I need some help...

[WCL]

One thing to note here - a degree really depends on the employer. When I'm hiring someone personally for a position like this a degree is very low on the list of what is important to me. Talent and experience are the most important (for me anyways). The ability to problem solve independently is also very important. Often I would put attitude and personality above a degree even. Just my 2 cents. For the record, I do not have a degree....and I am a C level executive at a publicly traded company. I'm not trying to discourage you from pursuing education in general, just throwing out there that you may be able to get out of your situation without committing to formal education for an extended period of time. If you are interested in programming, find some good training resources (tons of good stuff out there for free) and start writing code. Then write some more.

I'm another designer/developer without a degree (studied civil engineering for 3 years and decided I didn't want to do it). I was managing a small business that needed a new website, and I volunteered to take on the project. I had done some HTML in the past, but I dove headfirst into the project and learned everything I could. I learned by going to the library, mostly. I enjoyed it, so I started taking on small freelance jobs. A few years later, I quit my job and started doing freelance design full-time.

I subcontract development work quite a bit (I'm more of a designer/project manager) and Nvan is right—a degree is low on the list. In fact, I've never asked for it and never brought it up. I'd say that you can meet your salary goals knowing HTML/CSS, PHP and javascipt. And those are just about the easiest languages to learn. I have people who do work for me, and that's all they do. They probably know more than that, but I've never seen them use it.

"The ability to problem solve independently is also very important. Often I would put attitude and personality above a degree even." This is also spot-on advice. I have several subcontractors I deal with and the first one I call is the one who does really clean work and gives me no hassles. And he's more expensive. The non-headaches are worth it.

In any case, good luck. I know you didn't specifically mention web development, but it's easy to learn (not a lot of math) and easy to get your foot in the door. It's also an industry that doesn't require a degree and the amount of money you make depends on you. You can make a salary in the mid-fifties. You can also partner up with a designer, open up your own shop and make six figures. You also work with cool people, for the most part.

 

[KittiesKorner]

I third what nvan and WCL are saying. I haven't checked it out myself yet, but I heard udacity has some pretty nice free programming training. Someone I know learned python for free on it, or so he says. Stack Overflow and github are good resources to find answers when you're just getting started with the more front-end coding (CSS/JS/JQUERY/PHP/etc)

 

[RacerX]

Not ragging on the post but ppl that excel in these jobs are talkers. They're sweet-talkers...the main attractions at parties. These are usually no salary jobs that you work on commission. Not ideal for a family guy but he could do it.

You've been in a warehouse since 16 y/o. What makes you think you would like programming? Straight desk job and you work some odd hours mostly. I'm not shooting you down - just curious on how you fell onto computers (^didn't read all posts:nervous. Do some more research and for gods sake never stop learning! Visit http://www.khanacademy.org and start learning there. SO much info and the site is legit! It can help you with the basics and you could brain storm on other occupations as well keeping in mind - the time, money, prospective job start date and the debt of education dollars accrued...

I worked with Khan on a project many years back, smart guy, great dude, and you are right - their YouTube vids are a great resource for learning.

As for the OP - loving electronics and video games is a longshot from enjoying a programming job. Also, not sure where you live geographically but there may not be many tech/programming opportunities around you. Also, you are going to be competing with guys younger than you, or guys that have 10 years experience and a formal education, I wouldn't like those odds. I don't like that risk-profile for a 30-year old family guy.

My advice - learn Excel and Word, shave off the facial hair, hide the tats, and work your way into an Operations Management gig. Lots of guys have paid their dues in the warehouse and then moved into a desk job that utilizes the domain expertise acquired in the warehouse.

Either way - good luck.

 

[Run the ball]

I've always had a fantasy of running away to make a bunch of money doing something like that but I heard those oilfield jobs can be dangerous. Did you see many people get injured when you were doing it?

For sure I did, nothing too crazy. One guy lost half a finger, another broke his forearm and it looked pretty awful with the arm in an obvious "V" shape. But for the most part, safety is way of life out there. I loved my job until I got a daughter, that changed everything for me and I hated being away from her. So I quit my 6 digits a year gig for 15$/40hr week, but I'm home everyday and much happier person overall

 

[Run the ball]

Yeah man, I know that pays very well. More money is a good thing but I'd rather make it at a 9-5. Family is really important to me. Although I always have this in my back of my head in case something ever happens and I need money.


Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk Pro

I hear ya man, I quit after 12 years and after finally making it to the top! Family is more important for me as well.

 

[Jailbreak]

It takes a certain type of person to love coding. I know I couldn't do it 8 hrs a day. Html isn't so bad, but I'd see myself bored to tears in six months.

 

[Saluki]

This is going to be weird for me but fuck it. I'm 30 years old. I've have been working since 16. All warehouse jobs or smaller jobs. Right now I'm a sub-contractor. I have a wife and kid. My wife has started community college. It got me thinking. I've never done anything with my life. I don't feel like I'm smart but I guess that's because of lack of knowledge. I dropped out in 9th grade. I recently got my GED because I was force to get it because of probation. I've never gotten in trouble with the law just to let you know. Just this one time for a dwi that I regret. I will never do that again.

With that said, I don't even know how I passed my GED test. But I did. But I don't remember anything about school. Most of middle school stuff I didn't pay attention but I went to a ghetto school and they would just pass you. At least they passed me. But I don't remember squat. I know adding, subtracting, multiplication, and dividing. That's it. I don't know about fractions and anything else after that. Nothing about pre-algebra. I know very little about history, I'm alright in reading and writing. I'm just lacking lots of simple knowledge.

I'm tired of this. I want to be something and earn $30,000 and up. All my life I've always made less than $27,500 a year. My wife and I don't struggle because we are smart enough not to get into stupid debt like too much credit cards and unnecessary wants. So basically we just have the rent, 2 cars but only paying one because the other one is paid for, and bills plus one credit card we always use and pay everything once the bill comes in to have our credit going. My son is 4 years old and I want to push him too and will lean on him hard towards school and college. It's not so much I want to be something so he can see I did it, I just want to be something so I can feel good about my self and make more money. That's never is a bad thing.

I know I'm venting in this but fuck it, I need to. I never do this. I never talk about my problems because I always fix my own problems. This gets to me though. I want to do something about it. I don't care if I'm old already for school. I want to do it. I just don't know how and where to begin. I want to teach myself because I can't go to school. I don't have the time. I just don't know where to start. How do I go about learning from the beginning? Middle school stuff and on to high school. I really want to start from scratch and work myself up. I want to do something with my life. I want to have a career. I'm tired of busting my ass in labor work. I don't care if I have to work long hours as a computer programmer and shit. I'm just tired of working in labor. I know it's not for me. Is rather work long hours in another field than labor work. I'm fed up. If I have to to labor work for the rest of my life, I will for my son and wife. But I'm tired of this shit man.

Sorry about the rants. I guess I just needed to let this out. I guess I'm asking anyone here is they would know how I can go about relearning everything and starting from middle school. I want to try to do something with my life. Don't care if people laugh at me cause of my age. I want to have a career outside of labor work. So please, anyone, if you can help me out with that information I would appreciate it. Guess the best thing that I learned was to root for the Bears and be a long life Bears fan. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this so it can help me out. I apologize if I disrespected anyone or wasted anyone's time by posting this. I don't really talk to anyone so I'd figured why not the Bears posters. I apologize for that. I'm not a dork either and all funky. Lol. I'm a regular Hispanic character that is not into being a thug or being stupid. I'm laid back and what not. Just wanted to point that out after saying, "I don't really talk to anyone".

Bear Down!!!



Sent from my iPhone 5 using Tapatalk Pro

There's this site, https://www.edx.org/, where you can take tons of classes online for free. Pretty much anything you're intrested in academically you can take an intro class in at your own pace, they even have message boards, facebook groups and chats with other people taking the course if you need help.

I'm doing an into programming class on there right now, I have a little experince with it but 70% of the people who take the class know 0 about it at the start, they do a good job of getting people with no experince up to speed, and since you can move at your own pace there's no pressure to feel like your falling behind everyone else. It's as good a place as any to start learning something new.

 

[L GUAPO]

Both of these pieces are terrible advice.

First, with all of the unemployed college graduates in the job market, its going to be near impossible to get a 9-5 job that pays you more than $30k if you don't have a college degree. Second, what is your motivation? Do you want a cushy 9-5 job, or do you want to do something you like? My advice would be to find out what skills are most needed in the area you live in, and then go from there.

The "get a job through a friend" piece is ridiculous. No one is going to hire a person without a college degree for a $30k+ position, just because if it doesn't work out the company is going to blame the hiring manager, asking "why did you hire a non-degreed person for this position, when we had 5000+ applicants with degrees?"

If your end goal is to work less and make more money, then the answer is simple. Find a job type that is cushy and available, see what prerequisites it takes to gain such a job, then get the prerequisites. All of this "just do what you like to do" and "get a job through a friend, then work your way up" is just blowing smoke, IMO.

Dude...seriously don't let your personal issues and emotions get in the way of giving a nice aspiring guy some good advice. Everybody knows you have issues..esp with me..but do not bring that in this thread.

I hope IBBB read my advice along with many others that had advice and success stories and took it in. I hope IBBB, just like many other posters, avoids your post

 

[L GUAPO]

Rory using the word near impossible for a non college graduate is complete nonsense as well as friendly hiring not ever gonna hire you for over 30k! I bet every poster on here knows someone who got hired by a reference as well as not having a degree who make it big time.

Please ignore this completely wrong, negative, and horrible unsupported post and read the rest of the 3 pages of great advice from all of these successful and nice posters.

 

[nvanprooyen]

I just hired a kid (24) like a week ago. No degree. 55k base to start. Kids got it. Rory is full of shit (at least in this industry). For the record, I had 10 applicants that had degrees...they simply weren't as talented.

 

[OliverTwistCone]

Ever thought about th navy? I dont have a college degree. Started out at the bottom of the barrel 7 years ago. Now i make over 70K a year, and my kids can go to college for free when I hit ten years. Pretty good deal

 

[bearsfaninfl]

Some really great advice in here, and also some terrible stuff.

A little story about my cousin: Super smart kid, and was taking college classes in high school. He lived out in the middle of nowhere growing up, and decided to teach himself programming. He was almost done with his 2 year degree when things happened and he had to leave college.

He ended up taking a low paying job at a nationwide company handling tech support. After a few years, got tired of it (and the low pay) and wanted to do something else, so he went into the Air Force in a completely unrelated field to anything he knew. He got out after his first 4 years was up (luckily, his wife was still in the AF, so they had money).

He wanted to get back into programming, but of course, he had no degree, even though he had the knowledge. Agreed with a local company to come in at a low level spot ($14 an hour) with an agreement that if he could prove his skills, they would consider moving him to a programmer position.

Because of that agreement, he went on to get a job in Colorado making low six figures a year as a programmer. From there, he was offered a position on an island at double the pay.

I've left some of the details out, but that covers the majority of the important stuff. He taught himself to program, never got his degree, and makes a lot of money now. He kept pushing, kept trying and asked for a shot.

To Rory: I stepped into a $30k+ a year job with absolutely no experience in the industry (and yes, it's 9-5, no overtime, no weekends). I walked in, told them I'd work my butt off and do whatever the company needed. My positions have changed over the 7 years. I went from working on the floor to managing parts sales to managing the office as well as bidding on contracts. I knew nothing about a single one of them when I stepped into the role. But the owner knew that he could depend on me to figure it out.

You don't always have to be the most skilled, or have the best degree. Just be the guy that will get it done, no matter what.



Congrats on deciding you want to make a change. The most important thing you can do now is to make sure you have some support system to push you forward, and also to hold you accountable when you slack off.

 

[Chris Sojka]

Both of these pieces are terrible advice.

First, with all of the unemployed college graduates in the job market, its going to be near impossible to get a 9-5 job that pays you more than $30k if you don't have a college degree. Second, what is your motivation? Do you want a cushy 9-5 job, or do you want to do something you like? My advice would be to find out what skills are most needed in the area you live in, and then go from there.

The "get a job through a friend" piece is ridiculous. No one is going to hire a person without a college degree for a $30k+ position, just because if it doesn't work out the company is going to blame the hiring manager, asking "why did you hire a non-degreed person for this position, when we had 5000+ applicants with degrees?"

If your end goal is to work less and make more money, then the answer is simple. Find a job type that is cushy and available, see what prerequisites it takes to gain such a job, then get the prerequisites. All of this "just do what you like to do" and "get a job through a friend, then work your way up" is just blowing smoke, IMO.

All a college degree is, is a glorified piece of paper from someone who might have copy and pasted a bunch of information off of Wikipedia google or someone else's research...

The reason so many people with college degree's don't have jobs isn't because the market doesn't have jobs to offer... its because the jobs that people have to offer have little or nothing to do with many people's degrees...

Why should a company pay 60,000 dollars for someone with a degree when you can train someone on the job for 30,000 without a degree and make them take career advancement classes specific to their job requirements...

I know too many people who have degree's in shit that isn't going to pay big money or doesn't have a in demand job market and they are held by their parents and peers to use the degree that they chose as 18 year old kids coming out of highschool... it is so ridiculous...

Engineering, technology, healthcare, programming seem to always have a demand for employee's

but no one is going to hire you for any of these jobs with a degree in fashion design, art, business or liberal arts

So while the country is saturated with degree's... it is saturated by a bunch of people with degree's that don't offer any specialized skills or training and aren't valuable to anyone that might hire them... This means people will have to train them on the job expecting people to pay 50000+ for an employee that still needs to develop skills in order to do his job at a high enough level to meet demand...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is the problem with the country

 

[KittiesKorner]

I beg to differ. My current employer has a pay grade celing for anyone who doesn't have a college degree. And if you have a degree, it doesn't matter what it is in as long as you can demonstrate the skills needed for the job.

Do I agree with that system? No. But it is much more common than you're asserting.

 

[nvanprooyen]

You work in an academic field though right? Kind of?

 

[KittiesKorner]

You work in an academic field though right? Kind of?

not any more. But when I did, we could not bring on instructors at anything higher than adjunct level (not even pro rata) if they didn't have degrees which, in a lot of cases, is pretty fucking dumb when you need people teaching applied content (plenty of people are great at it and have been in the field for years without degrees, but you have to offer them a pittance to share their expertise with students, which obviously many of them can't afford to do)

 

[PrideisBears]

All a college degree is, is a glorified piece of paper from someone who might have copy and pasted a bunch of information off of Wikipedia google or someone else's research...

The reason so many people with college degree's don't have jobs isn't because the market doesn't have jobs to offer... its because the jobs that people have to offer have little or nothing to do with many people's degrees...

Why should a company pay 60,000 dollars for someone with a degree when you can train someone on the job for 30,000 without a degree and make them take career advancement classes specific to their job requirements...

I know too many people who have degree's in shit that isn't going to pay big money or doesn't have a in demand job market and they are held by their parents and peers to use the degree that they chose as 18 year old kids coming out of highschool... it is so ridiculous...

Engineering, technology, healthcare, programming seem to always have a demand for employee's

but no one is going to hire you for any of these jobs with a degree in fashion design, art, business or liberal arts

So while the country is saturated with degree's... it is saturated by a bunch of people with degree's that don't offer any specialized skills or training and aren't valuable to anyone that might hire them... This means people will have to train them on the job expecting people to pay 50000+ for an employee that still needs to develop skills in order to do his job at a high enough level to meet demand...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is the problem with the country[/QUOTE

Absolutely agree with you on this and even the engineering,tech,healthcare degrees arent all they are cracked up to be because in a lot of cases you have to know someone to get into whatever field you are trying to get into. I cant speak for everyone but the moment you graduate you are going to lose about 50% of what you slaved over to learn in the first place so no matter what you will have to be re trained regardless of what you are doing

 

[PrideisBears]

Why is this directed at me? Was my advice "get your degree"? Nope. It was find a job type that is cushy and available, see what prerequisites it takes to gain such a job, then get the prerequisites.

Also, does anyone here have any idea how business works? Do you understand that many companies are multi-billion dollar organizations? They would rather hire a degreed person at $60k than a non-degreed person at $30k because the difference between $60k and $30k is infitesimal to most successful companies.

Can you imagine being a hiring manager somewhere, and the corporate office tells you "From now on, you can't hire any college graduates...you have to hire uneducated people because we are looking to save $30k." Wouldn't the hiring manager quit on the spot, because no company would be so Special person?

Depends on the company. McDonalds and Walmart seem to be doing just fine while hiring "uneducated people". f you are talking IT companies then yeah they would be better off hiring people who went to College but not all companies need to hire people need to hire people with degrees when they will just train them the way they want to anywyas

 

[brett05]

Engineering, technology, healthcare, programming seem to always have a demand for employee's

but no one is going to hire you for any of these jobs with a degree in fashion design, art, business or liberal arts

Nor hire you for those jobs without the degree. There are no engineers hired today without a degree, and most likely they need to be at least be in posession of a master's degree.

Sorry, I gotta stop, this is hijacking a thread.

 

[nvanprooyen]

Not to mention the fact that small business employs a LOT of people in this country. 99% of US companies have less than 500 employees and account for over half of the US work force. But I don't want to turn this thread into a pissing contest with Rory. Most of us are responding here to try and help the OP out.