Failed 3D Artist wants to move into linux IT

Hi,

I'm from Sydney, which for a start I suppose is a lot better that most situations.

My father was an IT professional, he made a lot of money during the IT boom in the late 90s, at that time it seemed like as long as you where smart enough and enjoyed computers you could do whatever you wanted to.

Well that's how I planned my life more or less and aimed for a career in 3D animation / graphic design and I've learnt all the associated applications, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and now I've gone through the open-source packages, GIMP, Blender, Krita, Bluefish.

Well, people treat designers like ****, there is an over-supply of qualified people and all in all, it hasn't worked out for me or many, many other people. Actually, from the $20,000 a year course I did of 20 people, I can't think of anyone who really "made it". Yet all those people who didn't make it, keep their mouths shut, like it was "their fault" even though the college said they expected a 75% graduate employment rate that didn't even nearly happen, in fact a 25% employment rate would have been acceptable, but nobody made it.

So now I want to move into IT, like I said, my Dad was/is an IT guy, he's almost 70 now so he's an old school A+/Net+ kind of guy with a spark of MS Visual Basic except without the qualifications. He made a good bit of cash during the IT boom and that saw him through.

Well, I'm not so lucky, I've flip-flopped through various ideas around computers and design, I was even doing really well coming the top of my class, but it meant nothing, because nobody got secure work from it.

So now I want to get into IT, because I feel like, maybe I can actually earn some money doing this, I enjoy computers and I enjoy linux even more. I've spent the past month studying for a CCNA and I feel like I'm a few weeks off being ready for CCENT, but I've decided that I think it'd be wiser to get an A+ cert first, followed by Network+ then into CCNA, then LPI+ and into Red Had certification, looks attractive.

Well, I just wanted to share my story with you guys, because I'm angry, I'm upset, and I feel like an idiot because nothing has worked. I'm 28 and I want to settle down with a 24yo GF who's about to become a fully qualified nurse.

I'm a smart guy, I've studied Mandarin Chinese for a year and I've excelled well, I've shown myself as a competent learner over and over again, but I'm still without a decent wage or a regular job with career prospects.

Well, I enjoy Linux and I'm keen to conquer a few Certifications, because I know I can do it, as a good learner, I will prevail. My main interest in IT is Linux and I hope to pursue Linux further for political reasons.

I hope to make friends on these forums, thank you for letting me introduce myself.

_Daz

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Comments

N2IT

Take that anger and energy and channel it correctly. Start hacking around with different versions of Linux. What about learning scripting in Linux and how the operating system works? That could be a start. There is a Linux sub forum off of this website that has quite a bit of activity. The beautiful thing about Linux is the community is willing to share and there are a lot of good FREE material out there. Check it out. Maybe someone can post information to some of these sites. From my experience automation and scripting is a Huge commodity. Just a suggestion, but one I believe is a good one. Welcome to the forum

About7Narwhal

Seems like Web Dev would be right up your alley. Have you considered that? Take your design knowledge, mix in some HTML and BAM! Web Dev.

DoubleNNs

About7Narwhal wrote: »

Seems like Web Dev would be right up your alley. Have you considered that? Take your design knowledge, mix in some HTML and BAM! Web Dev.

I was thinking the same thing. Web Dev/Design sounds like the perfect fit for you.

BUT you're mad at this point. You need to find something you enjoy doing as much as you need to earn decent wages. If Linux/Sys admin is more up your alley, do that. Go where your interest lie. Except I'm pretty sure there are a ton of people who make a lot of money doing Web work (including on this forum) and I see no reason why you can't be one of them.

Your skills could also be useful in marketing in general (I see web design more about marketing, while web dev more IT). Mid-sized companies would probably pay a lot for some decent branding and/or customer-facing UI work.

Good luck.

dmoore44

If you're seriously considering the admin route, I would hit up some of the employment websites and do a quick search and see what skills are most in demand, and then work towards that. If *nix admins are in demand, then I would wholeheartedly go for it!

dazdaryl

Thanks guys all I can say is that I feel very angry and upset in a way that a lot of people in todays society would understand.

I really do enjoy Linux, I believe in it and I'm a very politically passionate person.

I started studying for A+, but that was just absolute hell, I mean, I thought studying the CCNA was a bit boring, but one look at that A+ and it was like I just wanted to bang my head against a brick wall, 75% of the time it was so easy it was boring then there was some little detail like how to install windows vista (the operating system I never used) or how many pins on the old video game controler port and you've lost a bunch of marks. Well stuff that I just can't put my head through something that horrible, not when I'm allready this upset.

I really enjoy what I've learnt thus far through studying CCNA and Networking, I think I will go for the Network+ or CCNA, I really enjoy Linux, and programming interests me, but I've never really cracked that nut totally, but I can feel I'm close, I doubt the anoyance of troubleshooting new libraries will ever stop, but eventuly I will find a few good libraries and become comfortable working with them for my purposes.

Sooooo... I've just signed myself up to study programming for 6 months at college, I'll research networking and linux on the side for this 6 months, I'll look to getting a net+ or ccna, perhaps, lpi cert aswell. ((I can't touch that A+ garbage, it was killing me, being so close and so far at the same time)).. From there, there are good options, I'm pretty sure my programming course deals quite a bit with web based technologies like mySQL.

Well it seems to me that If I succeed with these things over the next year then Red Hat Certification will be the next step. I think if I just chill out keep learning about subnets and all this and just enjoy it.

DoubleNNs

Haha, I know exactly what you mean about the A+ I hated it when I took it. Hated it sooo much.
If anything, I'd read over the hardware components. Make sure you know about different types of Memory. About CPUs, graphics cards, bios, POST, different types of hard drives, etc. Feel free to skip over all the little details and the dfiferences between the diff WIN OSes, but try to understand the big picture of the exam. And then maybe get some hands on experience by building a desktop and performing a few upgrades on your laptop.
Honestly, the best thing I got out of the A+ was a more structured method of troubleshooting, even if most of the small details I thought were stupid.

After a little bit of looking over the A+ material, if you think you've got enough from it... put it down. Go ahead and skip the test. If you don't want to be bothered w/ learning all the small details, that's fine. Esp since the test costs $400 - I don't see a reason NOT to pass up on something you're not interested in. However, if you already have the study materials for it I highly suggest 2 or 3 days of scanning just to get some info out of it.

Good luck on the rest of your studies - *nix, Networking, and Programming.

Xyro

dazdaryl wrote: »

I've spent the past month studying for a CCNA and I feel like I'm a few weeks off being ready for CCENT, but I've decided that I think it'd be wiser to get an A+ cert first, followed by Network+ then into CCNA, then LPI+ and into Red Had certification, looks attractive.

You're all over the place. I suggest attempting to calm down so you can make decisions based on logic instead of emotions.

Just a few weeks off from the CCENT, why not take it?

The first item that came to my mind when I read your post was, as others have stated, web design.

dazdaryl

hey guys, thanks for the comments.

update on my situation, I'm feeling a lot better right now.

I'm starting my programming course in about 2 weeks so I'm excited about that.

I'm definitely going to be looking towards web design and development as one of my options, although almost everything has some sort of online component these days.

I've spent a lot of time researching appropriate study materials that I enjoy, including:

CCENT/CCNA ICND1 - Wendell Odom
Computer Science: An Overview - Glenn Brookshear
How Linux Works: What every super user should know. - Brian Ward

I'm about half-way through the CCENT book I've finished the basic first half and the rest is on sub-netting its quite interesting, but I get really excited about this computer science book I found, it really sucks me in and makes me want to read more.

I'd ditched the idea of studying for A+, it was just too much of a pain to read about obvious things I've done many times before like building a desktop with windows just to capture some odd detail or specifics about the specific name of an audio jack I've never used. Next year I'll go further into detail with what ever I have found most interesting, whether its Red Hat or CCIE etc.

Recently I went to a meet up group called SLUG, sydney linux user group, there where a lot of people in fields of computing related to what interests me. I found these people to have more similar personalities and interests to myself than many other meet ups I had attended. Group meetups are heaps good.

So now I've got a year of study ahead of me, I know what interests me the most, I know what I find boring. I have all my research materials and e-books collected, I deleted my facebook account to save time and if all things go well around the end of this year I'll have a basic, broad foundation in Linux, Networking, Computer Science, Programming and hopefully some System Admin that will allow me to begin to do more specialized career path planning.

When I first came to this website, I thought I could just force myself to study a bunch of things and felt guilty about the time I spend hopping from one area to another browsing, but now I've found the pulse of things that genuinely interest me.

UnixGuy

Are you taking classes or is it all self-study? Have you considered TAFE since you are in Sydney?

dazdaryl

yes, I'm beginning my cert IV in programming at TAFE in 2 weeks.

The books I've listed I generally read whilst on public transport or waiting for classes to start. This will be my first time studying something to do with IT at tafe, last semester I just studied Chinese.

UnixGuy

Good luck! It's great that you pursue the things you like

VAHokie56

Sounds like you are on the right path just try and keep a few things in mind while looking at various types of tech. First to make real money is IT you need to specialize , it could be on the network side, server or app development side it doesn't really matter just pick one you like and find passion in. Second few and far make it right out of the "education phase" into their desired specialization field, so factor in the idea that you may have to earn you stripes doing help desk or desk side support before you make it onto an engineering squad. There is absolutely no shame in doing this it helps you learn end user needs and get a high level view on enterprise IT.
My advice from personal experience...you have a degree already so do not mess around with getting some IT related degree. Go straight into certs related to what you want to do in IT, that does not mean do not take courses at you local comm college that are related, those are great and typically have industry pro's teaching them for extra cash (TYPICALLY). Get on at a large enterprise environment , keep an open mind and soak up everything you can. Good luck dude!

sparten

i used to be just like OP, then realized that being a Digital Artist pays very little unless ur hired for pixar or some major art studio.

Web Designing by itself is hard to earn a decent salary with due to the fact thats its totally subjective and alot of times clients dont know what they want. Instead you should learn a few in-demand languages & OOP practices, excel at them, and become a web programmer / developer. I recommend starting off with an OOP language like Java, PHP, etc..since the syntax is nearly the same for alot of them so you'll be able to easily adapt if necessary.

It's your best bet to be honest, man.

PS: Started off as a freelance web developer at 16 with not much programming exp. and I am now a salaried entry level Web Developer making $42k/yr while in college no degree...

dazdaryl

hmmm

I agree, in art too specialization is important.

However if you need a programmer to talk to an artist you need somebody who knows a little bit about both, called a technical artist.

Similarly if a programmer is going to write something that operates over networks or program something a system administrator is going to use then that programmer is going to need to understand that area also.

I'm not entirely sure what direction I want to go, but I know that I enjoy programming, even if I haven't entirely got the hang of it yet. Most of the certs I'm looking at are only the basics, and building a strong foundation will help me decide where I want to go later.

discount81

You know your current 3D qualifications would probably get you a very good job in a different city, Australia isn't the right place for what you studied imho.

I'm an Australian living in Montreal Canada, there is literally hundreds of video game studios here in desperate need of 3D designers.