Sillyrabbi
Technical User
I'm currently running around like a chicken with no head trying to figure out what the best plan of action is for my career. To make matters worse, when I ask ANYONE for advice, (college councilors, family, friends, etc.) I get a lot of "I'm not sure"s and "I don't really know much about that field". So to all you gurus out there, I would be eternally grateful for ANY advice you can give me. (I apologize, this got rather long)
As it stands now I think I have a pretty solid foundation for web-development, but virtually every single job-opening I've found as a minimum requires one or two skills that I don't have. (ASP.net, Silverlight, C++, C#, MSSQL, Python, Ruby, Perl, Ajax etc.) Currently, it seems my options are:
A: Continue job hunting, gain any work experience I can find (including unpaid), and in my downtime do online tutorials to learn what I can (for free or cheap) about new technologies. I've found that one site, Lynda.com, has some excellent video serieses(plural?). It was actually from there that I learned everything I know about Coldfusion and PHP, so it can be effective.
B: Go through a local community college's (renton technical college) computer science program (it has received an exorbitant amount of praise, and roughly 98% of their graduates get employed immediately). It will be a little pricey ($8000+), and there may be some overlap taught that I might not be able skip (i.e. basic web development classes and the like), but, especially in the second year they seem to get into some really cool, really deep stuff. (ASP.net, C#, and e-commerce related development.)
C: If I act fast, apparently there are some eight month programs being offered at another college (Bellevue College) that I could potentially get into for free due to being a dislocated worker. Unfortunately, there are only two subjects offered. One is for becoming a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (you don't actually get certified, but it prepares you for the exam(s)), which from what I can gather deals a lot with networking technology. The other delves deep into database management and prepares students to become database administrators.
I've done some homework and according to craig's list, most of the jobs that deal with network technology require an obscene amount of work experience, or a bachelor's degree at the least, leading me to believe that the MCSE program isn't really for me. I also could find no postings what-so-ever looking for database administrators, so that, coupled with the fact that databases aren't extremely interesting to me, makes me lean away from entering that program.
If we're going by what interests me, I really am starting to like server-side programming (PHP, Coldfusion, etc.) and would love to ultimately become some kind of programming super-guru that can program everything from flash games to accounting software. The only thing that would derail me from that is money. For example if being a database administrator DID mean I made a fair amount more money than say, a web developer or software engineer, I would have no qualms about "learning to love" to databases and SQL.
Again, any input, comments, or general life advice, would be extremely appreciated. Thanks!
As it stands now I think I have a pretty solid foundation for web-development, but virtually every single job-opening I've found as a minimum requires one or two skills that I don't have. (ASP.net, Silverlight, C++, C#, MSSQL, Python, Ruby, Perl, Ajax etc.) Currently, it seems my options are:
A: Continue job hunting, gain any work experience I can find (including unpaid), and in my downtime do online tutorials to learn what I can (for free or cheap) about new technologies. I've found that one site, Lynda.com, has some excellent video serieses(plural?). It was actually from there that I learned everything I know about Coldfusion and PHP, so it can be effective.
B: Go through a local community college's (renton technical college) computer science program (it has received an exorbitant amount of praise, and roughly 98% of their graduates get employed immediately). It will be a little pricey ($8000+), and there may be some overlap taught that I might not be able skip (i.e. basic web development classes and the like), but, especially in the second year they seem to get into some really cool, really deep stuff. (ASP.net, C#, and e-commerce related development.)
C: If I act fast, apparently there are some eight month programs being offered at another college (Bellevue College) that I could potentially get into for free due to being a dislocated worker. Unfortunately, there are only two subjects offered. One is for becoming a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (you don't actually get certified, but it prepares you for the exam(s)), which from what I can gather deals a lot with networking technology. The other delves deep into database management and prepares students to become database administrators.
I've done some homework and according to craig's list, most of the jobs that deal with network technology require an obscene amount of work experience, or a bachelor's degree at the least, leading me to believe that the MCSE program isn't really for me. I also could find no postings what-so-ever looking for database administrators, so that, coupled with the fact that databases aren't extremely interesting to me, makes me lean away from entering that program.
If we're going by what interests me, I really am starting to like server-side programming (PHP, Coldfusion, etc.) and would love to ultimately become some kind of programming super-guru that can program everything from flash games to accounting software. The only thing that would derail me from that is money. For example if being a database administrator DID mean I made a fair amount more money than say, a web developer or software engineer, I would have no qualms about "learning to love" to databases and SQL.
Again, any input, comments, or general life advice, would be extremely appreciated. Thanks!
