I can’t really answer your question—not knowing your skills. IT for medium to large corporations is still a pretty good field in some respects and you can advance very quickly if you are smart, regardless of college education. Beginner level certs to get a first level helpdesk job would cost only a couple hundred dollars and take you a month or less to study up for—assuming you have any “knack” for computers. It does turn you into a cubicle drone though. This is the route I took...it pays very well but I do hate it after twelve years of it I feel sort of trapped—we’re somehow dependent on this level of income etc. There was a period of time where I really was interested in the work itself (I do software development) but thats really long passed. Writing business applications gets pretty old after awhile and the new toys the vendors come out with every two years are just a way to re-sell the same solution to the same problems...
My sister (2.5 years younger) and her husband both have PHD’s from Notre Dame in english literature—roughly as useful as a philosophy degree I’d guess. I guess they did ok finding jobs on tenured tracks; their life is teaching, writing papers, going to conferences. They complain about stupid department politics, stupid field of study politics, stupid useless papers they have to grade etc. I don’t really think they are a lot happier with their jobs than me.
I’m not very technical. I know enough to operate my Mac and maintain my websites. And I’m not good with phones—I don’t like them, and I can’t control my tendency to talk fast over long periods, which makes me hard to understand.
I can’t really answer your question—not knowing your skills. IT for medium to large corporations is still a pretty good field in some respects and you can advance very quickly if you are smart, regardless of college education. Beginner level certs to get a first level helpdesk job would cost only a couple hundred dollars and take you a month or less to study up for—assuming you have any “knack” for computers. It does turn you into a cubicle drone though. This is the route I took...it pays very well but I do hate it after twelve years of it I feel sort of trapped—we’re somehow dependent on this level of income etc. There was a period of time where I really was interested in the work itself (I do software development) but thats really long passed. Writing business applications gets pretty old after awhile and the new toys the vendors come out with every two years are just a way to re-sell the same solution to the same problems...
My sister (2.5 years younger) and her husband both have PHD’s from Notre Dame in english literature—roughly as useful as a philosophy degree I’d guess. I guess they did ok finding jobs on tenured tracks; their life is teaching, writing papers, going to conferences. They complain about stupid department politics, stupid field of study politics, stupid useless papers they have to grade etc. I don’t really think they are a lot happier with their jobs than me.
I’m not very technical. I know enough to operate my Mac and maintain my websites. And I’m not good with phones—I don’t like them, and I can’t control my tendency to talk fast over long periods, which makes me hard to understand.