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Sentry
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Hello there H/A, been a while since I bored you with my petty problems, but here you go...
I currently serve as an Academic Advisor at a large public university in a large metropolitan area. It has recently come through the grapevine that the new provost is going to be radically redesigning the advising position and will be looking to replace the current academic advisors, likely with hourly employees. This process will probably take about a year, maybe longer, so I figure I have that long to build up some marketable skills! The nice thing is, I can essentially take classes for free. I've been using that to take art and design courses, Photoshop, some web design. I've really enjoyed them all. But now I need some focus. I have a year to gain both skills and experience that will make me marketable. I've got free time, and I'm signed up for several courses for Summer and Fall, including game design (mostly for any coding experience it might give me) as well as Intro to Java in the fall.
My question for you H/A is what should I be focused on learning and, while learning, how can I get some actual experience? I honestly have no idea how the IT field works... I've worked in college administration for like, ten years. But I'm an eager learner with something to prove! I also have like, a week left on my Treehouse trial.
I currently serve as an Academic Advisor at a large public university in a large metropolitan area. It has recently come through the grapevine that the new provost is going to be radically redesigning the advising position and will be looking to replace the current academic advisors, likely with hourly employees. This process will probably take about a year, maybe longer, so I figure I have that long to build up some marketable skills! The nice thing is, I can essentially take classes for free. I've been using that to take art and design courses, Photoshop, some web design. I've really enjoyed them all. But now I need some focus. I have a year to gain both skills and experience that will make me marketable. I've got free time, and I'm signed up for several courses for Summer and Fall, including game design (mostly for any coding experience it might give me) as well as Intro to Java in the fall.
My question for you H/A is what should I be focused on learning and, while learning, how can I get some actual experience? I honestly have no idea how the IT field works... I've worked in college administration for like, ten years. But I'm an eager learner with something to prove! I also have like, a week left on my Treehouse trial.
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When I was a little kid, I always pretended I was the hero,' Skip said.
'Fuck yeah, me too. What little kid ever pretended to be part of the lynch-mob?'
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Game design is almost guaranteed to be a waste of your time.
It's like saying I like cars, I should do that. Well how? Work at a Car Wash? Work as a mechanic? Work as a taxi/limo driver? Work on a factory line? Work as custom fabricator? Work as a designer for Ford of the new 2016/2017/2018 models? Every one has a completly different skill set and completly different levels of schooling.
Following @Cog 's question, what do you want to do? We should be able to point you in the right direction but working at a Help desk / Sys Admin is very different then coding the new version of Windows 9.
I work in the same field (STEM Academic Advisor). The best thing you can do to remain marketable in this type of field is:
1) Publish or present at a NACADA conference
2) Gain a personality theory certification (Meyers-Briggs or Strong Interest are the most common used in my region)
3) Gain the Career Advisement credential. This will ensure your place in the US Public Education system more than any other as it is the most needed advising with our current assessment goals at most state and federal levels.
4) Get on your university's Student Conduct Board. It looks great on a resume and a lot of smaller schools merge the two types of advising.
Good luck, man! Its a hard field to be in right now with the career-focus crunch these days.
Right now I'm in a program combining Art and Engineering, with the focus being on interaction and experiential media. I'm loving the program, though I really just started it. The thing I've enjoyed most with regards to web design was learning jquery, the problem solving involved with coding I actually found very rewarding. The thing I find most exciting about the program I'm in now is using coding with various input methods to develop different experiences. The problem is, I'm completely new to ALL of it. I have no experience with coding outside of jquery, I have no experience with eletronics or sensors outside of the Arduino kit I bought and am working my way through, The program I'm in now will help me develop all those skills, but I'm worried my job will disappear before that happens. So I'm trying to see what I can learn on my own/focus on, while I'm still gainfully employed.
@Enc yeah, universities, at least mine, is adopting a University of Phoenix model of student engagement, apparently not seeing how abysmal UoP's retention or graduation numbers are. Regardless, I'm trying to see this as a chance to get out of this field completely if possible, although that might just be wishful thinking.
Even though you say you want out of academia, you may want to look at tech related jobs within the same system if you have credit towards any kind of retirement benefits.
As far as experience goes, I would try to involve myself as much as possible with school related events. Contests, volunteer projects, that sort of thing. Any way to network and/or do something that you can put on a resume.
Honestly, tech related fields can be a young person's game. By the time you finish out school and get four years of work experience, you are going to be at a point when a lot of people are already hanging it up.