Math teacher to IT career change advice needed

johndoan3

Hi all,
I'm so glad I found techexam community, you guys are awesome. I'm 31 yrs old, I was CS major back in college 2007 @ UNT, then one day Texas Instrument gave me scholarship to be high school math teacher , I went for it and here I am, making a OK living, been teaching for 7 years, love the kids. I was doing career counseling, college finaid for the kids found out that there are 500,000 IT, CS jobs are unfilled and growing everyday , universities producing only 40,000 engineers last year not enough to keep with demand. Most of my friends in CS ,IT they all got good jobs in big companies Lockheed, TI,AA,Exxon...especially in my area (north TX), there are ton of IT,CS engineer jobs postings just through a simple search throuhg Indeed. My heart is always in engineering, so I've decided to self-study and do online college to be an IT or CS engineer without quitting my current job. I know it's going to be a challenge for me, I'm going to give it my best. I have BA in Math .I've been studying for A+. I want to get BS in IT from WGU but I don't even know where to start. Your advice would be much appreciated .

xenodamus

Since you have a BA already, I wouldn't get hung up on the degree at this point. It's a check box on your resume in the IT world. Spend those cycles picking up a couple of entry level certifications and getting your foot in the door somewhere that you can start gaining experience. Once you're "in" and have a job in the industry, you can expand your certifications and areas of study, moving up as fast as you're willing to learn.

If you were to circle back and get a degree at some point, I would make it an applicable masters - either technology related or an MBA.

You're making a great move, though. Take it from someone who was teaching in a public school just 7 years ago. The sky is the limit if you're willing to learn quickly and can interact well with others.

DatabaseHead

Smartest and most successful developer I know has a BA in Math from Depaul University, he also has a master in mathematics, but that isn't important

Like Xeno said don't get hung up, pick a language and start learning development and start building scripts and code. Or..... If you want to go infrastructure, then you can't go wrong with the CCNA, it's a brilliant certification. It scales REALLY well.

You are money on the degree my friend.....

LordQarlyn

I second the idea you should get into application development, math involves logic, and so does programming. But only if you have at least some passion for it.

yoba222

A math degree is basically a distilled and purified CS degree. There isn't really a formal definition for IT engineer or CS engineer as it's a job title and up to the hiring company to define that. No licensing involved mandating a CS degree.