Potential Career Changer

djoshi

Hi guys!
Been lurking for a bit and this site seems to have a real nice community. Maybe someone can lend me some insight.
Situation: I currently have a dual degree in accounting and business management. I'm working in an accounting firm and also on passing the CPA exams.
I'm quickly realizing that this field is not for me. I had taken a couple of c++ classes in college and did really well and enjoyed them. I'm also typically the guy that handles my family/friends computer problems. Bottom line is I'm seriously contemplating a career change.
I can see myself in 5 years working as a software developer type of job. I'm pretty sure I like programming more than networking. Any ideas of what I should do to ease my way into IT? should I complete a bachelor's or are certifications enough? Oh, and what are salaries like in this field (I live in New York).
Thanks so much everyonel!
P.S. I'm 26

ptilsen

Software development is a very different branch of IT than what you're likely to see on TE. There are a few here who do it and some who have dabbled, and many of us have done some form of programming or scripting extensively. Given that I'm someone who isn't a software developer and doesn't especially want to be, take the following with a grain of salt.

From what I've seen, the software world is really not about certification. There is some value to it in some organizations, but it's not ubiquitous like in IT infrastructure, where those not looking for certified candidates are either ignorant of or deviating from the standard. To be a software developer generally, your best bet both for training and getting a job is to get a computer science degree. Having degrees in accounting and business management along with computer science could certainly open you up to some incredible opportunities in the future. But if you want to actually be programming, you'd better go get that computer science degree. I'm not saying you can't teach yourself or learn some other way and that you can't get a job without it, but everything I've seen indicates that software developers generally have computer science degrees.

slinuxuzer

I disagree, you already have a college degree, don't bother getting another, you will need to get alot more skill under your belt, and a degree would do that, but it seems the long way around, it is going to be hard to break into coding, personally I use alot of training videos, but I'm not big on coding so I dont know how well it this method would translate. Also, the coders seem to have higher salary ranges on average over infrastructure folks, but personally I'd rather dig a ditch than code, thats just me though.

Also, once you land a job coding its likely going to be very entry level, but if its what you wanna do, you should do it.

ptilsen

slinuxuzer wrote: »

I disagree, you already have a college degree, don't bother getting another, you will need to get alot more skill under your belt, and a degree would do that, but it seems the long way around

A CompSci degree will teach you all the programming you need and improve employability. Actually learning the hard skills and the fundamental knowledge on your own is not going to be the short way around. With two degrees under your belt, including accounting, a BS in CompSci is probably less than 30 credits, assuming you already have most of the needed math.

crazychrono100

A lot of my friends took compsci. From what I've seen there are people who just know how to code and some that just suck at it. Coding is really about logic and understanding math and some people have better logic than other. It also take dedication, you can expect to spend hours in the lab writing your programming assignments. Coding in school is actually harder than coding in the real world, at least that is what my friends told me. They basically regurgitate codes from other sources and plugging it into their own and hope for the best. Granted they are not working for IBM or Microsoft. So YMMV. They all started at 50k+ a year. Oddly they all work for companies that develop Web Application and that seem to be the trend nowaday with so much apps moving to browser based. I think it will be hard to even get an entry level programming job without a relevant degree these days with so much graduate out there not to mention all the foreign programmers. As for certifications I don't think there are any prominent ones out there. Its really hard to test someone knowledge of programming without making them write a full functioning program and that is impossible to test. One programming field where I think you can get into easier without traditional schooling is mobile apps development. If you can create a good app or 2 and show it to prospective employer maybe they like what they see and give you a chance. Good luck!

anobomski

As ptilsen said if you could get a BS in CompSci with a few 3 or something credits then go for it. you could then top it with an MS. If not then you cold also investigate the possibility of an MS for those without a BS in CompSci. I do not know how it works in the States, but there are conversion MSc's for such endeavours in the UK.

djoshi

Thanks for the responses guy, I really appreciate it.
Now I'm curious about the other side of IT, namely network engineering. What are the common duties of this type of job? I know that I enjoy working with technology in general, so maybe it doesn't have to be programming. Accounting just doesn't stimulate my mind and I don't have any drive to work my way up the ladder in this field.

Valsacar

Degrees really don't mean much, especially in coding. You either have it or you don't, most of the really good coders I know either have no degree or have one in something completely unrelated (like you stated you do). Just code, do it for fun, learn. If you're good at it, once you have some things to show (even self projects) start applying for jobs. Maybe take a few individual courses (college or otherwise) to learn some languages if self study isn't your thing (but it really should be for coding, and most of IT). You can also look at doing some freelance work, there's a couple sites out there for freelance coding, that will help you build skill and a portfolio of projects to reference on the resume.

If you want to look at certs, things like ITILv3 are good for coders. My first internship (coding) the president and founder of the company told me a good coder needs to build a network and a server, at least once, so they fully understand how their work (as a coder) fits in with the rest of the IT world. I completely agree with that now that I've worked in the field.

I started wanting to code, now network security/defense is where I'm focused... still love coding, but enjoy this more (and it still involves scripting and some more detailed code work from time to time).