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**Please no virtue-signalling, sarcasm, or finger-pointing**
Can you help me make a wise career decision based on the following factors? Which pathway would make more sense, financially?
37 year old. Been substitute teaching for past 3 years. Prior to substitute teaching I was a buyer for about 4 years making about $50,000 a year. I have an MBA and about $100,000 in student loan debt. I am looking for advice between two options.
High school teacher. $28/hour to start (based on days worked over a school year). $37/hour career midpoint. Late career hourly rate is also $37/hr.
Pros: pension, summers off, teacher student loan forgiveness after 10 years on an income-based repayment plan, then loans are forgiven. Cons include low pay. I might need to get a master's in education at some point if I want to increase salary.
This is what you're qualified for. Your current background is basically signaling this to be in. You got experience so you are qualified for this path.
Quote:
Information security analyst. I would have to get certs and start from the ground up in a lower-level IT position; certs are fairly cheap though. $28 to start. $49/hr mid-career. $60/hr late-career rate. Pros: higher pay. Cons: on an income-based repayment plan loans would not be forgiven until 20 years have passed (if I do not have student loans paid off earlier). Possible age discrimination.
Entry level Cybersecurity positions require that you have experience in cybersecurity. If you don't have one, you will not get this job, regardless how many certs you get, how much education you get.
You cannot just take classes, get certs, and bam, you got a job lined up.
This is what you're qualified for. Your current background is basically signaling this to be in. You got experience so you are qualified for this path.
Entry level Cybersecurity positions require that you have experience in cybersecurity. If you don't have one, you will not get this job, regardless how many certs you get, how much education you get.
You cannot just take classes, get certs, and bam, you got a job lined up.
I suppose I would have to start at a $14/hr helpdesk job or something. This route seems to hard at my age.
My first job outside of college was B2B sales. I hate cold-calling and rejection. It seems like being a realtor is more marketing and relationship building (no cold-calling). Still, according the the NAR website, the median income is only $40,000 for a realtor working 40 hours a week. Which is pretty sad when you consider that they have to pay for the our healthcare, no job-sponsored 401k, etc. Then again, the top 5-10% make 80% of the money.
Take the teaching job then moonlight in real estate, not as a real estate agent but as someone who spots and puts together deals on section 8 housing for well capitalized local people. The idea is you do not put any money into the deal, but structure it; your payment is a minor share. No risk at all to you, the upside is limited to your ability to structure deals and find local participants.
A teacher friend of mine worked in NY every summer as a steeplejack. I know one that has a roofing company and another with a painting company that occupies them in the summers. They usually take every second or third summer off and travel.
Like gardening, work the farmers market. Grow melons or corn. Start an orchard (FYI I have done all of these).
Get a truck and sell ice cream in the summer.
Run a college prep academy or foreign language camp.
Whatever.
The point is, this is the bloody US of A. Opportunity is everywhere; I cannot walk outside my door without tripping over opportunity. Enjoy life, do things. Men create things, build stuff, do stuff, be great.
Take the teaching job then moonlight in real estate, not as a real estate agent but as someone who spots and puts together deals on section 8 housing for well capitalized local people. The idea is you do not put any money into the deal, but structure it; your payment is a minor share. No risk at all to you, the upside is limited to your ability to structure deals and find local participants.
.
Never heard about that before. I will have to look into it.
I suppose I would have to start at a $14/hr helpdesk job or something. This route seems to hard at my age.
Generally the helpdesk positions require experience. But if you manage to get into one without experience, the helpdesk experience does not count for experience for Cybersecurity. Employers generally do not accept transferable skills here. Cybersecurity employers want cybersecurity experience, and that means "job title."
IT helpdesk: BZZZZZZZZZT
Business Analyst: BZZZZZZZZZT
Security Analyst: DING! DING!
Software developer: BZZZZZZZZZT
IT Security Analyst DING! DING!
Quality Assurance Analyst: BZZZZZZZZZT
Ethical Hacker: DING! DING!
Unfortunately, those job titles with green bells results require similar job titles as experience, you can't get them with general IT experience like the red buzzers.
As a sub, for about 1 hour a day I do nothing because I have a prep time. Plus a 30 minute lunch. So I take it that if you could do it all over again, you would prefer being a teacher over being a software developer, even though you would make much less?
Looking back over my career, I would still rather have been a software developer than a regular, certified teacher. I was paid a lot as a software developer and I liked being a techie. I liked the money too much and the prestige of being a software developer, despite the awfully stressful jobs that I had.
There was also a certain situation in a personal family matter that drove me to succeed. There were certain relatives that claimed when I was a teenager that I would never amount to anything. That prognosis was made simply because I was shy and didn't have many friends. So I proved these relatives wrong by being a success. It wasn't that I had to work any harder to prove it, I just did it. Their merriment at my expected failures turned to surprise, then shock, then anger, and then rage when I surpassed all of their accomplishments and became smug with them myself. It is a source of neverending joy for me to have been a success and never falling on my face in failure in this matter.
However, times are now different. It is harder to get into the IT field nowadays compared to 1980 when I started. IT work is not as glamorous as it used to be since it is now everywhere with casts of thousands. It seems to be evolving from a white collar to a pink collar profession and is increasingly unstable with more outsourcing, more age discrimination, more metrics to adhere to, and more aggressive labor cost containment by many companies.
So if all of a sudden, today, I turned into an 18 year old just entering college, I would go the teaching route. After graduating, I would seek out teaching positions in states that have severe teaching shortages like Arizona and Oklahoma. The pay would be low, but I would have better job security, less stress, less thinking, and less pressure than in an IT job.
**Please no virtue-signalling, sarcasm, or finger-pointing**
Can you help me make a wise career decision based on the following factors? Which pathway would make more sense, financially?
37 year old. Been substitute teaching for past 3 years. Prior to substitute teaching I was a buyer for about 4 years making about $50,000 a year. I have an MBA and about $100,000 in student loan debt. I am looking for advice between two options.
High school teacher. $28/hour to start (based on days worked over a school year). $37/hour career midpoint. Late career hourly rate is also $37/hr.
Pros: pension, summers off, teacher student loan forgiveness after 10 years on an income-based repayment plan, then loans are forgiven. Cons include low pay. I might need to get a master's in education at some point if I want to increase salary.
Information security analyst. I would have to get certs and start from the ground up in a lower-level IT position; certs are fairly cheap though. $28 to start. $49/hr mid-career. $60/hr late-career rate. Pros: higher pay. Cons: on an income-based repayment plan loans would not be forgiven until 20 years have passed (if I do not have student loans paid off earlier). Possible age discrimination.
I know many people who teach. The ones who are exceptional at it, say "it was a calling". Do you feel that way about teaching? If you don't, then you would be wise to look elsewhere. No one gets into teaching for the money.
What is your MBA in? When and why did you get it? Your answer might help better define your best options.
As for a ISA, there is more to any certification than just getting the certification. They look for actual work experience in that area and be able to handle a team interview of people asking you questions. You need to have a conversation with a hiring manager who would tell you, based on your resume if you had a ISA cert would you be hired and what is the career path.
Unfortunately, those job titles with green bells results require similar job titles as experience, you can't get them with general IT experience like the red buzzers.
I think there are many companies pushing to sell people courses to get certifications as if simply having that all by itself will land them a job. I don't like to see people get their hopes up for something when they don't have all the facts.
I suppose I would have to start at a $14/hr helpdesk job or something. This route seems to hard at my age.
This route IS hard and fraught with too much uncertainty. Not saying it's impossible, but you are competing in a volatile, global, and youth-centric profession at a relatively advanced age.
Do the teaching gig.. it's a bed of feathers by comparison and comes with way more job security. And do RE in summer, it may exceed your expectations or not.. but find out.
I worked in IT from the age of 20 starting with IBM after college before there were any degrees in the field, until I retired 39 years later in 2008. I LOVED working as programmer, analyst, and systems designer.
The $$ was great but the stress at the end of three corporate mergers was unreal so I asked to be riffed and it turned out fine.
But, WOW what a ride!
Good luck young man.
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