The short detail here is I'm saying: "Go to college!"

Read on if you like.

I had written some follow on thoughts after Jjanel's comment about military, discussing that as well as college. But never hit submit.

For what it's worth, here are those thoughts.

I do realize that you feel the benefits are not worth the costs.

The military is a good experience. Not technically because you would be in a very guided and specific set of tasks for any given role and always be limited to that exact role. Of greater good would be (1) the life experience taught to someone, going through that the military in seeing both the good and bad sides of it, and (2) the potential college tuition benefits one could receive if they were able to sign under a beneficial enlistment agreement. I am speaking from the first-hand experience of having been in the military by the way.

Regarding certifications, many have said that having alphabet soup in certs is not going to get you much. Better for you than certifications would be experience and knowledge which you could relate or demonstrate. I agree with those statements.

As far as college goes, this is a concern because you are potentially considering a field where college degrees are considered the norm. If you don't have a degree, there are 'possibly' issues related to salary and hiring.

These are my opinions, but also based on work experience with small companies, very large companies, and having been self-employed. Also having dealt with the Internet bubble rising and bursting over the years with recession or the start-up craze.

You don't have a degree, some places aren't going to want to talk to you. In return you may not wish to talk to them, I'm of the opinion that you can be as stodgy as you want with your personal opinions back towards them. But the two real problems are that they may not be interested in speaking to you without a degree, but they may have a job which you can do, as well as want or need.

You don't have a degree, this matters for computing a salary. I can surely tell you that a lack of degree has interfered with a hiring decision in companies large enough where HR has a say. And it clearly has impact on the salary people will offer you, versus if they offer you a salary, an hourly rate, or decide to hire you as a temp over an employee arrangement.

You don't have a degree, and you work largely with people who do, they'll notice, it may not heed you well. Once again, self experience. I have literally seen people who were pretenders and it did not always work out well for them. I have also seen those who were in a fortunate situation, they knew it, knew their status could potentially cost them, and they continued to quietly work and typically things have worked out for them. As I said two sentences ago about pretenders, they were the "loud" persons who didn't have degrees and flaunted it. Well ... thanks for pointing that out, your name is M.U.D.D. for when there's a massive layoff and everybody's resume is circulated to all of our peers. They were also very few, their stories seem to stick out, because the obvious bad outcome did occur, however much or little respect we may have had for those persons. They're not all bad, but my point is that when push comes to shove, your best friend will speak to an employer and may literally say, "You want to hire, John? But he doesn't have a degree, 'I' do ... so what do you want to do?"

I know you may think that's a horrifically bad way for a hiring company to make a decision, but I can tell you that they will. I've been in the hiring loop and literally seen candidates discarded for something like this because you cannot justify giving that person a certain level of job when you have ## of other people at that same level, or lower, and run the risk that you put a non-credentialed person in a role equal to or above others who do have credentials.

I have always worked in R&D, and not saying it is any more special than any other discipline. My experience is that people I've always worked with have degrees. Those who don't are usually technicians. Not meant to be harsh, just truthful.

2 members found this post helpful.

@Sundialsvcs I understand but I want to as an effective employee as possible before I get into the job.. The cool thing is employers actually say "don't worry if you don't know something, we will train you along the way".. And that "personality is more important than actual skills".. Which kinda gives me the impression though that, that's why most companies' security is terrible/vulnerable. But IDK that's just my opinion I could very well be wrong..

@Sefyir Thanks for all the good advice dude, I prefer the LEMP stack and will recommend it to any potential boss if it was up to me.. As for Python, I do want to learn it but I think Perl may be more of a priority in this field, and even Ruby as automation frameworks such as Chef and Puppet are written in it.. The best argument that I heard for python in a system administration environment is that scripts written in it are easier to maintain, which ofciourse has it obvious benefits (saves you lost of hassle when you need to modify it).. And I'm just learning Bash cause it's everywhere like vi..

@Rtmistler Thanks for your input on the matter, but you know my mom used to tell me? "Life is like a box chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." And the world is a pretty big box of chocolates.. Basically im not too worried, im a determined self-driven upcoming IT professional. It's a dog eat dog world and I realize that, but that's why I plan ahead of time. And i'll demonstrate to any would be employer that I can do things better than anyone, even people with degrees.. Plus I have a plan B, web development.. Im not going to waste four years of my life just to make somebody "feel better", if I do it it's because it's a darn good college, like MIT.. But that's just my 2 cents, and in all honesty I really do appreciate your advice it is something to think about, thank you.

IF you fix this, Mint willmight hire you (as a $0 volunteer)

For ethical reasons, I won't mention (fake) colleges that give you a BS degree for $50

p.s. I tried emailing you thru LQ (some project ideas) a couple days ago, but maybe it went into your spam box.
p.p.s. IF you use SD county (vs city) library, WE can share books via Link+