Former teacher considering the IT field. Specific career advice appreciated

YSU1989

Hi everyone,

I am 24 years old and graduated in December of 2012 with a bachelors degree in social studies education grades 7-12. I love the kids but I found that my heart just wasnt in it and I couldnt see myself doing it for the rest of my life. I know that I will probably never teach again and I am looking at making a career change.

My initial thought was that I would go back to my local state university to get another bachelors degree in IT or Accounting. Since I already have a bachelors this would take around 2-2.5 years.

However, after talking to a family friend who works in the IT field he told me that he would recommend just getting certifications since I already have a degree. He also said that if I were to go back to school I should find a masters program in IT geared for those like me without background in the field.

Is he right in thinking that another bachelors degree in IT would be a waste of time and money and that I can probably obtain the same jobs if I were to get the proper certs? My concern is that without having a background in IT, would it be extremely difficult for me to teach myself this information, and would employers look down on me for having a teaching degree and not an IT degree?

My goal is to be a Network Engineer and I would like to make in the $45-50k a year range to start.

If any of you have any advice regarding my situation I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

AwesomeGarrett

You definitely do not need another degree in IT to get into the field. You already have a degree and with some certs and knowledge that will go much farther than you might think. As far as pay, that would depend on your geographical location.

ande0255

I would not expect a network engineer role until you have 2-4 years experience in IT, unless you get extremely lucky, or play golf with a CIO on the weekends

Congratulations on your new career, best advice is to take any IT job you can land to start, and maintain a growing skillset for the next level up. Good luck!

AwesomeGarrett

ande0255 makes a great point. You're not going to just get a few certs and jump into an engineering role or even a support role. Your beginnings are going to be just as humble as everyone elses, unless you know someone that can help you skip that first step.

rowelld

I agree with everyone else. Don't go back to school. I know many IT folks who have degrees in different fields. Gain the knowledge from certifications such as CCNA and Microsoft.

Most people get started in Help Desk and work their way up. If you work for a smaller organization you can work with the SysAdmin to increase your skillset at a faster pace.

Try networking with your family friend that works in IT. It's always good to know people in the field.

veritas_libertas

Dittos to what was already said. You don't need another Bachelor degree to get into IT. A great path to get you started and help you decide what you want to do is:

CCNA--> MCSA

That will make you well rounded open doors for you.

Likely your initial career will go something like this:

HelpDesk/Desktop Support/NOC ---> SysAdmin/Network Engineer


Your salary range hope depending on where you live is a little unrealistic. Most Help Desk and Desktop Support guys in my area start around $15/hr.

DirtySouth

Another ditto from me as well. Unfortunately the term "network engineer" can mean a lot of different things. Is there a specific technology that you're interested in or that you have a passion for? Certifications will help give you that specialized skillset for whatever area you're interested in. If you can't just jump right into the role you want, you may need to take a stepping-stone job like helpdesk or desktop support for a couple years and work your way up. Or, you could get lucky & play golf with the CIO & get right in!

instant000

YSU1989:

If you're going to work as a Network Engineer, then you can give yourself your own "education" in the field.

Since you've worked as a teacher, you know what it takes to study a topic and learn it well, as you're accustomed to telling what you know to others.

I think it would be great if you could take that same ability, and apply it to learning about networking.
I'd advise these steps, but you doubtless have better pedagogy than I, so you tweak this as you will:

1 - Start studying for CCNA. head to the CCENT/CCNA forum here. There are free video courses and a wealth of information out there to prepare with. You can do this really low-cost.

2 - Find a respected university's undergraduate curriculum in telecommunications engineering (make sure the program is from the school of engineering, as it would be more rigorous) Don't go to the school, just study all of the same courses and material that is most applicable to network engineering. (TCP/IP, WAN, LAN, etc.) There is a lot of open courseware and other information out there that you can research on your own. As a teacher, you undoubtedly should have the ability to look up new and exciting information.

3 - While going through the curriculum/CCNA, look for opportunities to use your skills. You need to tell everyone that you meet how interested you are in network engineering. Your friends, coworkers, everyone. Somebody will know somebody, and if you are genuinely interested, you can get an in. Networkers like to have meet-up style events. Humphrey Cheung (aka routergods) is a geek celebrity (oxymoron) because he regularly hosts meetup events and has posted numerous Youtube videos that show his motivation for network engineering. Darby Weaver advocates volunteering to get your start (it worked for him).

4 - After obtaining CCNA, you want to continue your self-education studies, but you really need to find a junior network role somewhere. If you've been networking (with people) hard enough, you should have established the type of stable peerings that make you respected within your community [see what I did there?].

5 - Keep in mind that networking is about more than just knowing protocols, and being able to configure the equipment. Networking is also undergoing a push towards more and more automation. (Lots of network outages occur due to human error.) Therefore, you want to make sure to build up your scripting skills at a minimum, and your programming skills, at a maximum.

6 - People skills. Since you work around children, maybe you have people skils (you have to deal with parents/guardians who can sometimes be bigger kids than the children themselves). Your schoolhouse politics skills are transferable to IT, where you'll have the opportunity to be client-facing in many roles.

7 - After CCNA, you may want to go for a higher level cert. I advise CCNP, only because Cisco kit is in so many places. You could consider Juniper/Brocade/etc., if you don't want all of your eggs in a single basket. I choose to certify in Cisco, and just work with the rest as necessary. Most of the stuff you study is transferable.

8 - If you've completed the self-study undergraduate curriculum, and you're still hungry for more, then at this point you should have enough background information and be far enough along in your career to be looking at an advanced degree program with a focus in networking. Find one you like, and self-study it the same way you did the undergrad, using free resources.

9 - Once you make it big, don't forget the little people at TechExams.