Careers that don't need much math/coding skills

B

bubbles

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 16, 2005
Messages
180
This is slightly long winded but if you have 3 mins to spare I would really appreciate if you throw some opinions my way...:)

I recently became unemployed. I am really starting to feel down and depressed. I have no college or certs but I have about 8 years experience with random IT stuff. I've been racking my brain over what to do with myself career wise. I'm debt free and have about $100k in assets which I can make available for an education. Everyone says get a 4 year Bachelor's degree.

Truthfully I hate acedemic work and I absolutely HATE programming and math. I dropped out of a CS degree when I was 18. Now I'm 26. I have a wife and kid to support now. I never wanted to get "locked" into an IT career so I never got any certs and just loafed around. I would actually like to do Physical Therapy or someting outdoors or hand-ons but it's very competetive to get into PT school. They only have 70 slots a year in my State. Plus after 7 years of school you only make around $60k. As you can tell I'm not the most ambitious guy.

I'm thinking the network/server side of things may be good for me such as a UNIX admin. I'm not sure exactly what they do however. I'm already very familiar with Linux as a hobby. I'd like a job that's pretty easy and laid back, essentially just monitoring a network, troubleshooting, editing config files, making things effecient. Programming wise: minor bash scripting at the most.

Anyway what's a good route to get into that kind of job. I'd be satisfied with 40-50k a year out here in the midwest as long as I have low-stress and free time.

Any guidance appreciated.
 
A Helpdesk or intro-level NOC Tech might fit your level of ambition, but still allow for a possible upward path. Especially if you are willing to work odd-hours (late shift, etc).

UNIX admins, almost by defination, need to be able to write semi-complex scripts (very good with bash/sed/awk/cut/etc or mid-level Perl skills). Having hands-on experience with Linux may help you get in the door someplace, especially at a Unix/Linux-based ISP.

And my personal opinion is that 4-yr degrees in IT are for coders.
 
The IT field is competitive and requires people who are motivated especially since many base level helpdesk jobs are bing outsourced to China and India. I recomend that if you want an IT job look at small buisness in your local area that are only 9-5. You will have to be a jack of all trades. Server/networking and your own helpdesk. You will have to deal with people on a day to day basis.

when I first read this I wanted to flame you but I'll try and help as nicely as I can.

You need an attitude adjustment your post is about what you do not want to do rather than what you can do. focus on your strengths and believe in you ability. Repost with what you are good at.
 
Re-reading my post I can see it doesn't come off in the best light. I'm just a little burned out at this stage and have some resentment against the whole game if you know what I mean.

I worked for 5 years after high-school self-employed fixing PCs and doing random jobs for people. The next 2-3 years were spent at a e-recycling business working on anything and everything. I wired up the network, patch panels etc. in the warehouse. I listed stuff on ebay, I fixed their desktops, I answered emails, I printed barcodes. I did asset tracking and wrote ASP to generate reports. I reset cisco switches, wiped HDDs, degaussed stuff, diagnosed/repaired PCs, laptops, PDAs and servers, reset RAID arrays on every kind of server, tested projectors, switches, printers, copiers, scanners, faxes, routers, storage arrays, fibre cards, scsi cards, APCs, KVMs. I tested, reset and wiped Sun servers/workstations. It was an extremely dirty and back breaking enviroment and my lungs/joints finally had enough so I left.

I also spent some time building some very big storage servers with linux, smb, glftpd, apache, mysql.

Ideally I would just like to spend some time away from "the herd" in a quiet back office someplace working on UNIX servers and network/storage stuff, with a minimal corporate bullshit quotant.

I'm willing to invest in education just not sure which roads to take.
 
I fight the urge to leave IT all the time. I'm a total thrill seeker and IT just doesn't fill that need for me. Honestly, without any certifications or a degree it will be hard for you to go anywhere.

One/Two biased suggestion I may bring up is: cop or a firefighter.

I got hired as a part time firefighter a few years back, because I got sick of the boring IT job. It's hard for me to leave my full time job to become a full time firefighter, because of the money.

Most cops and firefighters easily pull 75K+ with a ounce of overtime.

pm me if you want some more info.
 
Most cops and firefighters easily pull 75K+ with a ounce of overtime.
Click to expand...

I dunno about that. My dad was a career firefighter, and ended after 15 years with the department as a fire inspector, and was pulling down ~45-50k/year.

Things may be different in big cities; this was a small/medium city of about a 150,000.
 
Doliviss said:
I dunno about that.
Click to expand...

Well now you know about that...

http://theblueline.com/feature/ILelginff1.html


I wouldn't jerk this guy's chain about the potential salary. Common sense tells you salaries vary from place to place, just like with any job.

For the record, a fire inspector always makes less then firefighters. They are typically in a different union then the firefighters with different benefits.
 
Doliviss said:
I dunno about that. My dad was a career firefighter, and ended after 15 years with the department as a fire inspector, and was pulling down ~45-50k/year.
Click to expand...
JayAre is right; Traffic cops can usually pull in 100k in even small towns; There just aren't enough of them to go around, so if you want OT you've got it. Firefighters are not so bad ( at least around here ), but they still do 60k without breaking a sweat.

You should see interview day around here when they post an opening for firefighters. The lobby is filled with about 50 hopefuls throughout the day. All for a single position.
 
bubbles said:
Anyway what's a good route to get into that kind of job. I'd be satisfied with 40-50k a year out here in the midwest as long as I have low-stress and free time.
Click to expand...
Government IT. It might be hard to get a top paying position without a college degree but you should be able to get a entry to mid-level position with the amount of experience you have, just be sure that your resume (and yourself) are presentable.

Check out the following site: http://www.usajobs.gov/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top