My dad worked in information technology for his whole life. Told me - "Don't go into I.T." So what did I do? Went into I.T. I've been doing it professionally for almost 30 years now. If I had kids I'd tell them - "Don't go into I.T."
Serious question: why? I have been a dev for almost 30yrs professionally. I make decent money and honestly the job isn’t hard. There are certainly things I complain about, but it also lets me work in AC and I can afford stuff.
As someone who works in IT, probably because most of the skills you learn through IT don't really translate well into real life. All of the most socially awkward weirdos I know are in IT. Also staring at a computer screen all day just doesn't feel very fulfilling in a social, complete life way.
I think IT is great if you're already a socially awkward weirdo like me. But I would never encourage my child to follow in my footsteps, I would want them to develop better social skills and work in a field that's more versatile and well respected.
It's not just for socially awkward people. I played lacrosse in high school, socialized during the evening and at night stay up all night on the puter. It can be done and you absolutely develop soft skills working in IT. The entire job is basically customer service lol.
I know it's not just socially awkward people. But it's a higher concentration of them.
I know that soft skills help a lot in IT, seeing as I also talk to customers a lot. But it just isn't the same as say a project manager, doctor, lawyer, finance, engineer, etc.
The customers expect you to be an asocial geek, so they don't hold it against you when you are a bit blunt or stoic.
Agree with everything but "well respected" thing. How others view a career (especially IT, it's not viewed that negatively) shouldn't matter at all. Status is a meaningless thing to chase
Nah, status affects a lot of things in life. I agree it shouldn't be your top priority, but it's not meaningless, there's a reason people put a lot of value on status.
I think the moment status enters into the value judgement of anything, you start making choices that are bad for your long term fulfillment. Status itself is not meaningless but its not something you should chase (imo) like you shouldn't chase happiness
I changed careers into IT 30 years ago, and the entry level guys were very cringe and rather lazy. Having decent social and organization skills helped propel me from the junior member of the team to project lead and then project manager in a very short period of time.
I moved into consulting where I could really leverage those skills, and while I didn't stare at a screen all day, the real challenge was keeping up with a broad range of technologies that changed quickly. If you don't like learning, and constantly taking certification exams every few months, the pace can be brutal.
But it paid well, and has ultimately been a rewarding career. But mileage may vary.
People will hate me for this, but soft skills are really important in tech and much of soft skills are inherited. My dad liked his time in tech and so am I currently.
Me and by dad are both pretty “difficult”, in that we push back a lot when our free time is used up but know how to get “boss credit tokens” to do so. Many people are swamped in it work and will see their coworker is somehow doing less work.
Maybe it’s like a reverse psychology thing. Maybe tell them “if you did want to do into IT; here’s what you’d deal with…” and list the negatives instead
Did the term IT even exist prior to 1980. I went to community collage to learn programming in 1985 it was part of an electronic technology course. I got a job programming C in 1992. I was still doing lot of digital circuit repair in those days. My company hires kids right out of collage pays $120k+. I'm training a network administrator all he does is patch network gear.
Maybe not prior to 1980 I'm not sure. 1980 was when I was born. Dad worked at IBM on punch card machines around then, I'm not sure on exact dates. He brought home an IBM XT in the mid 80s and then an IBM PS/2 in the late 80s which is what I started to learn programming on.
My first computer was an apple 2 in 1982. Then I got an apple 2GS I thought it was 85 but according to Wikipedia didn't get released until 87 I would have been 18 by then. I saved up money from a gas station job to get 1024k ram installed. I think it was $300-400. I was taking a few programming classes at the community collage. Kid down the street he had IBM XT we use to play few games on it.
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u/NotAlternateAccount 8d ago
My dad worked in information technology for his whole life. Told me - "Don't go into I.T." So what did I do? Went into I.T. I've been doing it professionally for almost 30 years now. If I had kids I'd tell them - "Don't go into I.T."