HI all,
This is a bit of a long story but, here is some background info. I'm 36 yrs old, recently married and father of a 7 yr old daughter. I have attended college but never got a degree, my first major was Professional Pilot and then a few years ago I went back to work on a degree in computer networking but life got in the way and i had to drop out after only taking the A+ course.
I've been working on and building PC's since about 1991 and started a small home based business doing repairs and building custom PC's. The business didn't last very long due to the sporadic workload and customers who wanted $10,000 gaming systems on a $300 budget. the A+ course was a breeze for me and I really didn't learn anything that I hadn't already found out on my own years ago. However, I never took the actual A+ cert test.
I currently work for an airline as a ramp agent and i've been with them for 16 years. Basically my job is to seperate and load the luggage into the various carts for our flights and unload the arriving luggage.
So, Yesterday I was sitting here at my brainless, gorillaesque job, drool steadily dripping from the left side of my mouth due to sitting in an off balanced torn up old salvation army dumpster office chair enriched with a unique bouquet of aromas ranging from old moldy vinyl to stale pall malls with just a slight hint of cat urine. When suddenly I get this overwheling feeling of impending doom and epic failure.
It was right about that time I had an epiphany! it had suddenly dawned on me that I've just turned 36 years old and I have zero marketable job skills. I lead this polymathic existance which I was proud of for many years, jack of all trades master of none, that's me in a nutshell.
I came to this realization of epic failure just the other day whilst out applying for more brainless jobs, this time in the highly skilled food service upper middle class, a step above red lobster but not quite the tavern on the green type industry. I was in the process of filling out an application when I came across a line that said "Special Skills or Training" , so i thought for a moment and silently said "WTF, I dont have any of those"
So today, while on a break from the nonstop pummeling of eager, overzealous, cattle like holiday travelers luggage ranging from miniscule featherweight backpacks to the entire front end of a 1962 buick skylark or at least that was my guess at to what caused the bag to weigh so much, I decided to browse the interwebs in search of some type of career that may require just a small amount of mental capacity and lo and behold I found one or two, of course I am nowhere near qualified for but I digress.
They were Network Administrator and Systems Administrator, along with a few other various IT jobs such as Database Programmer and a fairly large amount looking for .Net Developers (I'm not even sure what they do)
I decided it was about time to get my previous $22k in school loans out of default and go back and get a degree in something I may enjoy doing. So I've been browsing the courses at the local college and ITT tech and trying to decide what I might want to major in.
I have experience with hardware and OS's (win 98-xp, some linux) but very,very limited experience in anything programming related, I learned to create a few VB scripts, did a little php for my website at one time and thats about all. I've also messed with MYSQL once or twice and honestly I know for sure I want nothing to do with Dbase other than a basic understanding of how to make it work.
I know I do enjoy fixing problems or trying to make something work when someone tells me it cant be done. for instance, people didnt beleive I could build a pc system for my car and intigrate the audio system and a touchscreen to run xp and I did it just to prove them wrong.
now my dilemma is deciding which path to choose, Network administration seems more my style but I'm not totally opposed to programming, I just dont know anything about it. I'm not really strong in math, matter of fact i really suck at it. I could probably learn but right now the highest level math I've ever had to learn was pre algebra. I know programming requires a high level of math but I'm not sure the reason behind it.
So with all that being said, could I get some advice on what type of degree program I should be looking at? preferably from someone who is working in the industry. I'm in Northeast Florida, so not a huge high tech area compared to California, if i were I would go for Video game design..working for Blizzard would be my dream job but thats not going to happen.
So can I get some practical advice on what I should be looking for? also if it makes much difference I'm a 2nd-3rd shift kind of guy, early mornings and the 9-5 aren't my first choice of work.
what kind of certifications will I need for the varios degrees..network I'm assuming A+. Network +, CCNA, MSCE, Linux/Unix+ and what are the costs associated with earning each?
experiences with places like ITT tech as opposed to local community colleges? I know sometimes it's difficult to get credits to transfer from private schools to universitys
thanks for the help, sorry for the long winded post.
This is a bit of a long story but, here is some background info. I'm 36 yrs old, recently married and father of a 7 yr old daughter. I have attended college but never got a degree, my first major was Professional Pilot and then a few years ago I went back to work on a degree in computer networking but life got in the way and i had to drop out after only taking the A+ course.
I've been working on and building PC's since about 1991 and started a small home based business doing repairs and building custom PC's. The business didn't last very long due to the sporadic workload and customers who wanted $10,000 gaming systems on a $300 budget. the A+ course was a breeze for me and I really didn't learn anything that I hadn't already found out on my own years ago. However, I never took the actual A+ cert test.
I currently work for an airline as a ramp agent and i've been with them for 16 years. Basically my job is to seperate and load the luggage into the various carts for our flights and unload the arriving luggage.
So, Yesterday I was sitting here at my brainless, gorillaesque job, drool steadily dripping from the left side of my mouth due to sitting in an off balanced torn up old salvation army dumpster office chair enriched with a unique bouquet of aromas ranging from old moldy vinyl to stale pall malls with just a slight hint of cat urine. When suddenly I get this overwheling feeling of impending doom and epic failure.
It was right about that time I had an epiphany! it had suddenly dawned on me that I've just turned 36 years old and I have zero marketable job skills. I lead this polymathic existance which I was proud of for many years, jack of all trades master of none, that's me in a nutshell.
I came to this realization of epic failure just the other day whilst out applying for more brainless jobs, this time in the highly skilled food service upper middle class, a step above red lobster but not quite the tavern on the green type industry. I was in the process of filling out an application when I came across a line that said "Special Skills or Training" , so i thought for a moment and silently said "WTF, I dont have any of those"
So today, while on a break from the nonstop pummeling of eager, overzealous, cattle like holiday travelers luggage ranging from miniscule featherweight backpacks to the entire front end of a 1962 buick skylark or at least that was my guess at to what caused the bag to weigh so much, I decided to browse the interwebs in search of some type of career that may require just a small amount of mental capacity and lo and behold I found one or two, of course I am nowhere near qualified for but I digress.
They were Network Administrator and Systems Administrator, along with a few other various IT jobs such as Database Programmer and a fairly large amount looking for .Net Developers (I'm not even sure what they do)
I decided it was about time to get my previous $22k in school loans out of default and go back and get a degree in something I may enjoy doing. So I've been browsing the courses at the local college and ITT tech and trying to decide what I might want to major in.
I have experience with hardware and OS's (win 98-xp, some linux) but very,very limited experience in anything programming related, I learned to create a few VB scripts, did a little php for my website at one time and thats about all. I've also messed with MYSQL once or twice and honestly I know for sure I want nothing to do with Dbase other than a basic understanding of how to make it work.
I know I do enjoy fixing problems or trying to make something work when someone tells me it cant be done. for instance, people didnt beleive I could build a pc system for my car and intigrate the audio system and a touchscreen to run xp and I did it just to prove them wrong.
now my dilemma is deciding which path to choose, Network administration seems more my style but I'm not totally opposed to programming, I just dont know anything about it. I'm not really strong in math, matter of fact i really suck at it. I could probably learn but right now the highest level math I've ever had to learn was pre algebra. I know programming requires a high level of math but I'm not sure the reason behind it.
So with all that being said, could I get some advice on what type of degree program I should be looking at? preferably from someone who is working in the industry. I'm in Northeast Florida, so not a huge high tech area compared to California, if i were I would go for Video game design..working for Blizzard would be my dream job but thats not going to happen.
So can I get some practical advice on what I should be looking for? also if it makes much difference I'm a 2nd-3rd shift kind of guy, early mornings and the 9-5 aren't my first choice of work.
what kind of certifications will I need for the varios degrees..network I'm assuming A+. Network +, CCNA, MSCE, Linux/Unix+ and what are the costs associated with earning each?
experiences with places like ITT tech as opposed to local community colleges? I know sometimes it's difficult to get credits to transfer from private schools to universitys
thanks for the help, sorry for the long winded post.