Further certification or return to college

voicemail1612

Hi,

I'm looking for a bit of career guidance, my mind is a for loop at this stage!

I'm 33 years old, started late in IT just over 3 years ago, after moving on from a completely unrelated field.

I've no college education. I started with A+ to get a Level 1 Helpdesk position via JobsBridge, followed by N+ shortly after. Have 2 of 3 exams passed for the MCSA, which I should have complete by end of June.

At the start of this year I moved from Level 1 to Level 2 Helpdesk, where I am currently. Also signed permanent, 35k. Level 2 is really as far as I can go in this company, as we outsource Level 3+ and all vendor specific support, and that's unlikely to change in the future. So there is a definite career/pay ceiling there.

In saying that, they are great for paying for certification and pushing us to further educate. There is somewhat of an opening in our small IT department for somebody with decent LAN/WAN knowledge. I'm quite interested in this field too, and they've made it clear that they'd be very happy for me to fill this position. It would essentially be Level 2 Helpdesk with a leaning towards maintaining our LAN/WAN.

So I'm fairly set on going for the CCNA starting in June.

However, beyond that I want to increase my prospects for moving up the pay scale, whether with my current company or without. So my question:

At my age and current position, should I be looking to get back to college part-time to do a degree? Or should I forget about college at this stage, and continue pursuing certification in a focused area?

My fear is that not having a degree is going to come back to bite me if I move on from my current employer. On the flip side, I could complete some serious certificates in the years it would take me to get a degree.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Eire Go Brach

I'm in a similar position to you. Although older 😜
Also been curious about your question myself. I always imagined earning the big wages you would need a degree. Managment etc. But from what I have seen lately it's do able without to.
College for programming. Certs for hardware. That's been my way of thinking.
Slightly of topic. But how long working in IT did it take you to get 35k? What's your MCSA in?

axer

Lack of college may hold you back from management positions if that's where you might want to go. It can limit choices for jobs too but IT is more forgiving than other industries. Long term, a degree is a good idea but your short term will suffer as you will be seriously reduced in your ability to do certs for 4 years. It's a case of whether you could stick where you are for 4 years while you do a degree. Might be harder to do a degree later in life. Then with ccna and mcsa/e etc you'd be in a strong position. 4 years fly by but definitely takes over your life when doing it part time.

Musicman2000

I definitely wouldn't be doing a degree, Keep getting all the certs you can especially the MSCA and Cisco. You have good experience . A degree wont benefit you in my opinion , thats if you want to move onto a level 3 position .

Its all about the experience and certs.

Cuddlesworth

35k in three years with a job that gives actual training isn't bad.

If I were in your position, I would get the CCNA,change my job title on Linkedin and then get a CCNP. Take onboard more of the networking work within your current job and then look for work elsewhere as a base netOP's person. 45-50k should be achievable, with a decent career path.

The CCNA and the CCNP are very focused on current networking and are very relevant to actually working in the field. A degree would be awesome to have but none of them are focused in the same way and experience simply trumps the piece of paper. And networking gets damm complicated at the high levels, to the point where a degree means very little. I say this as a senior networking person who would love a degree to get past some HR hurdles.