Most of you who talk to me regularly know that I did a semester worth of automotive technology study at my local community college. My plan was to complete that with an associates degree and then move into a 4-year school for automotive engineering.

Well I nixed that plan for several reasons. The two biggest reasons being that I honestly began to hate working on cars the more and more I did it, and I couldn't do something for the rest of my life that I hate. The second thing was money...Kettering University which is one of the ONLY recognized schools through my local community college, was $38,000 a year. I didn't feel like having $150,000 worth of debt over my head upon graduating. And there's other various reasons I decided against this as well.

Fast forward, I'm signing up for something completely different. I'm looking to do something in computer science. No particular focus yet, but probably something along the line of a system networking engineer. I've always loved computers, and although I used to be more up to date on them than I am now, I am sure a few refresher courses and some certifications won't kill me.

Ironically I'm taking the classes through the same school I went to for auto tech, but at a different branch a few cities over. Here's what my Fall of '04 class schedule looks like:

College Composition
Introduction to Business
Introduction to Sociology
Introduction to Computers
College Success Strategies

Pretty basic stuff to start. 2nd semester we dive into PC User Support, Administering Windows, Web Site design, etc. and it's also recommended that somewhere in between I get a good grip on C++, Java, etc. So where I will get those certifications is yet to be known.

After the associates degree, there's plenty of schools around here (major universities) that offer a bachelors degree in computer science and other related fields that I should be able to get into to complete my studies if all goes well in the next two years.

Anyway, I don't know the point of this post, but I'm sort of excited and am glad I'm getting out my hellish circle of going nowhere. :happysad:

 

youre diving into a competitive field. hope youre good, or at least love what you are going to be doing. :happysad:

 

Well when I like something, I go 110% into it and end up doing extremely well. I went into the automotive study simply because I like automobiles but really had no idea what I wanted to do.

A lot of my buddies are doing computer related careers (buddy at VT is doing Computer Programming, another is training for IT at another community college) and it made me realize that I should probably look into it.

 

well i guess the only way to find out is to try it. good luck. be sure to take an animated gif class, so you can stop bothering me.

 

Shawn it is good that you know what you want to do and have a plan to execute it. That is 1/2 the battle. Good luck bro :thumbup:

 

you're worse than a woman.

 

why not try to get into the video game industry? they pay very well, and they are starving for talent. if I had the computer knoweldge I'd do that. good luck in the computer field, you don't have to worry about a lack of jobs. that and those jobs usually pay very well.

 

That isn't possible...Shawn doesn't lack rational thought

 

Ahhh... Computer Science.

For this field, you'll need a lot of patience and hard work. You'll need to be better than everyone else because the field itself is very competitive. The job market is small now since everything is being done over seas. If you have hard work ethics, then you should be fine. Programming is very tedious.... good luck :goodjob:

 

Still waiting on my damn candy bar...