f13.net

This may be bloggish and long, so I apologize in advance.

So, I had a bit of an epiphany last week.   I fucking hate my job.  Not just my job, but the entire career path I've found myself on for these last 16 years. (that's including school.)

I'm sick of working for other folks, making them money busting my ass and getting dick in return for it.  Merit raises? Ha. I'm lucky if I get enough to cover cost of living increases.  I've found myself stuck at $45k a year for the last 3 years, after averaging out the pay cut I had to take to get my current position.  It's not jantorial wages, but it sure as fuck isn't "Hey you went to college for 7 years and got a professional degree!" wages.  Fuckers with 2-year associates degrees work along side me and make as much (or more) than I do.  This is bullshit and I'm done with it.

Now, I could do the whole "license dance" and pay the AIA $300 a year for the next 3 years to earn the privilege of taking my licensing exam.  At which point I get to find a new job, since my current employer is, frankly, crooked as shit.  I wouldn't affix my seal (at the risk of my professional career) to lots of the crap we do, and certainly not for the $5k a year raise they'd deign to give me while expecting me to do it if I wanted to remain employed.  That sucks, because I enjoy working on houses, but not for this pittance.

I could go commercial, but that's not exactly fun either.  Working on the same project for 12-18 months, doing 4-5 pages of door details is what got me out of that in the first place.  Boring, unengaging bullshit work  while I deal with pretentious asshats who wear 'cat-glasses' and call themselves designers so they don't have to give a rats ass about the structural consequences of that 10 foot balcony affixed to a two foot catwalk.

So, I've somewhat decided I'd rather go back to school and heap more debt on that college loan pile.  In exchange, I'm fairly certain I'd have a MUCH greater earning potential in a field with much less risk of dooming yourself to poverty.  (I recall being told once that Pro. Architects are sued at least 5 times in their career.  For a "max" salary of around $80k unless you own the firm.. which gets into Politics - the REAL kind, not the office kind - no thanks.)

I'm technically proficient, have a strong mechanical aptitude and like working with computers and software.  The downside is, I'd probably have to start as a freshman again, since I'm thinking Comp Sci.  Despite having a B. Arch, I know I couldn't do well enough on any GRE for comp. sci to get a position at any school.  Plus I'd be sorely lacking some of the basics.

Anyone else here done something this "crazy"?  Any advice on getting into a school as a non-trad and perhaps getting some of your other degree credits to count?  I'm hoping to make it into OSU, and plan on calling their admissions office this week, but really, how much does the place you get the degree from matter?  It's always seemed to me that connections > degree location.  Fuck, I'd even be willing to do something stupid like computertraining.com (which to me has always seemed more like a rip-off for uneducated saps.  $20k for a MCSE cert and job placement? WTF??)

  If some of you pros had any advice it'd be appreciated.

1. I know its a cliche but doing something you love, you'll never "work" a day in your life. It's been my guiding philosophy and while my income over the past 2 years was slashed by 2/3, I've been much happier and make enough to get by, but have cut back on the toy buying and trip spending…

2. Again, it really doesn't matter, if you're miserable in your career, make a switch now. It's never too late to start. Recently, I went to a college graduation ceremony where somebody was 90+ years old and getting a Masters… …she was beaming

3. Any accredited school is good, I would stay away from schools that arn't.

4. While you're going to school, seek out an internship… …some are unpaid (like the ones that have worked for me), but others offer decent pay and will give you a leg up on landing a job once you graduate.

5. As far as transferring credits, it been so long, but that will depend on the school you apply/enroll to/in…

I hear ya.. Well, actually, you're in a much better position since I haven't finished school. But I'm "starting from scratch" either way. I'm playing with the idea of getting into law now (which I almost did and should have done 10 yrs ago).

Anyways.. Are there any other aspects of Arch that you'd like to get into? Maybe landscaping? There's a lot more freedom to be creative as well as self employed that way, I believe?

Many of my first undergrad classes counted towards my second degree, however I returned to the same university.  You will have to talk with an advisor about what can transfer or qualify for.  They may have a post-bach program which lets you skip some basics.  Some also have advisors for non-traditional students.

Well, I agree with you that making 45k after that much school is ridiculous. I'd say move towards what you enjoy rather than something that pisses you off.

- move to Alberta
- profit!

http://www.pathfinderinc.ca/ (http://www.pathfinderinc.ca/)

I know quite a few folks who hit their upper 30's or low 40's and have said 'screw it' and completely changed careers. They became pilots, which pays crap for the first 10 years, but they totally love their jobs (now).

I'd recommend trying to find a company you want to work for, who can use your skills, but may not start you off making any more than you make now. Find something (someplace, rather) you can grow into - preferably one that will pay for extra schooling.

Harder than it sounds, but it's worth a shot.

Every boom comes to an end. There's also nothing fun about being stuck at your salary cap in your field.

- move to Alberta
- profit!
- wait for the end of the boom
- change field with pockets full of cash!

My wife's an architect and while she's not totally satisfied (she's passed 4 of the 9 licensing exams) with her job...you're not playing the game right.

1. Architectural interns get salary bumps by changing firms multiple times. Usually 5-10k per switch every 2 or 4 years.

2. You've got to get licensed if you want to make the bucks. It's like becoming a doctor but never passing the boards. Every profession has tickets that have to be punched to keep people out and rise up the ranks.

3. Once you get the tests past you, you can do the side jobs you really like and get more personal fulfillment as well as more money.

Everyone wants to be an architect at cocktail parties. You see them in tons of ads...carrying plans around and acting cool. But yeah the money is crap. So you have to find a firm that's going to give you some design freedom here and there while you do bread and butter jobs as filler most of the time. Either that or fuck your way into working at Morphosis.

Congrats on being willing to take a chance at a new career though. That takes a lot of balls. I went from stockbroking to law which was a major shift and I'm glad I did. In the end you have to set yourself a tough, yet attainable goal and keep reminding yourself along the way what you're working for. I want to start a game company and I want to help my wife start her own firm. That's why I sock away money when I can :)

Good luck!

Before I settled on my computer science major I was very seriously eyeballing my school's landscape architecture program.  If I ever decided I needed a new career that'd probably be it.

Coupla things to share. I had a sorta similar experience. I started out thinking I wanted to be a shrink. I graduated with a BA in Classics, so I needed to go back to undergrad to take 2.5 years of classes to be able to apply to a grad school in psychology. Did that. Then I got my Masters. During the last year of my Masters, I came to the conclusion that there was just no way in hell I'd be able to do the 3+ years of $16/hour social work/case management in order to eventually get enough street cred to get my own practice and start to get a living wage. I knew what I was capable of and I knew this would burn me out in a big fat hurry. That's basically 4.5 years and cash to decide it wasn't for me.

So after a while, I decided I needed to do the job I'd always enjoyed doing, which was messing about with computers. 9 months at an A+ cert program, and voila, I was soon employable. Sure, initially a gruntish job, but I was doing what I loved. Couldn't have been happier. Then later, got another job that payed better, although not much better, and that brings us to the current date. I don't earn enough for my taste, but I can stomach it simply because its what I want to do.

Just a word of caution about getting a Comp Sci degree; don't do this expecting a higher salary unless you know you are just that good. Any and every profession, just like your current one, has tickets that need stamped, and a ladder to be climbed. There's a heck of a lot of luck involved too. My GF, with no formal training whatsoever and no science/computer training in particular, has landed a job writing sql script database clean up code for ~$46k. Completely out of the blue, it seems, until you start looking at the detail; she worked in development for a university. Fundraising. She taught herself the ins and outs of the database systems they used, and did some custom access databases on her own. She looked for a job in a related area, and she was basically head hunted by someone who needed someone with intimage knowledge of development frontend while able to learn the database backend of large institution fund raising, and bingo, she snagged the job.

So my instinct in your case is for you to figure out another niche that takes advantage of your architechtual skills. Perhaps a specialization in AutoCad? Perhaps if you're interested in computer hardware, a firm that designs machines specifically with architechs in mind? In any case, its great to be able to leverage your previous career into the field you're angling for.

Well, you are an architect who I assume can use AutoCAD or somesuch to design buildings, and presumably like doing it or are at least proficient at it (just pissed at the salary and office politics).  If you can do the math, go for an engineering degree of some kind and then get into the CAD side of things.  Having an engineer who can CAD their own parts is a godsend at most places.  Usually our CAD guys don't understand the systems and will make parts how they interpret our specifications, not how they need to be and how an engineer would do it.

In any event, a computer science degree would be mostly worthless in my opinion (I should know, I have one that I got in 2002 that did all of jack and shit for my job prospects).  You will spend another 3-4 years jumping through hoops and bending over for professors who are never satisifed while going into debt to have a piece of paper that may not enable you to get a better job anyways.  You have to be extremely proficient with computers, languages, and algorithms to even begin to compete with the way India and Russia turn out programmers who work for peanuts, and then you have to convince the HR department at some company somewhere to even look at your resume over the 1500 other ones they get from people on paper who have the same credientials as you (maybe with more experience).  I second the comment made about learning to do a certain routine or tailoring yourself to the kind of job you want and then trying to network in.  This is really the only way to get a job besides dumb luck in the computer biz.  Too many people in it and you either need to stand out in a beyond godly but still believable way or know someone on the inside.  If you want the experience of a computer science degree, by all means go for it.  But learning to code in several lanuages and being proficient at it (assembler for various microprocessors are quite sought after) while studying algorithm structure and design on your own will get you 90% of the experience of a CS degree without the costs or major timesinks of going to college.

I went with a specialization in my degree that basically enables me to beat out 95% of the candidates with generic electrical engineering degrees for my job, but it has to be the right type of job otherwise I am one of the 95% who is beaten out.  If you can get an angle or leg up, use it to your advantage.  If you want a no-brainer IT job, no need for a degree for that.  I had departments begging me to come work for them for $24k/year doing tech support and network admin work when I graduated from college the first time purely because I had worked in the field for 3 years as a poor college student for $6/hr.  A pretty low stress job even if you have to deal with idiot users and administrators for low pay.

I'm gonna be a 39 year old freshman this fall :D
I got into Butler University in the Pre Physician Assistant program, which is 2 years of undergrad bullshit (well not all of it), then 3 years of the PA stuff, then graduate with a Masters of Science, then take the boards to become certified and licenced.  Hell, I'm even going of night shifts and back onto a real sleep schedule working midshifts.  It is going to suck as far as loans and not doing somethings I enjoy (working at the free clinic and working on the ambulance--won't have time), but it will be awesome to be a mid-level provider.

Oh, Butler seems to think I need to take a gym class, when 6 other universities counted my basic training in the Army for it...  Oh well, maybe they have bowling.

This is a good idea. Find a company that sells to/works with architects and join it. That way all your accumulated knowledge is still worth something. People that drop out of med school and become pharmaceutical salesmen can make more than the doctors they talk to every day!

I always thought it cool too. I have a fair amount of experience working with residential areas, but I don't know anything about architecture per se. If I already had an architecture degree/work experience though, and wanted more autonomy, then that'd be it. Seems like an all around cool job.

I would suggest looking at the school you're interested in and possibly finding a job there and using that to pay for your school. It will take you a bit longer to get your degree but at least you won't be racking up more student loan debt. Also, usually as an employee you can take a few classes on a non-degree program, do well enough in them, and have the testing requirements waived to actually enter the degree program. That way you could at least attempt to jump right into a masters program.

Also, universities (at least the one I'm at) seem more willing to hire someone into a position without a degree if they express an interest in earning their degree. We have a couple of people in our area that only have HS degrees at the moment who are working in IT while going back to school to earn a BS. So, you might be able to land yourself an entry level IT job and get a free degree at the same time.

What are cat glasses?

Speaking as someone who lives in Alberta, this boom has to end sometime, but right now it's pretty darn sweet. I don't have a degree in ANYTHING,  yet I just got offered a $75k a year intermediate Windows Server position based on the fact that currently I'm a one-man IT group for a small, cross-canada company of around 75 people. Pretty much everything I know has been learned 'on the job' with a few classes here and there sprinkled in to fill in the blanks.

They company that made the offer is giving me an extra weeks vacation, profit sharing for my billable hours (they contract out to a lot of the oil companies here, including Shell) and they'll put the equivalent of 6% of my salary into RRSPs for me every year... and I probably make out the worst of my friends that are currently in the IT field here.

So yeah, the Boom is gonna end, but I might as well do the best I can in the meantime. Just except to pay ridiculous amounts for rent or purchasing a home. I *think* the average house price here is just under $500k and condos are silly too. Friend just bought a 460 sq ft condo in downtown Calgary for $240k and that was the cheapest he could find that was resonably up-to-date. I'm lucky in the fact I bought my house right before the prices really took off.

 

This was actually along my lines of thinking.  I'd rather go to work for Autodesk or one of the 3rd party companies around them, or one of the other "off-brand" softwares.  Alternatively I could go to work for a large A&E firm as a CAD manager, with some actual software/ hardware knowledge to back it up.  Those positions are pretty slim pickings, however, as most A&E firms think "Oh "Bob" knows about computers, let him handle the file server.. what could happen?!"  :ye_gods:


A term I picked-up from one of my former co-workers.  He was a macho gay guy who wore those long, narrow somewhat rectangular lenses, and he called them his "Cat glasses" because the shape and proportions roughly resemble a cat's eye.  You always see them along with the black turtleneck on the "effite artiste" types in pop culture shows.  They're the modern version of a beret signaling "Hey I'm a pretentious asshat douchebag!"


Oh, I know the whole game.  It's like every other company and every other position.  One problem I have doing it in this area is that (aside from hating the work I'm handed.)  I live in Cincinnati.  There's a ton of graduates from UC and Kentucky in the area, all looking for jobs at 'stupid college kid' rates.  Combine that with the Intern/ Co-op programs both schools have and wages in this sector are a bit depressed.

However even if I move,  It's ridiculous that the entire carrer pays so little for a FUCKLOAD of responsibility.  You are responsible for life-safety of hundreds of thousands of end users of every building you ever design.  Screw up enough just once and you are barred from doing that work ever again. All for $75k a year, max.*

There's an old adage that Architects make poor businessmen.  It's true, because their egos won't let them pass on a client or a job that's a bad economic risk simply so they have their name on another building.  Over the decades this has lead to price undercutting and serioiusly stupid shit on the part of all firms so that they've priced themselves to the level of a blue collar worker while pushing white collar hours and responsiblity.  How many lawers, doctors or engineers (other professions that also require licensing) work 50-60 hour weeks for $36 an hour?

I've had plenty of offers for side-work on housing.  However, I decline them all. Crazy? No.  See, people try to get you to do work 'on the side' so they can pay you less for the same amount of work.  Also, my co-workers who have done side work have all been screwed in some way.  Either the company found out and fired them, (you see, that's a house the company could have sold) or the person balked at paying what the work was worth, or simply didn't pay.   That's before you get into the ethical issue I have of doing work that should be routed through your firm.. if your firm wasn't stupid enough to not pay you for the referral.  :uhrr:

* Again, I coulld start-up my own firm once licensed.  But that gets into political connections and doing a lot of legwork I'm not comfortable with/ have no desire to do.   The foundations of a successful firm are set in your 20s and 30s.  It's who you know, and what positions they get into/who they introduce you to that funnel the work towards you at first.

 I'm much too geeky/ engineer-minded to put up with that nonsense.   This was something I realized in school, but finished the degree because my parents encouraged me to do it rather than switch back then.  I've come to realize that it was a HUGE mistake, and I'd have been better off switching the first two times I wanted to. Be it to IT, or Engineering itself because that's simply the way my mind works.

460 Square feet is smaller than my bathroom.

heheh.

I'm paying $750/mo to rent a 288sqft efficiency in 22314 (Alexandria, VA. 1 mi from old town) and that's the cheapest place in the damn city where I live by myself.

288 sqft.

Ok, see, that's smaller than my balls.

Man, apartments suck.

Could always try Denver.

http://denver.craigslist.org/egr/ (http://denver.craigslist.org/egr/)
http://www.jobsearchusa.org/index.php?action=search&92=193&93=339&6=&25=&2=cad&search.x=0&search.y=0&search=Find (http://www.jobsearchusa.org/index.php?action=search&92=193&93=339&6=&25=&2=cad&search.x=0&search.y=0&search=Find)

(Also feel free to use my LinkedIn network to look around too, though I don't think I know many folks in the CAD industries).

Merusk,

I think this is a bold, but good move.  I've been contemplating the same thing.  I've found that the biggest hurdles to overcome are a) getting the nerve up to leave a comfortable situation and b) convincing employers on the other end of the journey why they should hire a 40-something newbie over a 20-something newbie. 

I tried recently to leave an academic position at a research 1 school for a teaching position at a much smaller, liberal arts school.  I have sent out 50 applications this year and found that none (yes, NONE) of the teaching schools I was interested in would hire me.  Why?  None of them believed that I'd give up the prestige and higher salary of being at a research school for a teaching position.  After travelling to interviews every week for the past 4 months, I've had a  number of schools state: "While you were clearly the strongest candidate, we decided to offer the position to someone we felt would be truely happy in a role that is primarily teaching".  What has really left me dumbfounded is that I've won a myriad of teaching awards (some at the university and national level) and schools still doubt my commitment to teaching.  *shrug*

I'm thinking that my best bet is to leave science entirely if I want to take a teaching job.  The reason that I even bother to mention all of this is to let you know that perceptions on the other end are tough to overcome.  No matter how honest and open you are with employers, they still think some pretty ridiculous things. 

The best thing you can do is research.  Find a field that you're not only passionate about, but that is in high demand.  This will ensure that you not only get a good job in your choice of locations, but that future employers will see more value in your past experiences.  They will also be more likely to appreciate why you decided to switch fields. 

 

Going back to school for another degree when you already have 1 makes it sound like you just want to be an acedemic for life.  The vast majority of jobs that require a degree don't really give a rats ass what that degree is in.  If you want a job in the IT field just go get one, your going to have to start with an entry level job either way and 2 years of employed IT experience + a college degree > CS degree with no years of IT experience.  After 5 years no one is probably going to even ask you what your degree is in they will just assume it is in the field that employs you.

Personally I think yer friggen crazy, outsourcing has killed and is still killing the profession.  Some IT jobs seem to at least be coming back into the country but what used to be a cushy in house position has become a stop on your route that is assigned by the local contract IT firm you end up working for. 

Go get a teaching credential, the pay scale is better than what you are currently experiencing and the time off is amazing.  Once you land a contract the district will basically hand you a map of your salary from the moment you start till the moment you die.  This will give you ample time to figure out what you want in life while still getting paid.

Go teach high school the pay is probably better than what you would get at a small college.  Shit my uncle makes 85k, works 185days/year and is home by 5:00 every day.  My dad retired 10 years ago and was making over 60k a year teaching 3rd graders (home by 3:30 every day) god knows what that pays now.  My sister has to be pushing 60k a year by now teaching 5th grade.  Starting salary in Austin is in the mid 30's but the experience+education salary model ramps you up above 40k pretty quick. 

AFA wages|salary|rate goes, yes, it's not like it was when I first got in the field (though even then, starting pay sucked for most new slots). I still get calls from recruiters trying to fill that occasional mainframe | Unix scripting position and am astounded at how low some of them are — even ads for PHP programmers at $8-10 / hour, $20-30 per hour for COBOL or Bash/Unix (Bash/Korn), etc.… …10 years ago, even junior level COBOL programmer could net $50-60 per hour (or more). For a while Java programmers were hot commodity, but I don't know if that has been sustained plus if you're coding Java, you may as well be coding COBOL…

…still if you carve a niche, you can nab $100 per hour or more… …specialty tech knowledge with a specific software vendor that's widely used…

Again, if you dig this sort of thing… …writing (and reading) code is one of the few skills I am blessed with and I actually enjoy it, so its all good for me… …though now I little more than glorified web master, though I call the shots, write and implement my own CMS frameworks, etc.… …though like I wrote, I gave up income at 3X-4X (not counting my freelance income, though I've purposefully chased most of those clients away…) what I make now, though I was traveling a lot, living in airports & hotels, and I didn't enjoy that at all (nor did Mrs. Naum, who told me that she didn't get married to sleep alone)…

Say, SAP. I see 10-20 SAP consultant jobs posted almost daily, all starting at 100k+/year.

Also, I agree that any degree is fine .. just get a tech job and eventually move into what you really want to do .. once you start getting some tech experience under your belt you will find jobs a lot easier.

Edit: If you want to see the types of jobs that make 100k+ in the tech industry, let me know. I'm currently using TheLadders (http://technology.theladders.com/) to look for a new job and I can give you a good list of the job openings I see.

yes ERP and CRM crapola is hot right now, I can't see this lasting much longer though.  Thats 1 of the main problems, the flavor of the year $100 an hour job follows the same rules of supply and demand as everything else does.

Of course. But that doesn't mean you can't get that experience in 2-3 years... when it's still booming. And then you probably are more than young enough to go learn a new tech when the next big thing shows up for techies.  :awesome_for_real:

Wow, SAP still in demand… …I figured by this time, all those bloodsuckers would have been ushered out of all the Fortune 500 shops… …in the early 90s, it was CASE tools and folks were paid ridiculous money ($150/hr+) for systems that mostly were just wet dreams on Microsoft Word requirements document templates… …a few years later, it was Smalltalk and Visual Gen (or whatever it was called) — a boondoggle that triggered a whole bunch of code rewrites… …I wonder if Rational Rose is still a hot ticket…

But yes, there is always a niche — I still get calls for Sterling Commerce (or whatever SBC or whoever bought them out calls it now) data communications suite — Connect Direct/Connect Enterprise, etc.… …although their recruiting efforts are met with my chuckling as I would demand $100/hr+ + per diem and some of those slots now in companies have been redesignated as "operations" type jobs, which really makes me howl and is no surprise when a different recruiter calls every 3 or 4 months for what I can tell instantly is the same position…

Some other niches:

* …for awhile, Walker General Ledger application would net one somewhere in $100/hr range…

* …Y2K work was very lucrative for many though it's duration was limited… …might have to wait until 2037 for the next go around (oh wait,  NM, by then, 32 bit machines will be extinct… …and so will Linux/Unix as Microsoft Silverlight swallows the world…)

* …do you have experience in managing offshore workers? Still need for an American worker to manage the bridge calls and handle access into IBM managed data centers…

* …get Six Sigma certified (or some other SEI/CMM FOTM paradigm that said company is inflicting upon its IT department. Better yet, become a "certified" trainer…

* …take some trips to Central and South America, adopt some talented "kids", bring them home to America to work for your consulting company for some custom insourcing outsourcing action (worked with a dude that pulled this off and had nearly a dozen adopted "kids" of which he was raking >50% of their discounted billable rate). Nowdays you might have to relocate to Bangalore or Mumbai to adopt that strategy…

* …start a business creating and updating MySpace pages for local businesses

* …create a startup and build the next Twitter | Blogger | Digg | MySpace | Facebook | Bebo | F13 | $WildyPopularAndInsaneNewThing

People working with SAP make ridiculous money today.  I'm looking for an opening, but I don't speak Hindi.

Merusk, I approve of your bold planning, but I think it needs to be bolder.  Get the fuck out of Cinci.  Also, niche work, or subcontracting if you prefer.  I don't know a whole lot about the commercial construction industry but I do know lots of people do contract work.  They definitely do skimp on the computer support even in large A&E firms, but when something goes bad they will probably call on a short-term contractor.  You might need to go someplace where people are building lots of shit; from the top of a parking deck at my office I can see five tower cranes without turning my head, so there's always the ATL if you like humidity and broken glass.

My brother in law doesn't speak anything but English with a heavy Scottish accent and he works with SAP.  He does make ridiculous money and he's being fast tracked so he doesn't stay in one place more than a couple of years.  He's just left Texas and is now in Hungary.  I can't see you not being able to find a job in some of the most evil companies in the world if you have SAP, especially with financials.  Go for it.  I'm sure a nice oil company or something equally deadly to the environment and innocent native people of <insert name of impoverished area of a third world country here> will give you a go.

I always thought SAP was inflicted upon us by ze germans

This is just today on TheLadders, all 100k+ and virtual/regional travel.

(http://lh4.google.com/corey.crawford/R-E48MiiiJI/AAAAAAAACbg/Rmnl9u91CTU/s400/sap_jobs.png)

I would love to do this, but my Dad has had lukemia for the last 7 years, and it's flared up again recently.  Since I don't know how long he has, but I know it's not very very long I plan on staying at least close enough that I can still get-together at all the family holidays.   Yes, it limits me greatly but I think it's better that I get some time with him and he gets to see his grandchildren as often as we can get together.

Tho my Uncle lives in Atlanta, and my parents both make frequent trips to Montgomery to check-in on my recently-widowed grandmother.  That area, IS a possibility.

Family wins here, Merusk.  Sorry to hear that.

SAP is certainly a German product.  I think most of the documentation has been translated to other languages by now.  I was just making a comment on how most of our SAP people are now Indian contractors, plus that they don't know crap, plus that I know a guy who owns a contracting firm but he gets his meat from India and is almost certainly not interested in paying me enough.  I sort of know a guy who was just hired by SAP AG, though, so I might be able to do something with that.  The biggest problem is that I am incredibly comfortable with my current job... which isn't actually a problem.

What school were you planning on going back to?  I'm actually excited about it, I will miss the money and actually working (hey I do love what I do), but to be on a real schedule that isn't nights, to actually have a bit more time with my child, and the long range goal of doing something even better in the medical field is pretty awesome.  Heck, I turned down the chance to be a flight nurse and to be a SRT(SWAT) Medic, which are killer jobs but shitty pay, was cool that they came and said we would like you to do that, but had to say no.

I find that some universities will take certain classes for transfer credit, but won't count on your GPA, then some want you to redo many of the courses, the funny thing is that the more the university cost, the more classes they want you to take at their institution.  I'm still pissed they want me to take a gym class, but then again, it might be fun (tight shorts and 18 year olds   :woot: )!

Ironically I had the same "fuck this" moment as you, only I'm in the field you're wanting to get into. I was so thoroughly sick of coding I could die. It's beyond boring and mindless if you're doing it right (ie. everything has already been planned out by the time you're coding), you're basically a glorified typist. If you want to get into IT make sure it's not one where you're coding unless you know for damn sure you've done it and loved it. And learning is not a good indicator. Learning it is fun, you're still at the stage where it's new and fresh and you ARE figuring things out and thinking. No, what you need to do is learn a language then write a small program. Then write it again. Now write it again. Now once more. That feeling you're getting like you've done it all before and all you're doing is typing out shit to a set plan and making sure you don't forget to put the semi-colons on the end of every last statement (or whatever)? That's coding. Unless you're still loving it you'll want to be the one planning what the code monkeys are going to write or managing the code monkeys as they write it.

I worked as a contractor which meant I was often designing and coding on the same projectt so I was able to resist the soul destroying truth for a while but it eventually caught me. Fortunately a friend of mine has a company that's doing well and needed a senior programmer to step in and manage his handful of monkeys. It's a lot higher work load but I'm having a lot more fun now that I'm no longer handling code directly all that often.

It seems that the industry has been harsh to the people who cherish building/programming systems.

A few years back, as a lead developer for a major shipping company that's swallowed a whole bunch of other companies, including a Seattle outfit that I worked for, I encountered one of those moments too. I typed a resignation letter and quit without any job lined up. The pay was good. I loved my team, they were all good even the curmudgeony old fart who tended to a prehistoric 10 year behind current version, ancient IBM EDI system. The whole IT structure was an absurdity — one of the guys on my team, who migrated from Seattle, took care of the mainframe systems and I would spend just about all of my time (except for the bouts tending to the UNIX servers I migrated, for which the "Unix team" had no *nix experience and I would have clean up when know -nothing operations folks would tamper with server architecture…) - I would spend most of the day writing emails, explaining how things worked to senior management, and increasingly, correcting my boss, who hadn't the first clue about the systems he lorded over. I would also field requests and be required to go into excruciating detail in specifications for which it would be farmed out to an inhouse unit which would then be assigned to an offshore team, to be coordinated with a QA team. And the hilarious thing was, time after time, my guy would take 15 minutes - 3/4 hours to actually make the change, yet it would take weeks/months for the change to be "actually made" in production…

We had a web site that had docs and support info (though most of my team used my homebrew wiki to track info), in addition to the useless HP problem tracking software (and there a couple of other packages that I was trained on that would "make our job easier", even though contractors had no access to them and that they were missing all the information in the problem tracking software) — yet I had to submit page updates to another group (after filling out forms).

It was really too much. Again pay was great, team was great, even bossman, clueless as he was, was respectful and basically nodded his head when I would rattle off status and how this issue was resolved or what happened here, etc.…

Then one day, he pulls me aside and the conversation went something like this:

Bossman: you're not pushing your team hard enough. I want you to really take the lead, crack the whip, and drive this team into shape.

Me: Do you have any idea of what they actually do, how they go above and beyond in putting out fires, and how tough it is to keep things afloat (one of the systems, like I said, was an IBM mainframe EDI package reliant on VSAM files, that was 10 years out of date, and would need 2+ major version upgrades, including a DB migration (to DB2), and all this was supposed to go away anyway and be migrated to a fancy GE (GSX) / Java system (that 3 years later, from what I am told, is still not reliable enough to run any more than replace a few token test minor systems) - there were crashes in the vendor software for which there were no solution except data cleanup as we didn't have the source, and even the IBM guys brought in at exhorbitant rates shook their head and chuckled…)?

Bossman: I prefer to be an ostrich.

Few days later, I couldn't help grinning ear to ear as I handed resignation letter to him.

Life is too short for that shit.

A month later, I went to work for an internet startup.

I spent 8 years at American Express, and liked my job there, for the most part, until the outsourcing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Houttasking (a executive memo forbid us to use "outsourcing" as "outtasking" was the preferred vernacular…) sent most all of the application support / development  to India (or here at a facility where the offshore vendor has stocked H1B programmers "on site")… …the department I was in reduced from 200 to like 1. My old bossman retired as VP though, and just bought a 75 foot yacht… …my friend who brought me in as consultant after I resigned as employee and came back as consultant for 4 years after a few years is still there, but he's in the driver seat, a SME (subject matter expert) who increasingly does want he wants to do - goes up to the mountains all summer and works from there, mainly just babysitting bridge calls and managing relations with IBM managed data center teams (there's another story there…)…

Oh yeah, I see lots of you speaking of Coding, so perhaps CS isn't where I should be looking.  I've learned enough about coding over the  years to know that that's not where I want to go.  Network Admin/ on/ off-site support and other such matters, yes.  Code monkey typing out/ designing programs? No.

Anyway: All of this is on hold a few weeks at the least.  I need to put-in my App to the Veteran's Program to see if I qualify for the benifits my brother & sister did since Dad was declared a casualty.  Plus my wife's mother just died Saturday (Massive coronary at 50 yrs old.) and I'm having to deal with all of that right now.

You have two main degree choices from what I see.  This is going by the University of Central Florida (where I got my degree)

Information Technology Degree.  This degree focuses more on the actual technical side of IT and I think you get a good amount of hands on experience with IT hardware and software.  The degree does have a decent amount of programming to it but it also covers things such as network/OS setups and information theory classes.

Management of Information Systems.  This major focuses more on the business side of IT instead of the technical.  There is a tiny bit of programming, but it's much much less then IT (and my MIS courses used vb.net instead of C, which IT used).  I would say that MIS focuses more on creating business and systems analysts rather than pure implementors.  It focuses a lot on business needs, requirements gathering, system design methodologies, etc.  My school also had elective SAP certification classes.

Personally, I went with MIS because I enjoy analysis type of roles more then implementing and coding every day.  However, since I am college age I also have time to get settled and move up with experience.  IT might be better for you because you will have more quantifiable skills when you come out, as you can say school gave you experience with X networks, you created Y programs for your classes, etc...  It might be easier to get a job at your age with IT then MIS.

There are some IT branchoffs, like IST, but I don't really know the difference between those and IT.

Just so you know, MIS is looked at as IT (or CS) lite, getting you almost as much ridicule as having a degree in art history.

Which is how I sort of looked at it as well, when I was looking to transfer majors to something other than CS (was just getting burned with it, and our schools program wasn't so good).  That degree is what was recommended for many CS students who wanted to stay with computers/programming but not have to deal with taking Calculus 3, Physics, and other courses that have almost nothing to do with the major.  IE, CS Lite.  Several of my friends went that route.

After only a few years out of college, they are making 65-85K, while CS friends have been fighting for what ever code related job they can get, or just resorting to stuff that has nothing to do with their major.

IT, MIS, IDS (that's what it was at my school), or what ever you call it IS big in demand right now.  Almost all the computer related jobs I see want those skills, and that degree in particular.  The only programming jobs I see all want 10+ years experience at least.

Who does?  Certainly not companies from my experience.  Out of the 20-ish people in my graduating class (by class I mean physical classroom, cause you are usually with the same people for the last 2 years) 5-6 got $50k+ salary jobs (located from Orlando to Atlanta) without previous experience at major IT consulting companies.  I would be getting more but I decided to take a game design job in Australia (and we all know how lawl).  Most other people in my class that I talk to got jobs in the mid-high 40s. 

If it's random college dudes looking down at the MIS major, then who cares?  Now that SAP is part of our MIS program (and not part of the IT program) MIS majors will be even more in demand from companies. 

In "high-tech" comanies, telecommunications, etc., MIS is seen as someone who wants to be technical but didn't have enough technical knowledge to be employable.

Anyone can land jobs with IT consulting companies, where being able to talk the talk is more important than being able to walk the walk. Their services are sold to upper management, and MIS people can impress upper mangaement.

I'd agree with this and stay in architecture if you enjoy it.  I made the move from Jersey to Denver and was able to keep the same salary with almost half the cost of living.  I think you are being underpaid for living in a major city like Cincinnati and found the key to higher salary was changing firms.  I think I am finally ready to settle down after working at 6 other firms and finding a great company out here that is still growing despite the economic downturn.  As a civil engineer who will be taking the PE exam in October, I am making a little under $60k and always felt architects were paid quite a bit more than engineers. 

Even with things slowing in the housing market out here, the bonds for the school districts still seem to keep getting passed.  So there is plenty of work out here.   You just have to ignore the No Vacancy bumper stickers.   ;D

Viin, you don't happen to know anyone in the county health departments?  We have been out her for almost a year and my girlfriend keeps getting turned down at Tri-County, even with all of her experience as a health inspector.

No sorry, though I know someone who's working at the Denver Country Morgue if that helps any?

Not in my experience ;-)

I revamped recently and I'm getting my Masters in Accounting soon. All jobs are the same shit if you're never going anywhere with it. You are either moving forward or you're hating life. Just pick something you actually want to move forward with, and that you think you can move forward with.

Yeah, Engineers make more. Cinci has a co-op program and I knew a few Mech and Civil engineers while going to school.  When I was getting jobs at $6.50-9.50 an hour, they were making $10 to 15.  The same ratio occurs after graduation.

Paleos: That's really what this whole shift is all about.  It's not so much about the money (although I do bring it up a lot so it is about it in part) but that I hate what I'm doing for the rate I'm going to make.  I can live on what I make and be happy doing it, just not for the risk of lawsuit & hours involved with being an Licensed Architect.

The really raw nerve is that I love homebuilding, but my profession is treated more like a necessary evil at all companies while it's one of the more important parts.  There's no advancement in the company unless you're in sales or the field building stuff.  This applies to all homebuilders, as I've worked for several and talked to folks who work for others.  If you're in Arch you're going nowhere unless you track into one of those other divisions.

Combine that with watching salespeople get trips to the Bahamas and half-million dollar commissions while senior management (former sales people...) says they can't pay you more galls.  Particularly since homebuilding sales are the equivalent of Best Buy sales clerks.. and as knowledgeable.  They sit in an office and wait for foot traffic while making sales calls.  None of the driving around, living on the road bullshit other sales pros are put through. 

Meh, now I'm ranting.

I could rant about IT with stories similar to naum's on dumb management and how IT\programming in general is such a shit environment, but that was just my experiences.  Definitely do what you enjoy though.  I do (I got to make a pulse charger yesterday and it was fun) and I actually enjoy going to work.  A good work environment is key to this though.

"Code monkey" bah! But I can see how programming isn't for everyone.

I've been flirting with working in the video game industry for years. I was this close to biting the bullet late last year but the timing was bad. I think sometime in the next year I'll go ahead and do it. Kind of sucks as I know I'll be working more for less. What I do now is pretty enjoyable but I've been at the same place for a while and getting restless. Figure it's best to do something dramatic while I'm still youngish and single and renting.

I did programming, everything from LAMP to ANSI C, to C++, for 8 years and through a failed internet startup.  I now do ASIC/FPGA Design and Verification.  It's still programming but with lab days and the chance to break things.  The math I took in college actually gets used on an almost daily basis, physics plays an important part in design considerations and I get to work at an MIT lab on programs with space applications.

Yes, I took a pay cut to make the switch and started at the bottom, it's totally been worth it and my previous experience has translated well so that I have moved up rapidly.

I'm still not happy though.  I think I may move away from tech altogether.

Just be careful and try to get some internal and external opinions about whatever game company you try to work for.  The environment at Auran was really bad (at least when interacting with leads/management, most of the lower people were fun).  Going into work everyday knowing that any time you try to put forth an idea to make the game more fun, only to get it smacked down and be a spec/bug monkey quickly makes going into work not enjoyable really.  A job in the games industry isn't fun/enjoyable just because it's in the games industry.  The work environment and the people you are working with matter MUCH more than what industry you are working in.

It was enough for me to decide to get out of the games industry really.  I did have job offers to stay in the industry after getting laid off from Auran, but I turned them down due to pay cut and I realized that their culture woudln't be much different after takling to current employees there.  I know from talking with colleagues who have been in the industry for a good while that Auran really isn't a unique situation, and is pretty common.

Right now I'm working in a non-game industry job and enjoying it more because I like the people I'm working with and it's a good environment, and the only real difference in job activity is I'm working on HR systems instead of Games. 

So yeah.  Do your research before committing.

Guess architects just dress better then.   ;D

I know that civil engineers are the worst paid of all the engineers.

Industrial are pretty close to the bottom (as far as respect goes too).  Chemical and Petroleum seem to be the top earners in engineering these days.  Electrical is up there too.

Any engineer can make 180k/year if they don't mind the chance of death.