Informatin Systems Inquery

I'm a 23 y/o newfag who wants to get into the IT business. I'm extremely skeptical about going to university and adamantly considering taking courses online instead. My only concern is credibility. I remember watching an interview of Elon Musk talking about how degrees don't mean anything ,he's more concerned about if you can get the work done. Are there any IT professionals out there that can reassure that employers apply this same sentiment in their hiring process? or is the getting a degree unavoidable? HAAALP

rose is a man with a man dick

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> I'm extremely skeptical about going to university

No you aren't, you are just a depressed boy who has already wasted many years doing jackshit and now rejects the idea of starting uni when your school friends are already graduating and working on their fields, deep inside you know the answer IT IS NOT THE FUCKING SAME, and of course that employers won't treat those online courses and GitHub portfolio, that you haven't even started yet, the same as a college degree.

That code you copied and pasted from those pirated udemy courses is not gonna impress anybody

that's some incredibly specific projection

it sounds like he's reflecting on himself

>I'm a 23 y/o newfag who wants to get into the IT business.
23? Computers have been around you all your life. Even for the last ~10 years you apparently never once got Hooked --- in the way true techies are, were, should be. You're not for real, go do finance or medicine or law or some such borg "business". Leave tech to the haxors.

To add, the types of guys Musk refers to with "degrees don't matter" are the very people I outlined just above, that already spent most of their conscious lives in front of code/formulas/software as a matter of personal obsession. Most anyone can recognize them for the fanatical enthusiasts they are and the accumulated talent+experience and yes, for THOSE "candidates", degrees don't matter one bit, anyone will be more than eager to house them in exchange for anything they may come up with

I was under the impression IT was a trade. I thought you could learn it; kind of like a plumber but for computers. Well damn, I guess i'm fresh out of ideas.

I wish

Do uni now. The IT field is no longer a field where having no degree is acceptable to newcomers, at least in enterprise. The field is maturing and many people now have IT IS CS degrees.

Just because they don't mean anything doesn't mean they're not a baseline standard.

Look, why in god's name do you think people spend $20k+ on colleges and getting into a good college is super important for them?

Elon Musk and other people like him for the past 20 years have been pushing for a move away from the educational arms race that we have now. Especially since a degree isn't a certificate of competency.

Basically a degree is a certificate of "I vaguely know what I'm doing". YOU still need one, Elon Musk and other high achievers might not.

Basically there's an exceptionally small 1% of people who don't need a degree to go out and produce amazing results that speak for themselves. They're already successful and that speaks for itself.

That aside at 23 you know vastly less than you think you do. Most of the "self-taught" people out there often have extremely unconventional ways of doing things or really bad habits.

There's a few "self-taught" programmers where I work that have been there for 10+ years and while I respect them, some of them have never written so much as a comment in their life. Others will have a boner for needless abstraction when at the same time they have no concern for immutability.

College does one thing well and that is produce well rounded beginner programmers that at least understand the fundamentals of data abstraction, concurrency (usually), distributed systems and so on.

I'd imagine sysadmin or computer engineering courses provide equally as good a baseline for that field. Really I wouldn't knock it unless you've done a 2yr diploma at least, you might even enjoy it user.

Study up for a year and take a ccna test. You won't be rich, but it's decent enough. My brother in law got his after being laid off and wasn't able to find a new job. He's been a sysadmin at a mid size hospital for 8 years now.

If you don't know much about IT. Find a shitty entry job just to get experience or intern at some place. Once you have experience or already have some knowledge, take some certification exams; CCNA, CCNP, Net +, Sec +, etc. You need experience and certs to get a good job in this field. Also the type of experience you have plays a huge factor. If you have years of experience in only PC/Desktop support, you will not get as much money as someone with experience in infrastructure/server team.

Learn:
>linux CLI
>Cisco IOS
>Subneting/ Routing
>how to setup network devices (Switches, Routers, Firewalls, Servers)
>Running and terminating cables

Network Infrastructure is the shit

It depends man. If your a normie as in all you know is push a button and basic shit then yes some kind of formal training is a must. But if you've been building computers for a while, building your own network, doing tech support for other people and /or fooling around with the finer aspects of setting up and have a working domain (Windows Server) then certs would be a better and cheaper option. Will it land you a fat job? fuck no, nor will having a CS Degree. But it will land you a decent job to start out in. Help Desk work/Tech support/low Network Tech, those are the positions you start out in. Don't even try to land a System Administrator job right out of college or after get a bunch of certs. All you'll do is end up making a fool outta yourself at most or at worst cause all sorts of shit to happen at work that could lead to lawsuits and shit (think hackers & credit card/SSN numbers/etc)

Depends where you want to work.

Degree in IT wouldn't hurt but no, you don't need one.

Certification on the other hand is useful. RHCSA/RHCSE will land you some decent jobs, LPIC 1 and 2 are decent for beginners.

Also, don't be afraid to apply for a job even if the requirements are unrealistic.

HR uses as many buzz words as possible thinking those will attract some system administration prodigy, which just scares the living shit out of Jr. sys admins.

LinuxAcademy and Cybrary are decent sites to study as they have predefined paths you can follow if you're lost.

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Bachelors is really good for filtering out druggies and lazy people. It's really all it comes down to.

No, it's not perfect for filtering those types of people out but the percentage is still significantly lower.

It's nice to envision some self-taught no formal degree type of person. However, for every 1 of them that applies there is 20 other no degree types with serious issues that makes them shitty employee.

Also, as much as sitting in front of a terminal sounds cool when your young the only way to make big money when your older is to move into project management/business management. You won't get there without a Masters in most cases.

>Same fag

I've actually been on a hiring board, and have been pressured by the upper echelon to hire a few self-taught types because they bid $30-40k below the others because they wanted a foot in the door.

Training them almost always causes that much loss overtime anyway... Then you just have the headache associated with it.

You may have an amazing homelab running Arch that works for you. We use enterprise supported products like Red Hat, with a specific set of documentation/procedures that you must follow on install or maintenance. I don't need you trying to fuck with things because you think your homebrew shit is better. Someone with a degree can just follow directions and not fuck things up.

Not OP but I dunno, being a manger just ain't for me. I like hands on tech work. Actually fixing shit rather than telling others how to do it plus most time for me it's easier to "just do what needs doing" rather than explain how to do it all. Also when your a high up manger you gotta deal with a bunch of paperwork and bullshit not to mention ass kissers

I've been in this boat, I understand the thought process. If your not concerned with stability or being tied down, you could job hop so your salary never gets stale. This is the problem with me, i've been a senior engineer for a decade now and have maxed out the salary range for my city/region. I would need to move to a different part of the country to get a pay increase. However, I got kids and all that crap so I have no desire to move. Here I am working on my Masters, that way I can breach that $250k/yr mark.

>2011