4grams

Once again, thank you, and apologies for the delay in my response. I was traveling this weekend and didn’t have time to really absorb your post until now.

IT degree – The degree I’m looking at is a business degree focused on IT Management. I chose this because it’s business-oriented, lets me leverage some of the experience I already have, and includes content outside my current wheelhouse that’s directly applicable to the roles I’m targeting. It also leaves a future path open if I decide to continue. My intention is to complete the IT Management degree and then evaluate whether I want to go on to an MBA or pursue more education in a different direction. The idea is to achieve something relatively quickly and stack wins so I feel like I’m making real progress. My biggest worry with jumping into something entirely new is burnout.

WGU - This is the first program I’ve really dug into, and it seems like a good fit for what I’m looking for. I understand their model, and my hope is that I can move through it fairly quickly. I’m not trying to “speedrun” it, but I do want to use my existing experience to accelerate where it makes sense. Based on my research, it still checks the most boxes. I have a full-time job, I have kids, I’m an assistant scoutmaster for my kid’s troop and so I need something that lets me learn at my own pace, in fits and bursts as I can clear time. I’ve run some financial numbers, and if I can stick to a plan, I think WGU (or a similar online, competency-based program) is still my best bet. Plus, I kind of like the idea of trying school in a different way than the traditional model, since I never had much love for traditional classroom environments.

Costs – As I said, I’ve run some numbers. I could do some prerequisites through something like Study.com, but the cost savings versus the added complexity just isn’t worth it to me. I’d rather commit to a complete program and march through it; I know myself well enough to know I need to feel like I’m “on the path.” I do have some tuition reimbursement and have reached out to HR for details, but even without that, WGU is affordable. My planning assumes a two-year target for the degree, but I’m fine if it ends up taking three.

I’m working on finding any transferable credits I might have and trying to track down my ACT scores (do 30-year-old test results even still exist?). I’m also talking with some trusted colleagues and friends who’ve been down a similar path for advice. I also personally know a career coach who is absolutely fantastic, and we’re meeting next week.

So, a plan is coming together. Thanks again for all your advice, this is good stuff and will absolutely help me on my path.

Which I always assumed was a hyperbolic stereotype based on things like the “Florida man” phenomenon.

Turns out it is a reality based description.

That’s an interesting euphemism.

This is why I’ve been so interested in local LLMs. This was always inevitable, and they know all the patterns and tricks to manipulate us… Going to be truly dystopian.

Once again, thank you so much. It means a lot coming from someone in the industry, who’s walked a similar path.

I have been making some moves. I am evaluating, but I don’t want to get stuck in analysis paralysis. I’m in the “what happens if my situation changes” stage, and right now, I still think having a degree will be a benefit.

Wait his lead over who??? That coke fueled failson is in the running??

Jebus, this is the stupidest country that has ever existed.

First of all, I can’t thank you enough for the thoughtful reply. Your experience in the first half of your reply is very valuable, and what I am hoping for in my journey.

I’m not sure this place you’re imagining exists the way you’re describing.…

I agree, it might not, but in my career, as I’ve advanced higher, I have found a new landscape to explore each time. I didn’t even get in to managing a team on purpose, I was the lead engineer on my team and my boss quit. I had no eye on the position, until the rest of my team got behind me and told both me and the company that they wanted me as their leader. It was then that I took stock of where I was going in my career and after doing that for a little while, I knew the direction I wanted to go. Despite my role turning from the day to day technical, to a more long term thinking type role, I found I enjoyed it greatly. I was able to re-shape the team to be more effective, and I made some tremendous improvements in our tech stack. Most of it didn’t come from me, it was things my team brought to me, and we worked to turn into proposals, with financial metrics and so forth. This was also where I got my first taste of Architecture, being put on the CAB, in charge of evaluating all the infrastructure requests and designs.

At the time I was sure it was the architecture and planning I enjoyed, so I accepted a position as an Architect with another company. In the end though, I realized that it wasn’t the technical work I enjoyed, it was mentoring and building a team. It felt great to be the guy who could help take the ideas that the team had, and build them into a workable business solution. I even enjoyed bringing my engineers back down to ground level; sometimes a really good idea, just isn’t workable in the current landscape. I wound up walking away from that job amicably to deal with some family health issues and now I’m stuck back in a Senior Engineer role, slowly dying of boredom.

As you get higher into management, firing people absolutely sucks. Keeping on dead weight/underperformers/overstaff instead of firing them means you are robbing your ability to give raises or advancement to the other workers you have that are really performing well. So you fire them, but it still sucks.

Wholeheartedly agree, but I’ve also done this long enough, and seen enough of the type who need to go, that I am willing to act. I have not directly fired anyone, but I have been on the hiring, managing and I have had to develop performance review practices for the engineer that I wanted to fire, but did not have the authority to do so (was a good lesson, he eventually turned around, just after far more strikes than most places would tolerate).

I don’t say any of this to discourage you. This has just been my experience. Perhaps you’ll navigate the river differently and find what you’re looking for when you advance. But seriously, you can totally get a Bachelors degree, and you don’t even need to quit your current job.

Again, thank you so much for your input. I know a degree won’t fix every problem, but at this point, working on new ones is what I’m after. I’d change careers entirely but I don’t think I have the time, so instead I want to advance and see where it takes me.

I’m in the evaluation stage, trying to make sure I can stick to it if I embark on this journey. Discussions like this help a great deal.

Living amongst these people is a baffling and frustrating experience.

Does he even know what words mean?

Some maybe, most probably not.

I’m aware, but I am not built for that. Plus, I’m so established as someone without one in the industry that such deception would be instantly discovered.

I do, I have a career goal I have been marching towards for some time but the momentum I had has stopped.

I joined the IT workforce during my generals at college, before the .com crash in the 90’s. I dropped out and have been working my way up ever since. I’ve led teams, I’ve been an architect, I’ve been a senior engineer, but I have always been after a director level role. No matter the experience though so far, the door is closed unless I have the degree.

So, I’m thinking about WGU, for an IT Management degree (maybe eventually a masters). It’s what I do every day, so I hope I can test out of a fair bit and the rest I should probably brush up on anyway.

I’m not after Fortune 500, I’ll go be a director for a balloon manufacturer or something, just a role where I can have a little of my own agency.

I’m aware, but I’m stuck where I am and can’t climb any further. So, either stop trying or try something else.

I never did but I’m now middle aged and stuck in my career without one. I’m right now planning on finding a competency based program to try to speedrun, so I can stop working on implementing others peoples broken garbage.

I love this idea. Libraries should provide free hosting for people in the community.

Im all about democratizing the internet, and im all about self hosting. Libraries could be just what we need for that.

Brilliant idea my friend.

I have always assumed that everything that I type into an LLM is guaranteed to be completely insecure, and entirely public. I would never, in a million years, put anything sensitive into an LLM, any account and password is unique.

I mean, I figure whatever I type is going to be used as training data for the next iteration, and I assume anything that goes in, is retrievable to some degree.

I just threw it on the family laptop to give it another life. So far it’s great, and I would honestly suggest it as a regular user desktop system. My kids will be fine with it, so would my mom, and any of my non-tech-savvy friends.

Personally I probably won’t switch from my beloved LMDE, but I’m also a greybeard nerd who’s set in my ways.

That’s why they are going to saddle the neckhole dude’s widow with him.

Aka the nestle phenomenon.

I have, but they wouldn’t take a fist born, nor magic beans…

I try to keep one or two near collections at all times. Makes me feel like someone cares…

This is a joke (although I am often behind on bills).