Is going back to school a good plan? What do you recommend I do? Read my story.

Marcus46

Hello everyone!

First off, I just want to thank you all for providing this wealth of information for everyone here. I've learned so much from this site and was able to nail the CompTIA trifecta recently. I really appreciate it!

I've been in the IT field for about 5 years now. Started out as help desk, worked my way up to a sysadmin in the same company. I learned a ton and finished an associate's degree in network systems management while working. Though the skills development side of the job was great, the working environment was pretty terrible and the pay wasn't quite what it should've been for what I was doing. I decided to push on much longer than I should have because I wanted to get as much out of it as I could. Due to management issues and the lack of upward movement, I left the company...

I am now working tech support for a much larger company. I love the working environment and the people (the pay increase was also very nice). I support systems, servers, networks, databases and issues of all shapes and sizes. I still have the freedom to script and think outside the box to solve a problem which I love to do, and I'm working with a different system infrastructure almost every day.

My problem with this is... it's tech support. Though, financially and technically it's a step up... but when you go from a sysadmin position to this, it's a little unnerving . There aren't as many responsibilities which makes it feel like a step back. On the plus side, there are several advancement opportunities here in many other departments including network engineering and IT ops.

The plan is to eventually get into information security, because it's the facet of IT that has interested me the most. As of now it's simply a hobby of mine, and I've never gone as far as to say... publish a vulnerability or anything like that. One of the many reasons I jumped into this position is because the company will pay for a majority of my education. As I already have an associate's degree I would like to get a BS. So of course I'm looking at WGU and their IT - Security degree.

I feel like this could be a great path for me, but I also feel like there's something I'm not doing right here. I already made the mistake of sticking around with the smaller company for way too long. I just don't want to make another. Life's too short!

Is this a natural path for my career? Should I throw myself back in school? Am I better off with self-study and dabbling on the side? I just hate feeling lost. Especially at my age!

I appreciate any feedback. And again, thank you all!

-Marcus

SteveFT

Will they pay for your school? If they will, then it is pretty much a no-brainer. Having a degree will never disqualify you from a position, but not having one might. At worst, start it off at a very manageable level. This might be one class per semester/term. At least in 2-3 years, you will have made measurable progress towards a degree rather than pushing it off.

The Technomancer

Never turn down a free education -- whether that's company-paid training and certification, or college reimbursement. The company will either take advantage of what you've learned on their dime and promote your to where you want to be, or they've just given you the tools to go out and get that job after you've put in another year to prevent yourself from having to pay the cost of training back to them.

I'm wholeheartedly in favor of aiming for a career path that you're interested in or excited about -- you'll always do better work that way, and you'll put in longer hours by choice because you enjoy what you're doing enough to be personally vested in the project's outcome rather than just professionally/monetarily invested.

Another thing you can do is talk with your current company about changing your title to one that's more aligned with your career goals. As much as title shouldn't matter, it really does, and sometimes it's worth leaving money on the table in direct compensation in favor of titles and such that will increase your overall earning potential. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you can end up being trapped by money if you start making a comfortable salary in a role with a title that prevents future career growth.

But whatever you do, try to get a title on your resume that represents what you want to do. If your current employer won't give it to you, but you still want to stick around for the training/education benefits, volunteering your services in return for a tax write-off and a title (along with a reference) can be well worth it when you're ready to leave the day job for something better. Alternately, you can do part-time consulting on the side at that title if your day job has a moonlighting policy that allows it.

Marcus46

Thanks for all the tips guys, I appreciate it big time.

You made a great point Techromancer about volunteering services, and with this company in particular I think it would be fairly easy to find some work.

I'm not sure if I could attain a such a title at the company within a relatively quick time frame, but if I'm schooling, I'll at least have the time to study and finish my degree... as opposed to the last job where working 60 - 80 hours a week was normal. I could even snag a position on the IT team or network team and go from there.

I was afraid of hearing that the backwards trek in title was probably not for the best, but I understand that it's not the end of the road. This jump was really meant to focus on more education (and honestly life as well), but I really do hope to stick around with this organization.

Thanks again guys!!!