A masters in database development - worth it?

I am sick of my current job, I should be doing a lot more than just fixing computers. I now have a little bit of spare money and wondered if investing in a masters would be worth while?

My skills are now very much jack of all trade and master of none and I need to become expert it one IT technology so I can get the £200 a day contract jobs.

I don't want to be 30 years old and still living at home driving a ten year old supermini Life is just passing by. I am sure a lot of people here have followed my progress over the past six or seven years and I feel in the past three years my life has stopped. Everyday is the same, the only thing I have achieved since setting my business is passing my driving test .

So is a masters a good idea? I have an aim by 30 I want to move out and drive a much newer car (even if I keep it for ten years :MILD

I have spent my last four years in IT support and fixing computers (too easy) and looking forward to pub each weekend but now I want more.

 

The IT industry is really fickle (particularly so at the moment), usually stating that you have to have actual experience in the role, before offering you the job. Having an MSc is a very nice thing on your CV, but I see the experience as having a higher probability of getting you into the right role.
My suggestion would be for you to try to find a grad or similar IT induction role. That way they'll train you in the right kind of disciplines and you'll learn far more useful stuff than you would on a theoretical course.

 

Then what?

Decide where it is you want to go from where you are now. Do you want to be in a programming job? An IT job? Once you've decided, put a good CV together and apply for some jobs. Find out what qualifications they want if you're not already appropriately qualified and then work toward those (I'm thinking cisco or MS more likely than an MSc).

It is not clear to me that you've tried applying to things... you're constantly on the search for more qualifications, more bits of paper, rather than actually trying to use the ones you've got.

 

Also IME ask your self if you want a place of your own or another qualification.

A new place brings its own demands....

It may also give you extra privacy.

 

I would be a little bit wary of tales of mega money, inflated salaries etc etc..

You say you now have a little bit extra, so what you are doing is not all wrong.


If it was me I would be interested in puting dosh into property.

Everyone gets hacked off with their job now and again.


(might make you fell better ..I have to pack yoghurts tonight 7 pm till 7 am)

 

Mr AmazingTrade

Honesty is always the best policy.

I do not think you have the stamina to stick at anything without changing your mind. You are indecisive and lack drive or at least that is the image you project here.

If you are making money, stick with what you are doing. I recall we mentioned a few weeks ago that you should increase your rates, again this denotes a lack of business acumen on your part, so a fast learner you ain't.

Everything is a problem to you so a new venture will just stress you out. Stick with what you are doing and push your rates up.

Regards

Mick

 

Indeed but I want to change

I am considering doing a course in CCNA but looking at the content it might be a bit easy for me since I have already studied stuff like TCP/IP and all the stuff that goes with it such as multiplexing and subnets.

I wonder if I could just self teach CCNA and then go to college to study CCNP which covers far greater depth than I already have done.

I think the Cisco qualification is more valuable than the Microsofts ones but I realise they are for different things.

 

Amazingtrade

Your best bet is to slowly incease your prices and maximise your profits.

Eventually your business will expand to the point where you can recruit some soldering iron monkey to do the leg work for you. That will generate even more profit.

The hardest part of a business is starting it up so why chuck it all in now. You could be sitting on your ass in relative comfort if you play your cards right.

Regards

Mick

 

Not sure about the sitting on your arse bit but I'm inclined to agree with the rest!

I wonder if a lot of what you need to know can be acheived through self learning, as you say?

Do you necessarily need impressive sounded courses to tell you what you want or need to know?

It sounds like you have many coustomers who like what you do that has to be worth something.

 

The CCNA course will bore you no doubt. I did it 5 years ago just for fun and nearly got 100%. I'm a bloody mechanical engineer, not an IT guy.

CCNP holds a bit of weight in the industry (or it used to).

 

yeah, I started to do a ccna - as a local college (1 or 2 year course, I forget now) - but I got bored, plus it was before I passed my driving test and it was a pain to get to...

but AT - maybe check out a local college etc for doing na ccna, msce etc...much cheaper than doing them privately...

but wther they have more clout than an MBA...I'm not really sure as the bottom line is that companies wante experience and doing an ccna / mcse is almost at the opposite end of the scale to being a database developer....

 

play street fighter 4 on the xbox 360 all day. You will not get bored.

 

Forza 3 is out in a couple of weeks too

 

AT

The money in IT is in large corporate and (increasingly) governmental contracts. These often involve the design and specification of systems tying together new services and several legacy platforms at every level from the infrastructure to the user interface. Hence, they are usually hideously complex and are a goldmine for the service companies. They to develop and sell the concept of the system to the user and then sub-contract nearly the details out to other specialists (companies and individuals).

You like IT, you like money, you want to be your own boss. Then whore yourself out as a contractor. There are some extremely good wages for particular skill sets out there, if you know where to find them (a bit like the A-team).

Two examples of consistently sought after skills over the last 8 - 10 years (in my IT non-literate experience) are:

Oracle, - Db manager
Java - development work of nearly any kind

Advantages: 1. Once you have some experience you can make very good cash, around the south east then 200 quid a day is probably at the very lower end of what you can expect. 2. You can choose when to stop and how often you have to work*. 3. You can continue to develop your professional knowledge whilst working. 4. If you don't want to have to manage people to make good money then this is for you. IT is international, these skills will work just as well overseas should you decide to go.

Disadvantages: 1. You can spend as much or more time employed as unemployed and that is bad if you don't get enough money when working. 2. Getting some experience can be hard 3. You will have to take a risk and speak to some real people. 4. You don't get a health scheme or pension, but I guess that AT PCs inc doesn't provide you that either.

Why not get in touch with some prominent IT service providers, (HP, IBM etc) and ask them what skills they look for in an employee / contractor, what they are short of now and what experience they require etc. You can then see if it is practical for you to develop these skills on your own or if you have to work for someone else to do it. You always have your business-skills to fall back on.

Alternatively, as Mick points out you could hire some labour and concentrate on growing your customer base. Why not get a couple of competent computer students from that massive Uni down the road to take on the repair work for a fixed rate less than you need to charge?

Or you could just play the play station all day, or indeed watch all of 'Saxondale' on DVD. It's surprisingly good on second watch in my opinion. Very underrated.

Good luck, and make a decision for God's sake man.


P.S. No idea about masters. The skills I am talking about are generally acquired through manufacturer delivered training I believe. The masters should be academic and not vocational. I'd recommend the latter for you. Not that I know anything.

* A bit optimistic I know

 

Thanks

I have spent the last couple of days doing what I used to before university ruined my creativity. I am developing a very simple Open Office system which allows me to automaticaly enter in details of a job and then create PDF invoices and also update my accounts spreadsheet file automaticaly. This will save me the labour intestive process of entering all this stuff into documents by hand.

Its a very simple first year A level sort of project but it is something to get me back into software development, something I have not done for years.

As for Java it was always my weak spot, I much prefered C# but even with that I hit my limits. It is now so long since I have done any proper programming that I can't even remember how to write a hello world sentance in C++! My second plan is to write a simple band management came which would be command line based. I will write this in C. I intend to write a clone of the popular 1989 PC game called Rockstar.

I am hoping that both these projects will get my brain working again and give me something to other than replace yet another poorly speced power supply or fixing silly email problems.

An HE place in the north west does masters which covers Oracle and part time over three years it will only cost me £1k a year. It seems ideal but I must decide what I want to do first. I think I am at an age where I have done all the fun stuff and now need money.

That said I shall still be dancing to the Stone Roses on Saturday night with a can of beer in hand

 

Mate the world is full of quick fixes














get someone to give you a quick kick up the ass.Mate the
world is full of quick fixes .Why not be a business man of your
own making then you can dance to your own life after all it is
the one that counts in the long run and it all goes so quick i
know i am there life waits for no one not even an Oracle.
with one grand in his hand Noel W.

 

AT, if you feel like you have lost direction then have a read about Peter Tippitt who has had several changes of direction and seems to have done all right in the IT field.

 

Hi AT

for the past 20 years I have always run my own businesses.
The things I have always done is:

1. Aim high. If you are going to do something best the very best you can at it.
2. Do something now. Ask yourself what are you good at or what do you like and see if you can turn that in to a business. Now is a good time to set up a business.
3. Don't think about the money straight away as that will come later IF you put your 150% in to it.

If you want all the riches now it's not going to happen. You will have to work for it. The IT industry is pretty much dead and it maybe a good time for you to look elsewhere.

just my 2 cents.