I'm 47 years old and I'm interested to make a career change in the information
technology field in your opinion is this crazy at my age if not where should I
start
I do carry a full time 45 hour per week job so I'm interested in online program
is your school or program that you can suggest there are so many options out
there and I'm not sure of the best place to start for 47 years old and you want
to start an IT
I don't know if it's crazy
I don't think twice about it I would question why you want to get into it now
to be honest with you
a lot of people want to get into iit because they have all these dreams about
what they think the the life of an a geek is and what they think a life of a
geek is and what the life of a geek actually is has nothing to do with one
another
you know one of the reasons that I'm happy to sit here and do my little
YouTube channel is because i really hate getting called on sundays i really can't
getting alarms at midnight
I really hate having to worry about systems that are down and literally
hundreds or thousands of employees that can't do what they're supposed to do and
it all rides on my shoulders
I'm one of those I've been there I've done that and it's not the ball sack
you know what I'm saying like yeah it's one of those things you have to think
about like I remember like back in the day and being a young person making
quite a bit of money doing i.t and then I actually broke down like what my
hourly salary was so compared to other people my age I was doing really well
but then we figured i was working like 60-plus hours a week you realize that
essentially if I was doing the job
my buddies were doing only doing that 60 hours a week i would probably end up
making more money so it's like if you look at the whole you look at just the
paycheck it looks like i was doing really well if you actually broke it
down into ours
I probably could have been a construction labor and and done about as
well right
so a lot of things in the in the normal IT world they're not quite what you
think they are
and going in at 47
it raises a lot of red flags about why do you really want to do this right
so I don't think you're crazy i would suggest you you really think if this is
what you want to do again I i I've talked about this a lot
I hang out with a lot of different types of business people again my peer group
is business owners it's not employees and wannabes and all that kind of stuff
it's actually business owners and let me tell you there are a lot of ways to make
money like there's this idea
the modern world like the way to know the way to riches is through technology
and it just think so
I mean it can be don't get me wrong it can be but it's not like this is the way
you have to go if I was 47 years old and I was looking for a career change
I would go medical i would go medical in a heartbeat if i if i wasn't sure if i
wasn't sure i would rather go medical I'd rather go be a nurse
I'd rather go be a physician's assistant I would rather medical medical has a
nice nice future in front of it that makes a lot of sense technology doesn't
because what you have to realize like if you go into a lot of these other
professions
once you get certified your certified once your license practicing nurse or
something like that you have to continue with your continuing education but
essentially that's what you are as long as you do your however many continuing
education credits you are that you demand a certain amount of salary and
it's pretty good the problem is in the IT world man
you can get an mcse and three years from now be be irrelevant be basically
worthless I've seen this happen a lot where people are top their game and
making six figures are absolutely awesome and the technology that they
support disappears and then they're screwed they're basically going back to
square one
so I'd really asked I'd really ask is this really what you want to do again
I'm not I love technology i really do I love technology you see me play with it
all the time but just because I love technology doesn't mean I believe
everybody should do it again
one of one of the the things that makes me lose my mind with like the president
that I voted for I will admit to that is
is when I see like even the president go up and start talking about how everybody
needs to code
what the hell is that that is like the stupidest effing thing I've ever heard
in my life not everybody needs a code right
not everybody knows how to do accounting not everybody knows how to do financial
management
not everybody knows how to be a first responder do medical care
so if people don't understand those things then why do they need to code
right
I i would i would argue before he started teaching people to code we
should start dating people financial management first like every citizen of
the United States should understand the difference between stocks bonds options
index funds all that kind of stuff right
because that that actually is going to be very valuable for them at the end of
the day whether or not they know what a function or variable is right but again
when the problems we run into in the modern world is DQ no IIT stuff tech
stuff is sexy
mark zuckerberg Bill Gates and Steve Jobs he's the rock stars nowadays but
yeah that doesn't mean it's for everybody that doesn't mean it should be
for everybody either
so what I would argue really if if I was looking at 47 year old that really had
to make a life change and get into a better job
I would argue medical medical the way i'll go again nicer or whatever else if
you're like yeah that's nice Eli but i really want to go into technology what I
would suggest is that you look into something like project management
project management is probably going to be your better bet again because
especially when you're new and technology
you have to get elbow-deep into a lot of stuff and it
it's a grind I know a lot of people when they see my videos they think I'm coming
off as like an asshat an asshole or a douche but i try to keep explaining you
guys is this is our field right
if you if you can't handle me on this video
just just just stop just stop
this is our feel our field is Type A personalities who only care about
getting done what they need
to get done and really don't give two craps if you get hit by a bus tomorrow
right
if you get hit by a bus the only question they're gonna ask is who is
going to replace you that's gonna be about it every really is like I mean
it's so bad like you guys don't even get you don't get how brutal this field can
be like sep tember 11 so I was working the enterprise company for you doing the
tech stuff on sep tember 11 on sep tember 11 sitting there watching the
planes going to the Twin Towers the whole nine yards and like the TV's were
on because they had new stations on and we're all like dumbfounded is everything
the building's crashed and and all that and literally we had the director of the
company of the that were there the branch or whatever walk in and he looked
around at everybody and said okay
the u.s. got attacked today obviously the telephones and all that aren't
working so I want you guys to go home get your head straight
and then I want you baby back in here tomorrow hundred percent like literally
like September 11th didn't fe new phase these people and and I can't even
i I can't you know what that even when I say that it sounds like oh you're you're
being a little as is not you don't understand the reason that business shut
down for half a day wasn't because they really cared about sep tember 11-win sep
tember 11 happened it was because all the phone systems for the entire country
kind of went spastic and they said well nobody's going to get their work done
today anyway so go home and then come back tomorrow at a hundred percent go
and that is literally what was expected a little i had my man i had my manager
online so again I was a geek I was a regional support person i had my manager
on the line and when I was talking to him
I just had that dumbfounded like I was just talking to me that dumb founded a
way you talk when you're dumb founded you know like when you see something
like that happen and you're thinking about what what the what it's going to
mean for the future and all that and literally I swear to you I swear to my
manager was on the phone with me and he said uh whatwhat's wrong
you just seemed really out of it was like um did you just watch the Twin
Towers come down
yeah well yeah yeah of course like uh is it is that is not enough biggest attack
on American soil in history little dumbfounded here right and and so that
really i mean that is really what our field it's like so so i'm not really
sure if it's a smart idea to be on that base level you know being the CCNA being
the mcse even the programming stuff where you really you have to be on top
of you have to do your job
so what I would probably argue if you really want to do is go for like the
project manager position and go from there as far as what school to go to
I would I would almost never recommend an online school this is something that
I say again and again
I don't believe in online schools and a lot of people argue with me and that's
nice
fine you are right with every argument you want to make let us just say you are
right and I'm gonna toss and what I'm going to say here
it doesn't matter honestly how good the online school is right and that's what
but but but what
right one of the issues that you run into is doing the online school and this
is what i see a lot of a lot of people want to go to online schools because
they think it'll be easier they think they'll be able to work around their
schedule and all that kind of horse crap and when you find out in the real world
is that they don't
when you have a class that you actually have to show up to you're more likely to
in fact show up to that class when you have an online class that you have to
turn on once or twice or three or whatever times per week
it is just so easy not to turn it on or you turn it on and it's a really dull
dry horrible lecture and you start going to sleep where you start doing other
things
it's just it doesn't focus your attention the way that a normal
classroom class those beyond that you don't have the interaction with other
people in the class you don't get to you don't get to talk to other people to
hear what they're doing
you don't get to discuss your own ideas you don't get to toss things back and
forth and that is that is that is massively valuable i would probably
argue that that component
is about is at least fifty percent of what the college degree is about is
about actually interacting with the other people and so if you're online you
just don't get that experience so i would argue against online schools of
this is really what you want to do go to an in-person school and I know you're
gonna give me a lot of excuses here and as I will say from the bottom of my
heart figure it the hell out if you can't figure out how to go to a real
physical school me
yeah again you're scaring me about whether or not you really should change
things up at all
so those are my thoughts there and I'm not really excited about that but I'm
that's a medical again i'm interested in making a career change in the
information technology field why why I think you're going to make a lot more
money
I think there's think there's some some some gold at the end of that rainbow
some magical lucky charm
there's not really isn't right it's a hard career
it's a tough demanding brutal career especially if you're doing it well and
probably not the best option for most people to be honest with you
so i would argue i would honestly from the bottom of my heart I would argue if
you're interested I would say take a look at the medical professions I think
the medical professions will do better at the end
