Are tech jobs even worth it at this point

>be 19
>The "You should work for Computers" meme has been shoved down my throat since I was born
>Fall for the meme
>also turns out I actually genuinely love computers
>reach $CURRENT_YEAR
>hear stories of the computer job market being critically over-saturated and absolutely cut-throat
>apprehensively ignore the stories
>parents paid off my college tuition for me, bless them
>select Computer Networking and Security major at a decent state university because you're too intelligent for math
>won't graduate for another 4 years
>who knows what the market'll be like then
>now afraid I won't be able to get a job in my field or will have to go back to the grocery store
>haven't worked on any other marketable skills besides motorcycle mechanics because I only focused on becoming skilled with computers

how do I increase the chances that I get a good job out of college when the market is so vicious and dog-eat-dog as it is?
I'm trying to get a job related to my field (Substitute IT Technician with my local school board) so I'll at least have something on my resume, but even now I'm not sure that's gonna be enough

Other urls found in this thread:

bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mobile/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Specialize or aim to work in industries underserved by qualified tech experience.

and how do you find such industries? I know the people who have would be loathe to divulge such information

Pretty much every industry that isn't hip or in the B2C space

I'm struggling with this myself. I sort of want to just abandon ship and change from CE to some other engineering major. It's not like computer literacy is overlooked in any modern engineering field so my time has hardly been wasted. Then again if there's another tech boom I'll be kicking myself in the eyes over missing my chance to be the next guy to get stupid rich off of being in the right place at the right time with an extremely simple idea.

>vicious and dog-eat-dog

The market is only doggydog at the peon/ cubeslave end of the market. The number 1 thing you should do is socialise so when you leave, you already have people waiting for you to call. Also don't focus on particular jobs - rather, prefer at this stage to be a jack of all trades rather than a master of one.

I hear radio engineering is severely lacking in skilled labor and that the wages are astronomical.

apparently it's that way for a reason too though because it's supposed to be stupid difficult

>radio engineering
Or rather, RF engineering

I'm certainly jack of all trades.
I have light experience with computer networking, computer maintenance, systems administration, linux, etc.
Right now I'm working on my programming skills because I can't program for shit
I guess this new computer job with the school system should help with that too

the only reason I'm not doing EE/CE/CS is because I've got dyscalculia which is pretty much math dyslexia. I can understand the math *in theory*, but when it comes to practice I fuck everything up, like get the order of operations wrong, fuck up simple arithmetic, forget steps, and so on. And when you're working on such complex formulas that the fields of ____Engineering or _____Science are concerned with, one small error like that fucks up the entire thing.

So I just want to hedge my bets and not put my free college golden ticket on a major that's stacked against me, and rather focus on something I can actually do, and then learn all of the EE/CE/CS stuff on my own time where I'm not gonna cost myself my career for fucking up.

>linux
I'd just lick to intercept for a memento...

Extraordinarily little need for maths skills outside of programming, friend, admin work included. And as a programmer too, there's little need for math there- big math problems are the responsibility of the domain specialist, not the programmer. If you find formulae in front of you, your likely not doing CE

>security
senpai, why you be stressin? you'll be fine.

Yeah but to actually get a degree you need high level mathematics
not to mention my dream job is operating system/kernel programming and design which actually does require crazy math for optimal performance

In order to even meet the prerequisites to start a degree I'd need to take college math, trigonometry, pre calculus, calculus, physics I, and physics II. I was unable to qualify to take them in high school because I didn't score high enough in algebra II. Granted, at that point I'd already given up on mathematics in general so I wasn't trying very hard.

My parents want me to do an engineering major, I'm only really interested in electrical engineering but I am nowhere near intelligent enough for that. I think I could pull of civil engineering degree but I have 0 interest in it desu. I'm thinking CS right now, I know a few people who graduated with CS degrees and they're pretty happy with life.

I don't think the field will get oversaturated just yet, even though it's the trendy thing right now, I don't think the average, normal person has the aptitude or patience for it. It takes a special kind of autism, I think. There will certainly be a huge push to start teaching kids coding, but i have enough experience going through the education system to know it will largely fail. They have to always cater to the lowest common denominator, and the majority of students will probably just not pick up on it, so the standards will drop and no one will actually learn anything.

I should specify
>Yeah but to actually get a degree you need high level mathematics
To actually get a degree *in the field*...

Learn assembler if you're into kernels.

>you'll be fine
I wouldnt go that far
Security is THE hottest meme right now, and everyone in IT knows it.
Who knows how it'll be in a couple years

working on it, but I gotta learn high level programming first

What I've found is that you should find a hobby related to your major. For example, I studied Electrical Engineering and Physics, but have a strong interest in music. I've studied signal manipulation techniques through my hobby. That's the kinda stuff employers have wanted to see, not your run of the mill coursework.

So, in short, you gotta specialize. There's tons of companies looking for security specialists, especially younger companies that don't know why they're important to have. Maybe you can gain some marketable experience by setting up a server at home. Maybe you can research hacking techniques (I don't know shit about cyber security, don't judge) and teach yourself what to look out for. Gotta do something, ya dig?

personally, I think it better to learn the low level stuff first then do the high level as it's all low level in the end. Just high level languages are usually very inefficient at writing the low level stuff vs the guys that write low level from scratch.
At worst, high level language with low level sub routines is how its done, or should be.

>I've got discalculia
Please.
Sort yourself out.

>Do shit, do projects
>do hackathons
>meet people at hackathons
>be interested in what they are talking about
>learn new shit, get good as something
>get friendly with professors
>pay attention in their classes
>go to them during office hours
>ask them for advice on job stuff
>some of them might be able to get you something

Sad but true, if you're looking for an IT career, in Canada anyway they all seem to want a 4yr degree usually in CompSci or Engineering.

But, after reading your other posts, higher level math is definitely required in the math world. You can always teach yourself the simpler stuff pretty easily via khan academy. Its usefulness is ubiquitous. At that point, the most useful higher math stuff would be linear algebra and some calc (I'd focus on optimization).

it's a good thing the computer stuff already is my hobby
I actually run a pseudo-honeypot from home
it's a raspberry pi behind a dmz that's running nginx and an irc server and every day I scour the logs for suspicious activity. 98% of the activity is botnets trying to break into the pi with corrupted http headers, 1% google/bing's web crawler, and the last 1% is me visiting the website to make sure it's up.

and then with my other raspberry pis and a cisco switch I bought off of ebay I've made a beowulf cluster.
and with the same pis I've built a distributed network where one pi runs one webservice, the other another, another one's the content server, etc etc...

and then I want to get into Operating System and Kernel Programming so I can find bugs in critical system software and find potential exploits that malicious users might try and use, say for a virus. I also want to learn the techniques they use so as to best counteract them.
Stuff like NOP slides, row hammering, finding simple overflows in software, stuff like that

the passion is definitely there I just don't know how to make employers see it

If I could, I would. I've tried many times to teach myself the mathematics (and again I can understand it in theory), but I just fuck up too much in practice for it to be a practical career choice.
That's why I'm going to do it on my own time at my own pace.

Make some fucking connections, that's all you need. There are plenty of people with less skills than you that get better jobs. It's because merit doesn't mean shit.

That is impressive.

Look up cyber security consultants in your area, ask if you could intern there. Hackathons are also a good idea, that's a great way to network. In my experience, there are still tons of clueless companies when it comes to security. Check for job openings periodically (seriously, set time to do it once every ~2 weeks). You're doing well, you just need to figure out how to market yourself initially, and then you'll have connections you can use for the rest of your life.

Good luck user

>My parents want

>his parents don't see about him
Pleb with dysfunctional family detected

Hope you like to learn. You'll need certs along with that degree. Good luck. I'm in the same field, the more kids that fall off means more openings for me.

>connections

this user is right. merit isn't shit compared with connections. do internships and make connections

if your school isnt on the list from the NSA regarding accredited schools, you picked wrong.

if you are not turning down offers for internships, you picked wrong or you are lazy

if you are not turning down job offers when graduating, you picked wrong or you are lazy and dumb


you can start by not posting fuck retarded epic greentexts because that is a clear sign you are too dumb to enter the real world

owned

Learn web/app dev if you are brainlet, or machine learning if you are not. Everything else is a meme.

you're a meme

I just hate the STEM meme in general; more for myself for falling for it. I just wanna major in english man, but I also want food on the table. Should I just kill myself?

Same, if I had my way I'd study linguistics and languages, draw, and make music all day.

Fucking hippies and your "art"...go make me a venti grande fap with iced cream or something.

I feel you man; is it so wrong to want enough to eat?

>>select Computer Networking and Security major at a decent state university because you're too intelligent for math
Thats an okay one, provided the program is worth anything. Mid level dev here, the threat of outsourcing is VERY real for most in my company. Certain positions within the company can only go to US citizens however, security positions would fall into that category. The best advice I can give you is to start applying for internships NOW. Don't wait till sophomore year, do one every summer. When you graduate you'll have a major experience advantage over anyone you're competing against. While you're at the internships find the senior person in your position, the person who's been doing this for 10-20 years and pick their brains about everything.

Someone has to grow the food, pick it, process it, ship it, etc etc and all you want to do is eat it. So ya you're kind of lazy fuck if all you want to do is consume and not produce.

i graduated. i work for $12 as a marketer for a mortgage company. i only keep it up because i just shitpost on Sup Forums all day

I'm so sorry

Move to silicon valley, move up for about 5 years, move to a smaller market as a giant in your area expertise.

I've been in IT for 6 years now, started out as a desktop support assistant at my community college 6 years ago, making $13/hr, now I am an infrastructure engineer making $50/hr with a BS in information systems.

The one thing people don't tell you is that people skills are actually pretty important early on in your career, the only people that can afford to be antisocial clowns are the old school unix wizards and they never ever ever leave their job.

I get a bunch of unsolicited job offers from former coworkers/bosses, this is solid advice.


OP, IT is nepotistic to a crazy degree, why? because it is full of applicants that have a bunch of qualifications but are actually really fucking stupid and lazy. So it's way better to hire someone you've already worked with and is a known quantity.

Once you start working it is basically impossible to not have a job unless you are a fucking spaz

this.

I just used math in a script I wrote to divide the number by 1024 to show the unit in TB instead of GB.

Other than that, no fucking math.

That's because everyone has worked with someone that had amazing credentials but was a total fucking idiot or really unreliable.

I'd take a guy I know who is reliable and middle of the road skilled over someone with crazy skills on paper but I don't know how well he works.

Plz help me.
I am autistically good at math.
I have 20 credits, and I am in calc 3. I have no idea what to do with my life.

No coding experience.
I make $4,000 a month from family job, work for engineering relative for civil stuff.

I have a criminal history. Cell mate taught me some basic higher math, and I just register for classes so they don't take my internet away. (Online classes)

the job market is fine as long as you're not a complete fucking retard

How bad of a criminal history are we talking, violent crime, a felony?

And math is easiest to do without time investment.

Took precalc 151, trig 152, calc 251, calc ii 252x, calc 3 in semester right now.

Have 2 humanities and and some bullshit.

TFW I make opensource and niché programs without caring about the market and i'm fine

Sort of violent. Um, captain Picard.. Related. Class C

You've picked a solid field. Saturated or not, networking and security are never going away. There's tons of companies out there that are constantly fixing issues with old, terribly implemented environments, as well as moving towards a future state that isn't complete shit. You might have some difficulty if you're looking to get into the LAN/WAN space since the oldboys are still running that scene, but if a company has an appliances/security team, you'll find a great spot, and have a lot of opportunity to work with the future tech of the industry. If you absolutely MUST do LAN/WAN and want an easier in than most, you should work on wrapping your head around dot1x and Cisco's Trustsec technology. If companies aren't already there, but primarily a Cisco shop, they're going to want to start heading in that direction sooner rather than later. It doesn't hurt to look into network performance related gigs as well, since that's a bit more of a niche that aligns well with the LAN/WAN space.

>Computer Networking and Security
Do you think that in the future there will be no networks?

Industrial/healthcare/financial sectors
basically anything that isn't "hip" or "trendy" that attracts the lowest of life forms

So you register so they don't take your internet away. Wow. That's smart. But kill yourself etc.

Yeah I know.
I'm a piece if shit, I was young (under 25) when it happened, and it was only control panel no irl

at least you've picked something future proof. The world will need that shit. Focus on open source, decentralisation and make sure you never stop learning and you'll make a shit load of money and be happy.

what did you do. I'm not in touch with criminal talk

The University near me is almost 100% Indians either doing business degree or computer science. Every single one you can ask and it's one of those two. They'll work for nothing because it's a million dollars in rupees.

There are lots of people with effectively no computer skills or tech knowledge getting the degree, on their 3rd year etc it's effectively a meme. They don't even want to work with computers at all and instead are getting the degree because trends or they don't know what they want to do. One girl I know has her full Masters and struggles to type in her login at the pizza place (which she does 50x a day), picking keys one second at a time...

Degrees are flooded with useless people so suddenly your 60k degree is no longer a minimum requirement for even a basic computer job.

Illegal pics

I see now.

So what do I do.
I have massive math credentials but I don't know where to go with my life

Anyone in college who needs their mommy to make decisions for them has no business being in college.

you should have fallen for the compsci meme

there is job market that isn't oversaturated and cut-throat?

Become a bathroom camera installer, then corner the market.

Night janitor.
Bear bottom pornstar.
Sushi chef.

;_;

>everyone in IT knows it

Are you cray cray ? Do you have any experience in the field ?
Security will always be relevant. Even more with manufactures pushing the IOT meme down our throats.

Dyscalculia is a disorder m8, it can't just be cured. It's not like cleaning his room will magically make his brain better at math.

>The "You should work for Computers" meme has been shoved down my throat since I was born
You were an orphan that was raised in a cult and that cult worshipped machinery, believing all humans should subjegutate themselves to serve their robot overlords?

I'm pretty into programming but doing BSEE. The job outlook page looks pretty grim.
bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mobile/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm
If there are no electronics/embedded jobs when I graduate could I get a software job even with non CS degree?

>You were an orphan that was raised by a cult that worshiped money, believing all humans should subjugate themselves to their robot overlords so they can obtain the almighty dollar.
FTFY

Engineering is full too, especially mechanical and civil. The only one that is really hurting is Maritime Engineering, but there is good reason for that. Most people don't want to go to school for 4+ years to end up working in some 3rd world country or a shitty oil rig. It's like the military where you do a half a year tour straight, which makes it hard to form a stable family. If you are really lucky you will get a position on a ship so at least that way you can travel. The downside to that is you are really just a glorified janitor making six figures.

Are people actually having trouble finding tech jobs that interest them? I had my pick in my chosen sectors.