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this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Around 23 I was jobless, I had no HS diploma, depressed, had recently gone through a bad breakup, and if I wasn't able to move back in with my dad, I would have been homeless.
In the span of about four months, I got my HS equivalency diploma, applied to college, got a job, then quit that job to start college. ~5 years later, and significantly in debt, I had two additional pieces of paper that said I knew things, and I went on to struggle to find work in my local area.
I work in IT, there's a ton of jobs, none of the good ones are local to me; so I'm now slowly working off my debts, at menial jobs that don't challenge me, for menial pay that doesn't nearly reflect the amount of skill and knowledge I have.
Don't go to school kids. You'll accrue debt and nobody cares.
I had the opposite experience with going back to college. Went back to college for an IT degree at the local community college that carries about two dozen different agriculture degrees and a single IT degree program with another kid on the way, graduated with a 3.5 GPA. Despite living in a rural area surrounded by farm communities I landed a very cushy job 2 weeks before graduation literally making over double what either my wife or I ever made pre-college, and was clearly about to get an offer on another position I was interviewing for that paid slightly less than this one
Same. I went back to school pretty late in the game and had just been dicking around at community college for years. I got serious about it in my late 20's, graduated when I was 30, got a job within a month out of college, had my loans paid off within like 2-4 years. I'm making more money than I've ever made in my life and probably earning more than my parents ever did. It was quite possibly the best decision I've ever made in my life. A lot of it was probably just pure luck, but it worked out well for me.
Oh absolutely good luck brought the opportunities that have been presented to me but good decision making and a good attitude allowed me to seize the opportunities I've seized and bad attitude plus bad decision making caused me to squander the opportunities that were presented to me but ultimately shook their heads at me and left. I get the feeling that commenter above me may be doing the latter right now.
Unfortunately, my college didn't hand it degrees. So I have certificates from the institution I attended. I feel like I need to go back for a full degree. My country (Canada) doesn't really hand out degrees at colleges. That's reserved for universities. This has recently been changing and an IT degree program now exists (most universities focused on science, maths, engineering, medical, etc, for their degree programs... Most didn't have an IT focused degree when I attended college).
I have two diplomas, one in business, one in networking, both from the same local college, neither has landed me a coushy job, and I've never been approached about any well paying remote work. I'm still struggling to even come close to six figures (CAD) which is around $75k USD. I graduated and made less than $40k/yr USD, and I've worked my way up to ~55k/yr USD over ~10 years doing IT. (Full time working minimum wage here is around ~35k/yr CAD or ~27k/yr USD).
In this way, I see my diplomas as little more than wall decoration. Finding IT positions locally in Canada, the past range is typically well below 75k/yr USD, and to get any higher than that, the positions are generally managerial, which I don't want to do. I spent enough time in my business courses that I know I'll ill suited for such work.
Most job postings I've seen either require me to be on site (especially impossible for me, especially for US based businesses, because I have obligations here at home that I cannot abandon), or if they're hiring remote, they're only hiring US citizens for remote work, which I am not (no visa work available, and most postings I've seen are for companies with no presence in Canada).... So I think it's a combination of me being Canadian, and my college only handing out diplomas, that I've gotten so screwed by my experience. Either I commute for hours a day to the nearest large city, something that is extremely unappealing to me, or I work something more local with significant compromise (mainly to wages), or I have to change my vocation.
Remote work is basically a myth for me at this point; same with getting paid fairly for what I know, and since I've worked for MSPs, generally as the expert in everything, I know a lot; from Windows, to Linux, networking (which is my focus), and beyond... I could spend all day listing the skills I have. My LinkedIn profile won't actually allow me to put more skills on my profile because I have too many.
I have been chronically underpaid, and it bothers me.