I'm curious. I'm thinking of making a pretty significant change back into the technology sector. But it will require serious studying while I work my current job, and obtaining certifications. I'm fascinated by programming, but also with networking and security. If anyone has experience in the fields, what do you like about it? What has been your experience? How's work been - the industry and economy (opportunities)? What type of certifications do you recommend first for as smooth of a transition as possible? Thank-you!
I work on the network admin side of things for a large federal government agency, and I LOVE my job. Sometimes I'll be configuring a new switch or router and just think to myself, "damn, I'm sure lucky, how the hell did I get so lucky?". After 17-18 years of waking up every morning and dreading my work day it really is nice to go to bed, anxious for the next morning to arrive so that I can get to work resolving some network related issue that might have boggled my mind the day before. Some of the previous jobs I held were retail, fast-food (when I was a teen), fork-lift mechanic, substitute teacher, translator (military) and call-center assistor. Things I like about my job: 1.Technology is constantly evolving so there is always something new to learn. Some people might actually find it a negative that things change and they have to put effort into learning something new, but for me it's what keeps the job interesting. 2.Travel. I support users at over 20 different work sites, and while much of my work can be done remotely, the need sometimes arises for me to travel to an actual site to upgrade a switch, deploy a new phone system etc. I really don't like being tied to a cubicle all day so I'd prefer to be in an IT position that affords me the opportunity to get my hands dirty at times. 3.Boost to the ol'ego. Many of my customers are plane old everyday computer users who hold advanced finance degrees yet can barely figure out how to turn their computers on. I might do something as simple as unlock a port, reset a password, enable connectivity and these people will treat me like a god! As far as certifications go, for my field you'd want to have the Cisco CCNA Routing and Switching. The good thing about the Cisco stuff is a lot of junior colleges over here (US) offer the courses so it won't cost you an arm and a leg. I am very lucky because I was able to break into my field without having any certifications or experience. Basically, I took a really crappy, bottom of the barrel, low paying position in the IT department. I was doing stuff like installing printers, changing out broken monitors, erasing hard drives , doing equipment inventory--real dull stuff. Anytime an opportunity arose to do something outside of my job description though I did it. Little by little I built up my experience and branched out as much as I could. Eventually a position in the networking department opened up, and rest is history. I plan on getting my CCNA eventually to round out my general knowledge and make my resume look nice.
The problem I found with programming is that it's a fun thing to do while in school, but kinda sucks out in the real world. At college you are generally involved in the full life-cycle of a particular program. In the real world - at least in my experience - you are fixing/"debugging" one little segment of a little procedure within a giant module/"class" (which is just one of many classes within the software product). It is basically like working on a digital assembly line at some glorified sweat-shop. Fortunately there are a lot of jobs for programmers, networkers, etc outside of purely giant software companies where your day may involve some programming, database work, etc. but not 40-50 hours a week of coding (cuz that sucks!... at least for me)