Career Change

Society Business and Career
1

I have a BA in psychology with no real experience with computers, except the regular internet surfing, office 2000 etc etc.

How would a person like me jump into the IT field. I have a friend who did his BA in psychology with me and then went and got an MCSE, he is working for the stock exchange. I have seen alot of my classmates take the same route. My question to the head huncho here (Fraudia bro

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) and others is what is the best way to change careers.

Friends have suggested picking random computer courses at a community college to doing an MCSE. Others have flatly told me with my poor math skills I am not IT material.

sooooooo, what do I do???

2

dont do an MCSE, I would suggest getting into Ariba or i2 type of stuff. That has room for growth. MCSE, CNA etc etc is just not what it used to be.

Depending on what city you are in..Fel if you are back in your city, there are tons of institutes that offer training and some offer placement as well and some barely teach you anything, so you have to be careful.

If you are interested in e-commerce stuff, there are numerous institutes offering training, I know that your alma mater has a good e-commerce certificate program as well.

The sunday paper of your city has a "tech calendar" section which shows training classes going on all over the city and costs etc.

3

Fraudz,

Thanks for the quick reply, unfortunately I am stuck in the windy city for the winter. As much as I would like to escape to sunny Florida, i'll have to stick out this winter.

Do you know of a good institute, which has a good placement rate. How's Devry?

And i have seen the sunday paper with the tech classes, but every thing seems so confusing, I mean is it better to go through an institue or randomly pick classes?

4

I think i already gave you some of the info, but Fraudia should be able to help you a bit more cause he lives in your city. As he mentioned, MSCE is kinda something of the past, and for a career change a start would be to do MSCD’s instead and later on if you have the time and the money and do want to move on an MBA/MIS combo from a good school is EXTREMELY attractive for employers. Also it means that you would be able to work beyond your mid-40s in the computer industry.

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.

Whatever program or school you go to try and make sure of the following

  1. they are relatively close by (there is nothing harder then to drive 2 hours to a place for 1 hour class after work)
  2. they are flexible about schedules (that is they offer the class more then once in case you cant make it at a particualr time – this is more likely in a small school setting then in large name institue).
  3. you always remember why you want to do this (It can get very discouraging very very soon as you have too much to do in too little a time).
  4. They offer a project at the end of the class. This will give a chance to build on what you have learnt and apply it using your creative energies> in a way it will show you if you like what you are learning and how comfortable you are at it.

other things to consider:
You might want into looking at how you could combine your BA with computer skills. i believe Fraudia mentioned that there is national computerization of all the medical databases so that might be helpful.
There are also bound to be a lot of other things that you can apply your earlier degree to. That way it would help your chances of getting a job and also not make you feel like you wasted your time doing your BA.

As far as math skills go… those are good to have but not essential.. it has more to do with how logical is your thinking (or how logical can you make it?) and if you are ok sitting in front of a compuer screen for the whole day and not doing much else

you know pretty seen the US is going to need the help of your likes, cause the amount of real intereaction people do now a days is decreasing so quickly with the advent of all the IT stuff like emails.

PS: How did Fraudia become Head Huncho

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??? was there a poll that I missed heheheheh.

5

hmcq was, is and will always be the head honcho of careers. assi tay maali aaan.

Fel

get the tribune from yesterday. Both Loyola and UIC have certificate programs in web development, e-commerce etc etc.

If you dont have access to it let me know, I saved the education section in case you need it.

I would suggest get one of those certificate programs done, leverage that to get your foot in the door and then after a couple of years of experience go to a grad school or keep grad school going part time on the side.

From a career planning and longevity perspective a grad degree is pretty important.

And you non business background should not be an issue. I am interviewing people from Kellogg/Northwestern for my group. Currently the school is rather #2 in the country for business but there is a good number of ppl who have undergraduate degrees in liberal arts or even engineering.

6

Dear Felicity, if you are not confused already then let me add my two cents to make sure you are bewildered. I have a few questions before I give BoSS' "free" mashwara...

1) Why do you want to change careers...is it money? is it boredom? is it hain...?
2) Why go with IT and why not flower making or any other field for that matter...
3) If Psychology is your love then why am I wasting time here..kidding! I mean you should be finding jobs related to it..or you have dumped psychology and wanna find a new love...

Anyway back to suggestions....Nowadays we have mcse, mcsd, abcd and fobs in the market...With all these choices there is a risk of getting confused and choosing a field which might not be the right one for you. No! I'm not suggesting that u do nothing but just analyzing things to give you a clearer picture.
As I'm not aware of the answers I have asked above therefore I may suggest something which might not be what you would wanna do. Oh well here it is anyways...if I were you I would probably try to find a job in a human resource department of a technical oriented company. It would help me get my feet wet, get a feel of 'technology world' and narrow down my area of interest in the vast field of computers....

ciao
BoSS

7

Hi Fel. Nice to see you....

I'm gonna side with BoSS on this one and suggest that you clearly identify the "why" behind your desire to change careers. From what I can remember, you have excellent aptitude for psychology and I think you enjoy it too. You must have, otherwise you wouldn't have taken it in school.

Whatever you do, as everyone has already said....don't fall into the MCSE trap. There are way too many of them out there. If you are serious about getting into IT head for something more intense....follow Fraud's advice or do some more research yourself into what discipline requires what skill set. Then decide.

Good Luck.

8

Thanks to all of you for your valuable advice.

Hmcq,
As per your advice I am trying to find ways into integrating my psychology degree with computers. Thanks for your ongoing online help

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Fraudz,
I did call up the UIC business dept and had a chat with a girl who also got her degree in psychology and has her e-commerce certificate. She is currently pursuing her MBA at UIC. She did tell me that it was a great program, so I am looking into it. The loyola program is good too and offers credit for an MBA. You are right about the grad degree it is essential, I guess i’ll start seriously looking into some programs.
Hey, btw did Dj artie come up with a name for his show? I am too lazy to email.
Say Hi to him

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Boss

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Thanks for confusing me

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, it didnt work. Btw I am a part time cook, maid, teenage-sitter, Auntie and uncle entertainer. So you see I have many careers. I am not essentially giving up psychology, just shifting gears a bit and it is for various reasons. Psychology is my first love and obviously you grow with things you dont give up things. As for your HR advice, i’ll look into that. One of my friends that works for HR is stuck in boring positions with no growth and she is looking for other things too.

Muzna,
Nice to see you too

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You see people confuse psychology as a narrow field, which it’s not. I mean doctor’s take up psychology as their undergrad degrees, so do lawyers, MBA’s and even people in the Tech field now days. My friend is doing her Masters in Human Psychology and technical interaction. But she has a business degree.

I guess it was my Mistake

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my topic should have been how to integrate computers with your current degree.

9

Fel

Loyola MBA program is better than UIC MBA from what I hear. The certificate I dunno much about, the UIC certificate program was created by a friend so ahah i should not be dissing it, but Loyola program may be slightly better. I think price wise UIC is better, plus you know the ins and outs of UIC anyways.

Artie's show is called Dj Dervish's Global Warming. Its on wednesday evenings and is netcast as well. I will email you the url, feel free to call him when he is on the air and bug him. I intend to do that some week.