Decisions, Decisions
Jan. 9th, 2009 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perzephone
I've been looking into some possible career fields. I've got to admit, I'm not going to be content to be an IT Help Desk Tech for the rest of my working career, which means I need to somehow move forward. This is the problem with returning to school after you're 30 - by the time you've got enough school to qualify for what you're going to school to do, you're too old to be marketable.
- Paralegal
- Legal Secretary
- Network Administrator
- Network Engineer
These are the four things I've been looking at.
Paralegals ($37,000 - $55,000)... well, once you're a paralegal, you're a paralegal & that's pretty much it. There's no real room for advancement, only for gaining seniority or tenure or however paralegals look at that particular phenomenon of the cube-farm. A big advantage of switching to something like paralegal is that, unless you specialize in tax law or real property, the rules don't change often or much.
Legal Secretary ($35k - $52k) - I'm already a legal-secretary-in-training, only I'm called a 'Legal Office Assistant'. I don't make the $3 an hour more that the people w/the title get. I'd have to stick with the gov'ment jobs in order to keep making decent money.
Network Engineer ($48k - $76k) - these are the people who manage network systems. They make the decisions on what resources to allocate where, security levels, load balancing, project management, that kind of thing. I don't have the managerial or supervisory experience, and most places looking for a network engineer want someone w/5 - 10 years of network management experience. If I could land an entry level position in network management, I'd be 45 years old by the time I could get a real job w/the real title. Which is pretty close to retirement in that field. I get the feeling that my abilities to learn are slowly going to be outpaced by technology moving forward. Microsoft just announced Windows 7 Beta & I'm still trying to learn the ins & outs of WinXP. I haven't even worked on a Vista machine beyond loading WoW into Rob's laptop. I'm still using Word 2003 at work, but we've upgraded to Outlook 2007... The last time I worked on a network, it was Novell... Now everything's pretty much switched over to Windows network environments. It's intimidating to see how fast everything moves. Just a year or so ago I was hearing about dual-core processors... now it's already quad-cores. A Gig of memory seemed infinite - now I've got a Terabyte sitting on my desk.
Network Administrator ($40k - $60k) - these are the nuts 'n bolts guys. They map out how the information flows in a network & then run the cables. They set up routers & hubs & switches, troubleshoot communication problems & work off the designs laid out by the Network Engineers. Yes, the technology driving the network may advance rapidly but a hub is a hub, a switch is a switch, a router is a router & a cable is a cable.. or there may not even be any cables, in which case a WAP is a WAP.
I'm looking towards Network Admin. I need to come to some kind of decision soon unless I want to spend the next 20 years job-hopping & finally end up as a Wal-Mart greeter before I drop dead of a heart attack.
I guess I finally know what Iwant am going to be when I grow up...
- Paralegal
- Legal Secretary
- Network Administrator
- Network Engineer
These are the four things I've been looking at.
Paralegals ($37,000 - $55,000)... well, once you're a paralegal, you're a paralegal & that's pretty much it. There's no real room for advancement, only for gaining seniority or tenure or however paralegals look at that particular phenomenon of the cube-farm. A big advantage of switching to something like paralegal is that, unless you specialize in tax law or real property, the rules don't change often or much.
Legal Secretary ($35k - $52k) - I'm already a legal-secretary-in-training, only I'm called a 'Legal Office Assistant'. I don't make the $3 an hour more that the people w/the title get. I'd have to stick with the gov'ment jobs in order to keep making decent money.
Network Engineer ($48k - $76k) - these are the people who manage network systems. They make the decisions on what resources to allocate where, security levels, load balancing, project management, that kind of thing. I don't have the managerial or supervisory experience, and most places looking for a network engineer want someone w/5 - 10 years of network management experience. If I could land an entry level position in network management, I'd be 45 years old by the time I could get a real job w/the real title. Which is pretty close to retirement in that field. I get the feeling that my abilities to learn are slowly going to be outpaced by technology moving forward. Microsoft just announced Windows 7 Beta & I'm still trying to learn the ins & outs of WinXP. I haven't even worked on a Vista machine beyond loading WoW into Rob's laptop. I'm still using Word 2003 at work, but we've upgraded to Outlook 2007... The last time I worked on a network, it was Novell... Now everything's pretty much switched over to Windows network environments. It's intimidating to see how fast everything moves. Just a year or so ago I was hearing about dual-core processors... now it's already quad-cores. A Gig of memory seemed infinite - now I've got a Terabyte sitting on my desk.
Network Administrator ($40k - $60k) - these are the nuts 'n bolts guys. They map out how the information flows in a network & then run the cables. They set up routers & hubs & switches, troubleshoot communication problems & work off the designs laid out by the Network Engineers. Yes, the technology driving the network may advance rapidly but a hub is a hub, a switch is a switch, a router is a router & a cable is a cable.. or there may not even be any cables, in which case a WAP is a WAP.
I'm looking towards Network Admin. I need to come to some kind of decision soon unless I want to spend the next 20 years job-hopping & finally end up as a Wal-Mart greeter before I drop dead of a heart attack.
I guess I finally know what I
