience has been that if I get as far as the interview, most of the time I get the job. Before the interview, your age can only be guessed at within a wide range unless you volunteer it (I wouldn't, and they aren't allowed to ask, at least not in the United States), I can reasonably infer that age wasn't the cause in cases where I didn't get an interview.
Go for it; it's never too late to get a degree!
McDonalds is *always* hiring!
A degree is great and all to get you into an interview but tech geeks judge each other on two things... how smart you are, and what you know. So if you come out of your 4 year degree comfortable with visual studio, fully versed in .net, C++, C#, XML and related technologies, AJAX, SQL knowledge and whatever else pops up between now and then.
Most of all you must know how to apply your programming knowledge to solving problems presented to you. This will require a thorough top to bottom understanding of computers and how they are actually used.
I'm almost 35, I have no degree but I've been working in the industry for 15 years.
I not only managed to waste my 20s but my 30s also. I got my Computer Science degree when I was 42 and immediately got work in IT as a programmer, which was my specialty in my degree.
There are many companies who value "non-traditional" college graduates because the non-traditional graduate already knows how to work, is willing to take direction, has developed skills that are outside job area, but necessary for success ....
So go get that degree and then keep knocking on doors until someone lets you in to use it.
I've run into this problem several times.
About a year and a half ago while looking for work, I found that on many of my interviews a noticeable change in my interviewer happened when they asked me to verify my age. I learned a long time ago that when sending out my resume to leave off dates and any mention of the year. I always left things kind of vague, stating that I was there for 6 years or 8 years, just never listed the actual year. I've never looked my age so I always had that going for me. On several occasions I was in the interview and told that I had all the right qualifications for the job and just needed to fill out the actual application. Time and again I was told that "it was just a formality" and that after some higher-up saw my resume and my skill set I'd be offered a job.
After handing back the filled application I'd wait to see the visible change in my interviewer when they got to the line where you had to fill in your birth date. Then I'd have to ask if there was a problem, be told there wasn't, and go home never to hear back from them again. After the sixth or seventh time I started writing the numbers badly enough to mistake a 6 for an 8, taking 20 years off my age. The very first time I did this, I didn't see the interviewer change attitude, and I got the offer by phone about 3 days later. I didn't take that first offer due to another interview happening the next day and being given the offer while still in the interview.
It took a couple of days after being on the job before the mix-up of the numbers became known. I still have that job after a year and a half, and my employer has been very thankful in both wage and compliments ever since. Face it, if you've got the skills and can show that you're the right person for the job then age doesn't matter. But you might have to help nudge things along by writing a little sloppy.
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
I was 48 when I got my BS and I have not regretted the effort. I did 22 years in the navy before starting college, so I didn't exactly piss the years away, but what I learned in college definitely helped to make my life in the workplace easier.
But i suppose it can be done.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And I just got my first full time permanent job as a developer 8 months ago.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Guys in marketing are almost supermodels themselves, and marketing hotties always prefer them. Marketing folks would never be caught dead associating themselves with the lower classes (based on a few companies that I worked at).
No, "Karma" is not real, but peoples' perceptions of you and your social networks are real.
Over the next ten years GRiD Systems vanished, I got another job (which I still have), and slowly I achieved the goal. At age 40 I graduated with a GPA over 3.98.
The degree has probably helped me keep my job, though it did nothing for my pay. I already get paid handsomely.
It's worth noting that I make a living as a Windows expert, but I do not have ANY of the Microsoft credentials that are often required. I've been around enough that I don't need those letters to prove I know what I know.
My opinion is it's never too late. Start now, get the degree you want, and don't be too surprised when things come out totally different than what you expected. Life happens...
My grandmother is another good example. She was widowed at age 54 with an 8th grade education and no job. She got a GED, then a college degree as a teacher. She taught art in public schools for 12 years before retiring at age 70.
CS degree
Psycology degree
MBA degree
Or variations on that. Be the person who can address your auspergers/autistic savant pool of drooling coders.
I do recommend you have whores, snacks and cots. It just WORKS.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
The official U.S. unemployment rate is presently around 8%. Maybe double that to 20% to include all the people who have given up looking. Some of those people are unlucky folks who caught the winds of misfortune. Others come from the group who post inane comments on CNN news stories and call in to radio talk shows who are no one's first choice as hiring candidates.
Out of the 80% who are employed, maybe 1/4 of those jobs are pretty darn good jobs. So about 20% of the work force has a job worth having.
If there are more people with good jobs than people with no job, maybe glass half-full would be a the more proactive perspective for a person with talent and energy?
In white collar professions, even replacing a run-of-the-mill cookie-cutter snowflake probably costs a company a minimum of three months salary for the position in question, by the time you count hiring costs, disruption, and retraining. A big part of the hiring cost is the one hire in five a company gets seriously wrong, the person who should have been left in the "seeking employment" pool.
I was 40 before I ever saw a computer. At 45 I had written books on them. At 78 I teach computer animation. It depends on your market. If you choose to specialise and study your market well you can survive doing just about anything. My experience is that most degrees involve learning much of what you don't need or may never use. Pick your market firt then learn what you need to know, who you need to know, and how you need to apply it. You may find you even need a degree.
Somebody.decided.that.the.period.was.way.underused.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
The technology field in general is more tolerant of age, race, nationality, personal hygiene and a lot of other attributes than other fields are. The thing you have to have is currency-- not in the dollars and cents sense but in the state-of-practice sense. Current technologies, current development methodologies, current tools, current practices-- that's what'll keep you employed. So getting your CS degree is a good first step, but remember that a technology career requires constant re-education and personal evolution. The degree is the beginning... Also recognize that a degree with no experience is probably worth less than experience without a degree-- you should have both. A CS degree won't magically make you employable.
GeezBox...
Timothy, I have a certificate from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, Washington. I studied with these people for a week all expense paid training period for public libraries who received grants for computers and systems that Bill donated across America. I was 50 and most of the men and women employed by Bill were older than me. They had white hair in some cases. Now there were younger people who gave us training and presentations on how to use and teach the applications and how to become systems administrators, but the people who were actually running the systems were the older crowd. Apparently 37 is quite young in Gates organization. This kind of thing requires lifelong learning and the curiosity of a cat. In fact the younger employees appeared to consult the older employees as reference.
Anyone have advice on good second degree CS programs?
If you have saved enough money to go to a good college, then why go? If you saved this amount of money during the last 15 years or so, why not keep doing what you been doing and make a career of it?
Start your own company- work for yourself. Your greatest danger isn't ability to perform, it's age discrimination. I have had so many recruiters ask me if I was married or had kids. ILLEGAL. Young people who will work 80 hours for peanuts is the ideal. The further you are from that idea, the slimmer your prospects become. Learn your craft, have a decent idea, become business savvy, do the whole thing. Your customers aren't going to care if you're 2' 5" and have a very hair back. Get judged by your merits- go into the market.
I was 37 when I graduated from CS two years ago. Got a good job now and I'm perfectly happy with my decision. Go for it...