Database Develop

[Q] Best I.T. field?

Hi, I'm coming to this forum to ask my question 1. Because I know there are a lot of tech-savvy people here and 2. Because I'm on these forums a lot.
I guess my general question is: what is the best IT field to get into now? I really like programming, but I read a couple or places that its projected to go down by 4% from now til 2018ish.
But I read elsewhere that computer engineering is growing rapidly.
I'm 19 years old now, about to start college soon and want to pick a good field in. Something that can defenitely pay good as well.
And I know there's a lot of cross knowledge about IT.
But what's the best IT field tp get into?
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I am a Network Engineer. I think it is a pretty good field, if you don't mind the late nights, and other things. The Networks are the furthest behind right now, and we need competent Engineers to build and run them.

i agree with above..

I agree, however getting companies to spend money on talent and equipment is hard. Its like years ago before companies spent on backups. They wont spend till it bites them.

troubleshot said:
I agree, however getting companies to spend money on talent and equipment is hard. Its like years ago before companies spent on backups. They wont spend till it bites them.
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Correct. Working for a Vendor, I see this all the time. It is hard to tell a company that they need new switches every 5 years, especially in this economic time.
The big pusher will be IPv6. That is forcing a lot of companies to look at their infrastructure today. They have this feeling they will be left behind if they aren't IPv6 ready by the end of this year. At least on my view of things - that is the only reason Enterprise side businesses are buying new Routers/Switches.

Enraged21 said:
Hi, I'm coming to this forum to ask my question 1. Because I know there are a lot of tech-savvy people here and 2. Because I'm on these forums a lot.
I guess my general question is: what is the best IT field to get into now? I really like programming, but I read a couple or places that its projected to go down by 4% from now til 2018ish.
But I read elsewhere that computer engineering is growing rapidly.
I'm 19 years old now, about to start college soon and want to pick a good field in. Something that can defenitely pay good as well.
And I know there's a lot of cross knowledge about IT.
But what's the best IT field tp get into?
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App
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The problem with Network Engineering is there is no degree for it. It is a lot of self knowledge and self learning.
Take your Juniper Certifications or Cisco Certifications. Buy books on BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, IPv6, etc.....
Download software to run labs at your house....build a cheap Cisco lab as well.
GNS3 is a good Cisco network simulator.

I know this isn't the advice you're looking for - but I'm going to give you the advice I wish somebody gave me when I was 18.
Screw the market predictions, screw the salary ceilings, screw the skill demand. Find something you really dig and the rest is going to fall into place.
I spent 7 years as a software developer. I got paid far more than I was probably worth, had loads of perks, and life was good. Problem was I didn't get any satisfaction out of writing code anymore (not sure that I ever really did). It took me a long time to figure out, but in the end you're going to spend 40 hours (or often 60 in tech careers) a week doing something for the rest of your working life. Your quality of life is going to improved much, much more by genuinely enjoying those 40-60 hours each week than it will by bringing home 90K/yr. Believe me.
At 29 I took about a $25K/yr pay cut and "started over" as a web/ui designer in a new company. It's one of the best choices I'd ever made - I just wish I'd made it when I was much younger. My life would have been much easier.

Isn't a degree worth more than a certificate?
I'd rather spend more time in school getting a degree rather than doing it quick and getting a certificate.
MickMcGeough said:
I know this isn't the advice you're looking for - but I'm going to give you the advice I wish somebody gave me when I was 18.
Screw the market predictions, screw the salary ceilings, screw the skill demand. Find something you really dig and the rest is going to fall into place.
I spent 7 years as a software developer. I got paid far more than I was probably worth, had loads of perks, and life was good. Problem was I didn't get any satisfaction out of writing code anymore (not sure that I ever really did). It took me a long time to figure out, but in the end you're going to spend 40 hours (or often 60 in tech careers) a week doing something for the rest of your working life. Your quality of life is going to improved much, much more by genuinely enjoying those 40-60 hours each week than it will by bringing home 90K/yr. Believe me.
At 29 I took about a $25K/yr pay cut and "started over" as a web/ui designer in a new company. It's one of the best choices I'd ever made - I just wish I'd made it when I was much younger. My life would have been much easier.
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I know, people are always telling me that. And I'm always open to hearing peoples opinion. I actually would love to do a field in IT... Just don't know what exactly I want. Like I said, I like programming, computer science, etc., but there not gonna need alot of programmers in the near future. My friend is actually a network engineer and makes good money, but I know he'd rather be doing something else.
As for me, I've been doing jack **** for the last two years. I would actually love to spend 40 to 60 hours a week keeping my hands and brains busy.
So I might look into Engineering.. cause that's what it looks like its going into.
I know if it's something with tech involved, I probably won't love it, but I would like it. Better than doing anything else.
2 of the fields I'm looking into:
Computer Engineering Technology (Networking)
Computer Programming and Analysis.
your inputs?

Enraged21 said:
Isn't a degree worth more than a certificate?
I'd rather spend more time in school getting a degree rather than doing it quick and getting a certificate.
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Depends. The way I see it (being in the field) If you want to stay on the Engineering side of things and don't have an interest in being Managerial, then Certs + Time In the Field = More Money than Degree.
If you think Certs are the easy way - then you haven't taken any of the tests. If you want to get into Networking you have to have Certs. Then get a job working in a NOC, or for a smaller ISP. Then you work up.

I'm a field engineer so I go to clients' sites and support their IT/resolve their IT problems.
Being a jack of all trades really helps, and having the right mind is a godsend.
Being able to think on your feet to come up with solutions with very few resources, having high google skills also helps, and a resourceful memory for niggly little problems.
In my experience computer degrees are pointless, industry qualifications actually have value as they bring benefits to companies such as partnership programs.
Whats going to be more appealing to customers? "We have 5 engineers with degrees" or "We're a Microsoft Gold Partner" see what I mean?
The more qualifications you get the more you can ask for in salary.
Contracting is where the real money is, you can get paid stupid amounts of money for doing simple things.
I was getting £200 a day on one contract to just create new users and run reports.

so what you guys are saying is,
it's better to be certified in many fields and work my way up rather than getting a degree in a specific field?

Enraged21 said:
so what you guys are saying is,
it's better to be certified in many fields and work my way up rather than getting a degree in a specific field?
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Yes. And pick a field you enjoy too.

alright. I appreciate your advice.

When I try to pick my major in college, I'm listed 3 choices ( All Computer Engineering )
Cisco Specialization
Microsoft Specialization
Cyber Security and Digital Forensics Specialization
Out of all those three fields? which one would be the best to "specialize" in?
They also have two other fields available which are computer programming and analysis, and computer information technology. Too many people in CPA and they won't need them in the near future. CIT is too broad. And I don't really know about that.

Another approach which might be a bit different is if you can scrape up the money to go to a conference or two, that may give you some insight on the different areas of IT and may help guide you on what you may or may not like. Virtualization is huge now due to the whole "cloud computing" thing. Microsoft/Active Directory/Exchange-type environments are widely used, so any experience there should guarantee you a job and an employee in a company or a solutions architect if you can design that infrastructure... or support for that type of environment which would be a first step in that field. I always believed that if you're the type that's into programming, you'll know it early on. The hard part like others have said is choosing what sub-field you want to specialize in (or that you enjoy).
No matter where you go, things can get pretty deep. I know a few people who chose to be project managers and make a good living not knowing anything technical - just the logistics of it all.

If you are going to get into general IT - to start with stick to CSCO and MSFT.
You can't go wrong with acquiring certs from either. While it doesn't hurt to know both - at some point you will find you either like to design and support the network (CSCO). Or you like to do AD, LDAP, Server type of stuff (MSFT).
If you wanted mine on which to chose of the 3 you have, I would suggest trying to get internships at each one, to see which you like. College is expensive, and you don't want to have to go back multiple times, because the degree you got wasn't something you liked.
Take an Internship at a smaller ISP. This will give you a chance to check out both the Network (CSCO) side of things, and Systems (MSFT/Linux/BSD) side of things. Most larger companies (Fortune 500) will split it up like this anyways, as it is too much to wear both hats. So you will have your team of Network Engineer's and your team of Systems Engineers/Admins who generally all report up to a single director/vp.

Don't really have the money or the time to intern. That's why I came seeking advice.
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Two fields spring immediately to mind. Computer Forensics and Computer Security.
Both growth industries and interesting too i imagine.

I'll try to make this my last rant here.
I know you came here asking for advice - but I hope you understand that all advice is necessarily autobiographical.
A lot will disagree with me here, but degrees and certs are worth little. Good instruction is infinitely valuable, demonstrable skills are infinitely valuable, and you can get those in post-secondary schooling, but the piece of paper itself will only help you get your first job, when you have no experience, and the person hiring you is either too lazy to verify your skills, or is unable to do so.
Probably the best developer I ever hired was entirely self-taught. The worst was one of the most highly-educated individuals I'd ever interviewed.
I don't know where you got your information about the software development market drying up but I think you're making too big a deal out of it. I cannot fathom a future in which a good software developer's skills are obsolete. You'll have to switch languages/environments many times in your career, but if you dig coding, just go be the best coder you can.
I implore you, try out some different stuff in school and stick to whatever it is that gets your motor going. Don't worry about a 4% market downturn or what industries might grow. Nobody can predict more than 5-10 years away, and you're going to be doing whatever it is you choose for 30-40 years.

Do you want to change my life?

Hello everyone,
my name is Henri and I want you to gift me five thousand three hundred and eighty-nine dollars.
5437$ or about 4800€. (Rates May 13,2015 GMT)
If you have not clicked away yet, let me explain:
I live in Berlin, Germany and I am 21 years old.
When I was about 16 years old I was moderate to severe depressed. Thought about killing myself, cried myself to sleep et cetera. I don't want to go into detail with this, because you have all heard those heartbreaking stories before.
Anyway, I got over it. I did not go into therapy. Instead I decided to fix the problems which depressed me. Those were mostly that I did not have a social life at all and had a good amount of social anxiety.
I wasn't able to ask an elderly woman for the time on the streets, started sweating when people I didn't know talked to me in school and so on.
And obviously, I didn't have any female contact besides my mother and sister.
In 2011 I had a breakdown and decided that I had to change or I would eventually kill myself in a weaker moment.
I went out to fix my social life and become happy. And I succeeded.
Long story short: I pushed myself into social interactions, pushed myself to talk to girls. On this journey I found awesome friends, two especially which could not be closer to me. One of them had the same goals as I, wanted to overcome all social borders there are.
I also met a lot of great girls, eventually other guys asked me for advice.
I was the happiest person I knew.
This is when I and and the friend mentioned above decided that we could actually teach other guys to get to where we are.
We are currently building a German website where we want to give advice for young guys on talking to girls, fitness, having great sex, fashion, hygiene, motivation, discipline, managing happy relationships and ironically living a happy life.
Ironically, because right now I am depressed as f**k again. This is because I don't have money, my parents don't have enough to support me. I got a job, but I literally started crying there because I felt so miserable. At home I feel miserable because I have no money. I am working in sales without base salary.
My expenses are about 600€ a month. In Germany, parents get some money for their „childs“ as long as they study, so I get close to 200€ a month from them. 400€ left.
My options right now are :
1) „Manning up“ and work and hope that therapy fixes this.
2) Getting student loans and go to university in a field with which I will be able to pay back the roughly 20.000€ in loans, just so that I do not have to work right now and can put my energy into the website.
3) Moving back into my parent's place on the other side of the country and everything on hold. They live in small village, so I won't be able to meet and advice people, talk to girls, network etc.
I would give up everything I built here.
Yesterday I decided to give another idea a shot. The idea you are reading right now.
I figured if I could get 4800 people to give me 1€ each, I could live one year without stress.
12 months times 400€ is 4800€.
I am convinced that my website and other projects will make enough money for me after this year.
If not, and this is a very small if, I will be where I am right now again, hopefully with more valuable lessons learned, happy and therefore able to work a normal job if I have to.
You see, I am basically asking you for time. I realize that 1$/1€ isn't much, but if you gave it to everyone you'd be dead broke. I do not know how I can convince you that I deserve this money more than anyone else, but I know that all I need right now is this money to handle this situation and put all my energy into the website and hopefully helping others.
I am asking you to gift me your next coffee, ice cream cone or burger.
If just 1% of the people reading this decides to help me out with one dollar, I have to show this to 543,700 people.
This is why I actually looked up the biggest online communities and I am posting this to every single one that can somehow relate to my situation or the subjects of our site. Some just seem to have cool people in them.
As you will see, there isn't any content up yet. We already have a lot but want to publish about ten good articles for the start. And yes, this is a working-title
If this post gets removed because it violated any specific rule I understand that and want you to know that it wasn't on purpose. I also tried to post into Off-Topic or similar.
If you have any questions, I will answer them as soon as I can.
Please don't give us advice on the design or that wordpress „is bad“. I appreciate it, but I want to answer questions about the content, our goals and whatnot instead of discussing webdesign. So far we have been working on content only.
The site as it stands is just a vehicle for the donate page, since sites like „fundme“ take 30cents per donation plus fees.
Again, all I am asking for is 1$ to solve all my problems for one year.
Thank you for your time.
Mod edit: Link removed

Perhaps you should be reading the forum rules before posting stuff like this, as you were clearly aware that those exist.

CoolApps said:
Perhaps you should be reading the forum rules before posting stuff like this, as you were clearly aware that those exist.
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While many of us, myself included, sympathize with your issue, this site is not the place for raising funds for yourself. This is against forum rules and is simply not allowed.
Thread closed.

Hey!

Just recently started using this website to get to know how to root, twrp, all that good stuff for the first time and the support I have had has been amazing and the community seems really active like I litterally got a reply to my comment in under 10 mins after posting it don't even remember the last time that happened all in all happy to be here

Welcome to xda.
Good to hear you are enjoying xda.
It is a very active site and normally someone can give you an answer or help find one.
Glad to have you part of the xda family.
Cheers.

Yes it was quite the learning experience, I had to use the knowledge I had learned through the years to actually conceptualize how to deploy a defense and anoffense. DESPITE HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT NOW: I would never put anyone else hrougu that though. These days we've become, as a society, very dependent on our technologies, I'm some cases if you don't have access or knowlefhe of the most basic components, it could cost a meal, or where you lay your head at night. Let's see, I lost 4 smartphones, 2 tablets, half my hair went grey, the other half just gave up and fell out, and it cost me 2 job opportunites that will not be around in my near future. Having the knowledge of technology is great, having the wisdom, the experience in wether to deploy it, or make it what it's for are two different beast, I think people initially don't feel that there hurting anyone by using technology to get back at them, but if they put themselves in the shoes the person is about to walk in, is the punishment balancing what it will cost them in real life because of the lost communication, job, or relationship? Just because it's not a knock out drag out fight doesn't mean it won't sting

So essentially what I am saying is that it has become the right hook, body slam, forrgose that can't actually do that to someone, but there is a degree of social responsibility, that needs to be assessed. If I deploy a hijacker virus on someone because they said something I didn't like, and that person supported their family with Uber, depending on how long I kept the hijack up I might just help that dude get an eviction, no technology, no phone, no way or getting fares, etc, etc.....

Emerging from under my bridge. Hello World.

Hey there! I'm krassygnoll and I've been lurking for a little over a decade. As someone who tends to stay pretty private, I try to not make too much noise online. With that said, after attending some cybersec conferences and working in the business world it came to my attention that I need to socialize a bit more. So, after reading up on how to root my old kindle 3rd gen, I realized I needed to finally make an account to get the right tooling.
In high school iPhones were starting to get popular as well as phones like the original RAZR or Juke. I learned about this site from friends of mine who were trying real hard to theme their phones and brag about free apps they found. I instead spent my time breaking Windows and learning Ubuntu. As a tech enthusiast I tend to get excited and hack on or break anything new that I get my hands on, which lends well to my current goal of developing more secure IOT products (because most are terrible).
With that said, I have a rooted LG V30 I use as my daily driver, but it is starting to get long in the tooth. Looking at the f(x)tec Pro 1-X for a replacement, but trying to hold off for now. I've rooted some Shield TV's, an HTC Desire Eye (old phone), and some other basic phones for friends and family. I couldn't have done any of it without this forum, so thank you all so much.
With all that said, I'm happy to be here and will try to stay out in the sun instead of retreating back under my bridge.

I think I lurked XDA for 3 years before finally joining in on the conversation. Welcome!

Greetings!

Hello, I am new here. I primarily joined to ask questions on installing someone's project documented here, but hopefully I will be able to do something myself eventually. I am mainly into older computers and video games consoles but I have recently realised that smartphones are more interesting than I previously thought, more like old PCs I suppose as they are closed systems unlike new PCs. I have a few phones and I've always thought i'd like to use them more but historically I've only really been interested in games and scene demos. I am supposed to be a technical guy but I only have a lot of breadth of surface level knowledge mostly on old computers and not much depth, mostly because of spending all my time dreaming and never doing or actually learning stuff other than reading Wikipedia articles. Hopefully I can change that and get around to learning more in depth. The trouble is finding information that allows you to learn more but is still at a level that you understand.
Anyway from the little i've seen this seems like quite a civilised community so hopefully I will get along with everyone and maybe I'll be able to help with things eventually.

Sanizol said:
Hello, I am new here. I primarily joined to ask questions on installing someone's project documented here, but hopefully I will be able to do something myself eventually. I am mainly into older computers and video games consoles but I have recently realised that smartphones are more interesting than I previously thought, more like old PCs I suppose as they are closed systems unlike new PCs. I have a few phones and I've always thought i'd like to use them more but historically I've only really been interested in games and scene demos. I am supposed to be a technical guy but I only have a lot of breadth of surface level knowledge mostly on old computers and not much depth, mostly because of spending all my time dreaming and never doing or actually learning stuff other than reading Wikipedia articles. Hopefully I can change that and get around to learning more in depth. The trouble is finding information that allows you to learn more but is still at a level that you understand.
Anyway from the little i've seen this seems like quite a civilised community so hopefully I will get along with everyone and maybe I'll be able to help with things eventually.
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Very nice intro!
Welcome to XDA, hope you enjoy your stay.