BG Life Suggestions: What do I do? (Getting laid off)

[aurik]

Man all these people giving me straight honest advice without sugar-coating it for the sake of my ego sure are dicks!

Also if your reading comprehension is so bad that you think I was being an asshole in my first post, you probably shouldn't bother with a university education in any topic, let alone CS.

[Odesseiron]

Awesome post. +1 for you. Because you can hear a person's tone of voice in a thread on the internet. Major difference between saying something with no sugar coating and how you came off.

Anyway, got some fantastic news that we're for the time being keeping our jobs. Still though, going to get some information and hopefully be taking some night classes come fall 2011. Merry Christmas indeed. Was the best fucking news I've heard in weeks. There's still the possibility of political shennanigans, but that's always a possibility.

[Jeryhn]

If you got the drive to succeed, go for the CS major. Make sure you do some intern work for an established technology company. My roommate is a CS major, gets pretty decent grades and went through the UC here for his education. He did paid internship for Intel in Sacramento for the last two summers. He was hired for a position at the end of summer this year (before he even graduated, mind you) which he'll take up in June 2011 after his finishes his degree.

He's starting at $65k.

Aurik is right though. If you're having doubts about anything, you'll get fucking nowhere. My advice would be to start at your local community college and try out a full schedule (more than part-time) to really test out your willingness to go through the next 4-5 years getting a degree that's worth something. Collect your unemployment - you paid into it, it's yours - and take up a weekend job. Go to the "career days" and other bullshit at your local universities and colleges, meet with people and recruiters, nowadays having connections is absolutely more important than anything else you could do.

[aurik]

Awesome post. +1 for you. Because you can hear a person's tone of voice in a thread on the internet. Major difference between saying something with no sugar coating and how you came off.

The irony is that I used the same words you did, and told you exactly what you need to know: calc 1&2 is nowhere near as hard as the things you'll go through to get a Real degree in comp sci. But continue crying because someone told you the truth on the internet. I have to get my +1 posts somewhere.

[Bockage]

I was in a similar situation to yours and I managed to go back to school to change career paths. I was 25 and the company that I worked at for 5 years had invested heavily in government contracts. When the recession hit those contracts dried up and I found myself unemployed. After about 4 months of searching for a new job, I began looking at going back to school. I knew I wanted to go into Computer Science or Networking, so I looked around at local universities and eventually decided on a small for profit college (similar to ITT Tech). I liked their style of education better then what was offered at the State Universities, plus they both have the same accreditation so the degree's carry the same weight.

I choose networking because the computer science math scared me off, but I know I made the right decision anyhow. I love learning about how computers talk to each other through networks and the internet, and I even have a few CompTIA certifications under my belt (hopefully a CCNA too). I'm still getting unemployment because apparently they don't care that I went back to school, and I use it to pay for books and certification tests. The school has a few internships I hope to get so I have some experience I can put on a resume.

I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not too late for you to go back to school and get a degree. If you are really determined, it can be done. Just make sure you can afford it or have a plan to pay it all off once you're done with school.