define IT ... is it more "Computer Science" (programming) or networks and operating systems? I understand IT as the latter, where you probably start on a help desk or get specific certifications (cisco networking, other business software / appliances).
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Oh I see. I was getting scared because people told me that I.T. graduates will be useless
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IT here is more Computer Science we don't really do much networks and operating systems
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it's a lot about expanding from what you learn, you get some basics from everything, then decide on something more specific.
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If you are looking to program, you can try to get involved with these open source games:
On the networking side, you will need additional certifications but every medium size business and larger needs someone with know-how, even if that isn't your only function. If you are outgoing, sales can be a lucrative way to go
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"people told me that I.T. graduates will be useless"
I don't think so.
Just look at today world's job demographics
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nope..
Change come too fast in IT ;)
about 5 years ago, a product will last at least 3 years but now i don't think it still like that..
I mean just look at IT product now, gadget, etc..
New technology have been release every years or less
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IT is not useless. Companies still need IT personnel, and they are likely to be a permanent fixture. That being said, the demand is certainly not what it used to be. When the internet started becoming commonplace companies needed to establish these departments and build the IT infrastructure to meet the demands of the time. However, once those networks and the like were in place the amount of staff needed to manage them became far less than what was needed to create them. That is why the Great Recession saw a large amount of IT jobs eliminated since most organizations were now in a position where their infrastructure had already been complete for nearly ten years. Many of the jobs had really been unnecessary for sometime at that point.
Again, the jobs are still needed, the demand is just not what it once was so wages have leveled off and many of the jobs have far less lucrative entry levels than they once did when IT was more of an extravagance.
Touching on cbones109's question, I never really think of Information Technology in the same way as I do programming. From the sounds of things you are more interested in the latter. If you are interested in game dev follow the computer science path versus the IT one as the classes will eventually become far more specialized. IT students will be studying networks, and program developers will be studying calculus fun, right?
If you are interested in creating games, there are resources out there that can help you get started using systems already constructed by programmers.
Bear with me as I have not pursued these to deeply, so I am unaware of what skill set is required to even begin using all of these tools:
Unity
Microsoft Virtual Academy
MDV (Mozilla Development Network) for Web Based Games
I thought that there used to be a free intro to the Unreal Engine, but I cannot find it. I know that there are lots of books and websites that are not free that delve in that Engine.
Anyway, good luck with your studies... and even better luck with your job hunt at their conclusion.
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I didn't know Information Technology was more on studying networks. I guess I should have read about the course more before taking it. I actually really like math. calculus will really be fun I think? haha. Thanks for this answer. Now I know what I should have done from the very beginning
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Are you unable to switch your course focus? It sounds like programming would be more up your alley.
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I live in a second-world country of 9.7 million people where the government wants people to be farmers and factory workers. Yet with this infrastructure, we need right now more than 40,000 more informatics engineers than available. So whoever told you that was either living 50 years in the past, a plain idiot, or both. IT is the dead easiest field to get a job at, the only real question is how good you are at it, so what kind of job you'll get.
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^ Truth above.
If there is any job field that is most secure and with plenty of room for improvement, it is IT. But how successful you are depends on your skills, not your uni or college.
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Although I have no actual numbers to back this up, I would actually venture a guess that the most secure job in the world is: prison guard. They have them everywhere, and prison populations have a habit of doing nothing but expanding rather than contracting.
When repeat offenders would come in and out of the prison we would always joke about how they were maintaining our job security.
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Being a prison guard is not exactly safe or secure. I mean, of course there are many jobs which are not going to disappear anytime soon, but IT will only grow with time, not decrease, as everything is getting automated, be it by robots or systems, and there are people needed to make them better.
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One thing I've learned over time, everyone is replaceable.
The one thing I think is important to recognize, and I think you have kind of touched on this with your reference to robots and automation. IT positions generally speaking are focussed on decreasing the amount of work necessary. It's kind of like IT personnel are working to reduce the amount of effort needed to perform tasks, thereby reducing the amount of workers needed to complete them. I'm not saying it is a dead-end job by any means here guys. I'm a fifteen year prison guard veteran that moved into an IT position. My only argument really is that it is not nearly as lucrative as it once was (at least not here). I know so many people that are either unable to find work, or that are finding it barely pays enough for them to get by. I think you are reading from my comments that IT is dead and no longer relevant. That is not my belief at all.
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Eh, living in a country where there's been a series of prisons being closed down due to a lack of inmates, I'm going to disagree with that guess.
Waste disposal/recycling is probably more secure, as even with plenty of people trying to reduce the amount of waste they produce, eliminating it is going to be impossible.
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Admittedly, my position was more ethnocentric than anything, but certainly not idiotic. The size of the IT departments in large companies here in the US took a major hit, and the jobs in the IT departments that replaced them were significantly lower wage jobs than those that preceded them. At least from the perspective here this is not an idiotic viewpoint at all. The market is flooded. Yes you can get a job in IT, but years ago that meant rather impressive wages and tremendous job security. Now it rarely means either for entry level positions. Even if you are good at what you do. You need to get the job first to show that you are any proficiency. Otherwise you need to know somebody that can get you in... I presume that carries just as much much weight where you live as it does here.
Thanks for the constructive insight though. I'll make certain to pass it on to the idiot as well.
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The market apparently is so flooded that I found 130k jobs for that in the US alone… on one random site… LinkedIn also shows 120k for the US right now.
Edit: Or hey, a half-year study lamenting on the lack of available people in the field in the US: https://arc.applause.com/2015/08/18/software-development-skills-gap/
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You are lumping all computer related jobs together. I am making a distinction between programmers/developers and those that can manage networks and work help-desks. Software development requires much more education and training than the latter. In my opinion, it's like comparing surgeons and nurses.
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I am showing one segment of IT, the original question here. Surgeons and nurses could be a nice example of missing jobs as well though.
But really, this argument is moot. I work in IT, the low-level field of it, as an outside consultant for a huge telecommunication giant's software engineering team. My job pays half-decent money (about the third of an engineer), yet our company not only doubled its size in a year, but we are almost have to recruit from the neighbouring countries, available work force is so scarce now (and no engineering university degree is actually needed for our job).
The client is so desperate for people that even after taking away several of the large projects to Indonesia, they immediately re-assigned all people on the current ones — and they are still understaffed.
I see how many people are missing from the IT day by day, and not just locally but hearing from all departments from Western Europe to Scandinavia to Asia to South America or even the US. (Heck, two of my direct superiors in a succession moved to Sweden because there there are apparently zero available people left, even after soaking up quite a few from their neighbours with Nokia pretty much dying.) So you can throw anything right now, what I say will remain the same, because this is what I'm facing in the office on a daily basis.
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My failure to see it from your perspective is likely just a result of my inherent ethnocentrism. As much as I'd like to think I can see if from the perspective of people elsewhere... it obviously is not always the case no matter how much I would like it to be.
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Or just seeing some really small segment. Some pessimistic firms in the US have been telling for years that they are producing too much IT graduates and that IT jobs are dropping. They tend to fail to include that IT support jobs are dwindling because of outsourcing — which is a problem here as well, because of India and Mexico. In the meanwhile, more and more companies need a larger staff for the "IT guy" role, but especially software engineers (chiefly Java) are missing in frightening numbers.
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Where do you come from ?
It's depends on the country itself (if you want to work in your own country)
I work as a game dev
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Philippines. I don't think I'd wanna work in my country though.
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For a secs i know you from there :D
Yeah, sorry to say but you better get off from this country, for IT
Don't be scared because of jobless, you just need wider opportunity, unfortunately in our country there are not much.
In SEA i would recommended Singapore
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Singapore eh? haha are you working there right now? Yeah I can't see a good future for me if I stay here
I can't see myself working on something I like.
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Nope, i work on my country.
But i work with ppl there, i have several (or mostly) clients there.
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Hello Kababayan! ("Countrymen") you will definitely land on the Call Center/BPO Industry if you wanted a high paying job when you first apply...though you may also pursue a career in the Hotel Industry and Banking Industry...they have IT related stuff to apply on.
I suggest going to Singapore/Canada after you graduate. Don't waste your IT skills here.
But please don't migrate for good, come back to our Country for Vacations, we will miss you.
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Have you tried turning it off and then on again?
You DO know how to work a button, don't you?
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I turned it off and it never turned on again.
When I tried to press the button it exploded ! :(
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Haha! Thanks for that link! I hadn't seen the one with Billy Bob Thornton before. :D
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Instructions unclear, pushed both
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This is something you'd should have looked into before studying IT
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Nothing fun. You won't have fun studying it and you won't have fun doing it as a job. That's what my IT friends tell me all the time.
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Make people happy. Childish I know but it's part of it right?
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I don't know how's it in your country but here if you study IT you learn basics of a lot of different things. So in the end you can't really do much with it, you have to pick something to specialize in and go with it.
With all the free engines available nowadays and tutorials on nearly everything you could start developing something on your own. Or help someone with his open source project.
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I've been thinking .. if everything can be learned online why do we need proof that we graduated ?
Do you know any developer that didn't graduate from a school?
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A good amount of indie developers (including successful ones) learned game development on their own and didn't go to school for it.
If you want to work for a company you don't necessarily need a proof that you graduated even though they say you do. If you made something yourself, whether it's a software or a game you could show them that to prove that you actually know what you're doing and that you're competent at it.
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so um graduating is just a "plus" right? I mean I don't have to rely on my school.
If I learned enough I could become an indie developer and find a company right?
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There are two branches of IT, as I see it.
- The profesional-looking certified team, were you just let your certifications and curriculum speak in behalf of yourself. Usually companies benefit from this when they work with specialiced products and brands, and that's the way to sell services.
- The open-source self made crew, a bunch of nerds that seize every oportunity to learn for themselves and usually excels far beyond certifications in what they do. Companies that benefit from these, are those that look for a dynamic team where every member can be rotated and asigned to different focus areas. This companies don't usually sell services for specific brandes, and have a heavy focus on open source and new trending technologies.
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whoa!
Happy CD!
Somehow connected to topic I guess...
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None.
Because you apply for jobs. They won't offer them to you unless you are in the best 5-10% of a respected university. (or very lucky)
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Game tester =D
You can always do someone's IT homework! For cash! Or Pizza! With Pineapples and Chicken!
Studying on IT specialist too, gonna read the whole disc =D
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Lots of jobs , depends on your skills and what you will specialize in ,from Systems Administration to Network or software engineering , web development or even as IT consultant .
The most important point is to specialize in a specific field and with time you will gain experience and find better jobs .
.
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Most likely database related stuff (you'll need to have deep knowledge of SQL) and software engineering. Those are the less risky ones and they're by no means fun. Game development is more fun, but way more risky too.
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Hi there, I'm also in the field and was really helped by this roadmap. I'm currently in Business Intelligence(fancy word for automated reporting I guess).
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I actually don't recommend you pursue game development. It's difficult to get into the business, difficult to make money doing it, and quite likely that you will end up having to find another career, later. Still, if you have the passion to pursue it no matter what, then don't let anyone dissuade you from it.
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It has changed in recent years with the spread of the smartphones. Mobile games (and apps) development is growing into big business. Tbh I was surprised how big and professional it already got.
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This industry is saturated. Only very few good ones or lucky ones are actually making money.
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Not really, no. Companies I know are constantly searching for people. But they look for qualifications and skills. Not necessarily degree from good uni (but it's always a big plus), but applicant must show that he knows his stuff and not just read Java tutorial
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I think there are enough jobs in IT (as in network management and such). Even programming (I work as a programmer myself in Europe, but not games). But game developer....
If you want to get into a big company (which have been laying off staff quite frequently in recent years!) you must have a portofolio proving your skills. So the best is getting to know your way around Unity, Unreal and other engines. I've seen the Hacker sources as a GA a few times, that would be a nice start to see how that's programmed.
Probably best to start programming a simple game by yourself. And then, as mentioned above, join a dev team for some piece of software or a game so you also learn working on software with a team.
But as others said: it's difficult to make a living from games. You'll probably need a job and start programming in your free time.
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Do yourself a big favor and switch to the computer programming track. You will be much better off in the future.
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Oh and does anyone know where I could start practicing game dev?
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