I'm a college freshman, just starting to work towards a CS degree. This past summer, I went to look for a summer job as a programmer, and was absolutely overwhelmed by how easy it was to find well-paying work coding Java with *no* working experience aside from personal projects and unrelated Web consulting that I did in high school.
Reading what others here have beeing posting about how difficult it is to get a job given the same or similar skills to my own at the age of 35+, I am *very* worried. Sure, it may be wonderful to be able to earn a high hourly rate as a young worker, but what is that worth if I can't continue to do what I love past the age of 35 or 40? Every older IT person I know is a faster coder, makes less mistakes and has vastly more experience than I have. I know a few who have found their niche as consultants, but few who have gotten salaried jobs with any kind of security.
What I now know is that I need to take the large paychecks with a grain of salt... since the ones I receive from the age of 18-35 may have to cover for the ones that won't come from the age of 35-100+.
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I'm a college freshman, just starting to work towards a CS degree. This past summer, I went to look for a summer job as a programmer, and was absolutely overwhelmed by how easy it was to find well-paying work coding Java with *no* working experience aside from personal projects and unrelated Web consulting that I did in high school. Reading what others here have beeing posting about how difficult it is to get a job given the same or similar skills to my own at the age of 35+, I am *very* worried. Sure, it may be wonderful to be able to earn a high hourly rate as a young worker, but what is that worth if I can't continue to do what I love past the age of 35 or 40? Every older IT person I know is a faster coder, makes less mistakes and has vastly more experience than I have. I know a few who have found their niche as consultants, but few who have gotten salaried jobs with any kind of security. What I now know is that I need to take the large paychecks with a grain of salt... since the ones I receive from the age of 18-35 may have to cover for the ones that won't come from the age of 35-100+.