How did you climb up the ladder?

[joãocabral]

I'm 19 and currently working at a call center, I'm doing I.T and studying code and learning how to program, but, I still think there´s a long way for me to go to find a job in the area that I want, and that frustrates me because I hate my job.
I know that there´s a lot of older people on this forum, and I wanted to know how did it worked out for you, when you were close to my age and found yourself on the same situation as me. How long did it took and what important decision you made to get a better job in the area you wanted?

 

[MattWinter]

When I was your age I worked for slightly above minimum wage at a job I didn't like, so I decided to go back to school for Computer Science. I was able to move in to QA shortly after, and found a job as a software engineer before I graduated.

 

[The Duck]

I'm 19 and currently working at a call center, I'm doing I.T and studying code and learning how to program, but, I still think there´s a long way for me to go to find a job in the area that I want, and that frustrates me because I hate my job.
I know that there´s a lot of older people on this forum, and I wanted to know how did it worked out for you, when you were close to my age and found yourself on the same situation as me. How long did it took and what important decision you made to get a better job in the area you wanted?

I was in the Army at your age got drafted.
Being a Veteran I applied for government jobs and city and state jobs.
Was immediately hired by the state department.
Trained as a pipe fitter to install fire safety systems in state office buildings.
Retired now wasn't any ladder to climb just show up for work and follow orders.
Not rich by any means although have a good retirement plus 100% VA benefits.

 

[KGIII]

I enlisted in the USMC to pay for school. I'm a rare bird that did so twice. (They had issues keeping their numbers up at that time.) That was also to theoretically pay for school and then a family.

Needless to say, none of those paid for school. The GI Bill was much worse back then, but it certainly did help. I still need a variety of other jobs.

I pushed my way through grad school focusing on traffic modeling, which is what I then turned into my career. I was able to sell my business and retire, due to some 'fortunate' events. Well, fortunate for me..

This seemed worth adding to show that there's no set path to climbing the ladder. Sometimes you have to make your own ladder. Sometimes you cling to the coattails above you. Then, sometimes there's nepotism. There are as many ways to climb the ladder as you can imagine.

You'll probably have to figure out your own path.

 

[rmch]

I went to college for a computer analyst degree around your age. It was 2 years instead of the 4 year university degree. Then I started programming at an insurance company. Coding these days is a lot different than it was back then and is now very commoditized and globalized. Not to mention that AI does a half-decent job at it. Make sure you get some other skills that aren't purely technical; like people/leadership and business acumen skills.

 

[APTI]

My smart ass answer. I climbed the ladder carefully holding one of my favorite tools. made it up to the top climbing one rung at a time but at the top I had to actually go into the burning building and look for trapped people.

 

[Diputs]

I was lucky to graduate in the 90's, which was the golden era for IT. I remember people getting hired which even didn't want to go into IT, but if you said you wanted to work in IT, you just as much already did.

Now ... well, things are different. But, still not a lot of people graduate, that hasn't changed. IT has changed so much, it's crazy ..