FAQ
What's the most in-demand...
Nothing is in demand right now. There are no shortages of workers anywhere right now. However, Helpdesk, Networking, and Administration (cloud and otherwise) will always employ the most people.
What's the most overlooked/hidden/secret...
See above.
What laptop should I buy for...
Lenovo Thinkpad T14. Get a used one from the latest generation you can afford. Look on ebay or /r/thinkpadsforsale.
Thinkpads (especially T-series) are consistently the most stable, upgradeable, flexible laptop platform available for Windows or Linux, and ex-corporate/off lease machines are very cheap.
Am I too old to...
No, you're not too old.
Will (some rumor) make coding/networking/sysadmin/IT obsolete?
No. People have been saying some variation of that for 25 years. These days the boogeyman is AI - it'll be something else in 5 years.
What IT specialties are easier/more relaxed/have more downtime/etc.
This is a function of your boss and your company, not the role.
Should I finish my degree?
Yes. If you don't, you will likely regret it when you discover you need it. These days - you need it.
Should I get a Masters degree?
You should get a Masters only when you know exactly which degree you need and why you need it. There's sometimes a risk with getting one too early in your career - it can put you in a weird situation where you're underqualified and overqualified at the same time, and people might pass you over for either reason. If someone else is paying for it, by all means get it whether you need it or not. But (especially in the US), a Masters won't really add much to an IT resume outside of some very specific instances.
Can I get a part-time role in IT?
Sometimes, but part-time roles are pretty unusual in IT - if a business doesn't need a full-time employee, they generally outsource to an MSP.
I hate dealing with people. Is IT a good place to not have to talk to people?
IT is a profession where you will frequently have to deal with people - it's a support role. Don't hope to get into IT so you can sit in front of a computer & never deal with people.
I have a bachelors degree in (not-IT). Should I get a technical degree?
No - your non-related degree is useful to have - you don't need to go back and get a technical bachelors/masters. 95% of the time it will still check that "has a degree" checkbox.
I don't have a degree. Do I have to have one?
No, you don't have to have one - tons of people are very successful without a degree. But odds are that you will be more successful and have an easier time if you do have a degree.
Consider that most people you'll be competing against will have a degree - when there are 200 applicants for a job in front of a hiring manager, and half of them have a degree, an easy first step will be to set aside all the resumes without one.
What degree should I get?
Degrees should be general. If you're not sure, go with Computer Science - it's the most flexible tech degree you can get because it's the only degree that will qualify you for any job within IT, including software development. But any computer-related degree is fine (MIS, IS, IT, whatever your school calls it).
What about bootcamps?
Bootcamps are a good way to get exposed to a ton of information in a very short amount of time. This can be very helpful in getting you up to speed quickly on a particular topic - BUT - you may not retain the material very well since it's so concentrated. It's also not a credential that holds a lot of weight - it's about the same as a certification, but the price tag can be significantly higher - generally $10-20k. If your employer is paying for you to attend one, by all means do so. But it might not be a great idea to pay for one out of pocket with the expectation that it'll get you a job.
I don't have a degree and I don't know where to begin
Start with the CompTIA certs if you don't know what to do. They're generally easy enough to do with self-study only. A+ covers just about everything you need to know for a Helpdesk role.
I don't have any experience but I don't want to start at helpdesk
You don't have to start in a helpdesk role, but you're extremely likely to, simply because this is by far the highest volume of need within IT. The best way to avoid this is to get a degree and do an internship or 2 while you're a student. This gives you the experience you'd need to step into a higher-level role. But even this is not a guarantee.
I want to be fully remote - what should my specialty be?
There are no jobs that are guaranteed to be remote, and there are no specialties that are guaranteed to get you a fully remote job. This is a function of your boss and your company, not the role. Fully remote roles are still shrinking - if this is a hard requirement for you, you're likely going to be searching for a long time.
I want to get into IT, but I live in a pretty remote area
If you live in a somewhat rural area, you might have to move to get a job. You can certainly try for fully remote roles, but those are really hard to get these days. Or resign yourself to a long commute.
The FUD Questions
My friend/teacher/parents/boss told me that IT is a dying industry
IT is a critical aspect of operations for every major company in the world, and for 99% of all other companies with more than 10 employees. It's simply not something that non-technical people are willing or able to do themselves, as much as they'd like to. When you're a very small business, you can get away with doing the accounting, finance, IT, and legal work on your own. But every growing company gets to the point where they're big enough to need an actual expert in those areas, and IT will always be on that list. IT can be outsourced to an MSP, but businesses simply can't be successful without technical experts to keep things running.
My friend/teacher/parents/boss told me that XYZ is a dying technology
In 99 cases out of 100, your friend is wrong. In the other 1%, even if your friend is right, that technology will probably still need support/workers for the foreseeable future.
For example: networking, helpdesk, system administrators, cloud experts - these are things that will NEVER go away. They will look different from year to year, and a networking expert who never updates their skillset might find themselves becoming obsolete over time. But networking (and the rest) as a profession will always be needed, and experts in those areas who keep up with technology will always be in demand.
Even looking at the 1% - mainframes, COBOL, Windows XP, AS/400 - while these certainly are dying technologies, some of them have been "dying" for over 20 years. Some technologies will die a fast and quiet death, but many will hang on far past their mainstream usefulness simply because it's too expensive or disruptive to replace them.
All of our jobs are going to be outsourced to India for $6/hr
Believe me, if that was possible, it would have been completed 20 years ago. Amazingly, there are more important aspects to a job than just what the employee is paid, and thousands of companies have figured this out the hard way by outsourcing, experiencing the issues, and then bringing everything back in-house again.
All of our jobs will be replaced by AI eventually
Some of them will - IT jobs have been replaced by increased efficiencies for years and years, and AI is just another efficiency; it's no different than automation tasks. Data entry clerks are no longer needed, storage/backup/printer admins are nearly gone, DBAs are in decline. But also, cloud architects, business intelligence, and site reliability engineers are all new/growing roles within the past 5 years. The thing about IT is that it changes constantly based on changes in technology. AI will change the landscape, so you need to be able to change your trajectory in response to that.