Taking the leap from sysadmin to student
ck86
Member Posts: 62 ■■□□□□□□□□
Hey guys,
Lately I've figured out the path I want to be on. I'm a 28 year old army veteran with an unused post 9/11 GI bill. It's always been a little blurry and I've just gone with the flow, but now I feel that I want to go from a windows sysadmin toward a database admin and eventually land in the world of dev and software engineering. The transition would include becoming familiar again with unix and a CCNA lab to fill the networking experience void.
So, I've been debating for months what my next step should be. The plan was to go to school full-time for CS at Philadelphia Community College and eventually transfer to a 4 year in the city while juggling my start-up company sysadmin position. I've been slowly but surely talking myself out of this for a few reasons. My "sysadmin" job is about 20% server work with the rest helpdesk level mundane bullshit. I've grown a lot in the past year and am a fairly green sysadmin, but that is largely due to only learning on the job and no outside education to back up fundamentals, and partially due to never having a solid mentor/team to grow with. At the end of the day, I'm over-worked, underpaid, stressed out and feel that I will be unable to effectively study and grow while being such an integral part of what I consider a company on life support. That said, the last year has been great for me personally gaining a much better understanding of fundamental infrastructure design, implementation, and management with some DR and security and compliance sprinkled in. I've also seen some things that will cause small business to either fail or succeed.
I've weighed the decision by considering what experience/education I'll gain in six months of continuing on my path versus calling it quits, moving back home near family and going 100% study mode. The plan there would be to start at a different community college with some very specialized degrees (DBA course outline , Java Developer course outline) while focusing heavily on certs and home labs. After a couple of semesters I would look for a role that fits my experience and education and will facilitate me finishing my degree.
A few important factors are that I have no family or wife to support and can survive off of the monthly stipend I get with my GI bill. Classes will be paid, so I will not be accruing debt. I would be also using the down-time for some mental health R&R concerning some unresolved military issues.
My question to you guys is what do you think about this plan? Am I overlooking anything major? Will I suffer long-term by taking some time to focus on studies and hopping off the full-time work wagon? Is the sysadmin -> DBA -> dev a viable route? (The way I see it, at the end of it all I'll be able to choose which best fits me and knowing a bit of each will always be useful). Any suggestions on which areas I should focus / course I should take at this school?
Thanks as always for the advice.
Lately I've figured out the path I want to be on. I'm a 28 year old army veteran with an unused post 9/11 GI bill. It's always been a little blurry and I've just gone with the flow, but now I feel that I want to go from a windows sysadmin toward a database admin and eventually land in the world of dev and software engineering. The transition would include becoming familiar again with unix and a CCNA lab to fill the networking experience void.
So, I've been debating for months what my next step should be. The plan was to go to school full-time for CS at Philadelphia Community College and eventually transfer to a 4 year in the city while juggling my start-up company sysadmin position. I've been slowly but surely talking myself out of this for a few reasons. My "sysadmin" job is about 20% server work with the rest helpdesk level mundane bullshit. I've grown a lot in the past year and am a fairly green sysadmin, but that is largely due to only learning on the job and no outside education to back up fundamentals, and partially due to never having a solid mentor/team to grow with. At the end of the day, I'm over-worked, underpaid, stressed out and feel that I will be unable to effectively study and grow while being such an integral part of what I consider a company on life support. That said, the last year has been great for me personally gaining a much better understanding of fundamental infrastructure design, implementation, and management with some DR and security and compliance sprinkled in. I've also seen some things that will cause small business to either fail or succeed.
I've weighed the decision by considering what experience/education I'll gain in six months of continuing on my path versus calling it quits, moving back home near family and going 100% study mode. The plan there would be to start at a different community college with some very specialized degrees (DBA course outline , Java Developer course outline) while focusing heavily on certs and home labs. After a couple of semesters I would look for a role that fits my experience and education and will facilitate me finishing my degree.
A few important factors are that I have no family or wife to support and can survive off of the monthly stipend I get with my GI bill. Classes will be paid, so I will not be accruing debt. I would be also using the down-time for some mental health R&R concerning some unresolved military issues.
My question to you guys is what do you think about this plan? Am I overlooking anything major? Will I suffer long-term by taking some time to focus on studies and hopping off the full-time work wagon? Is the sysadmin -> DBA -> dev a viable route? (The way I see it, at the end of it all I'll be able to choose which best fits me and knowing a bit of each will always be useful). Any suggestions on which areas I should focus / course I should take at this school?
Thanks as always for the advice.
Comments
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jdancer
Member Posts: 482 ■■■■□□□□□□
Only you can answer what motivates you in IT. Thankfully, IT is a huge field. For example, my motivation is all things Linux and networking with a security emphasis.
I think school will be a good way to learn what motivates you. Be sure to take the full arc of courses available and see what motivates you.