So I'm in year 10 and exams and all kinds of stuff is coming up and I need to decide what I'm going to do for my future. I'm super interested in I.T and want that to be my future career.
I can stay at school and do a tafe course (Cert 2/3 In I.T) if I'm lucky and get accepted into a Vet course. My other choice is too leave at the end of this year get a part time job in I.T (again If I'm lucky) and study and hopefully end up with two years experience In an I.T job and a certificate 3 and 4 from a Tafe by the time I would have finished school.
I live in Western Australia and I may not be the smartest kid in my year and I feel like the second option is something that I would like to pursue more but I need trusty ozbargain to help me in my situation. Thanks everyone in advance!
Edit: Thanks everyone! The help that you have given me has helped me to decide to stay in school and decide if IT Is something I would love to do forever. Special thanks to this legend for recommending The Big Picture education which is something of huge interest. Once again thanks Ozbargain community this shows we aren't all about bargains :)
I'm in Year 10 and Need to Decide My Future Any Advice Would Be Welcome.
Last edited 16/05/2018 - 09:24 by 1 other user
Poll Options
- 433Stay in school do a VET course and do general course's.
- 15Leave school at the end of this year (Year 10) Part time Study and Part time work.
Comments
As someone had said have a look at Seek ads and notice they generally also want some degree for the more high paying jobs. I think that is more lazy recruiting than anything as there are people in the industry without degrees but lots of experience (this is the key part for IT), so don't be put off.
From your comments looks like you want to work in hardware. Bit harder these days with all family computer stores gone but if they still exist look for Traineeship in local council etc.
I wouldn't leave school without so be sort of traineeship/job lined up.
Follow your heart young blood
yep my 11 year old codes on his raspberry pi ….and he doesn’t even want to go into IT ….just had an itch to create a game after he had to do coding over school holidays as daytime activity as his mother and i both work
Mate no employer is ever gonna say "why did you waste these 2 years finishing high school when you could have been getting computer building experience"
Every employer will see it as a positive that you did the hard work and saw it through to the end. At the very least, the employers will understand finishing high school is necessary to open doors and they'd make the same decision if they were you.
Haven't had a chance to thoroughly read through all the advice above - but I am a high school careers practitioner (qualified, member of Career Industry Council of Australia). I am happy to get back to you if you want to run some questions by me. I am in Victoria so won't have local knowledge of courses/institutions etc but can give you general advice/point you in the direction of general resources.
Thanks have sent a PM.
Do schools still have a program where you go tafe/school 2 days, work 3 days and get yr 11 qual? I did this for IT. It worked out really well for me 12 years ago letting me work my way up and finding the sys admin role - I think IT has changed so much that I don’t want to advise this.
All I can say - when I was young fixing hardware in a small shop was ok until I realized there’s so much more out there. Managing 20k computers is much more interesting.
Lockster feel free to pm me.
office 365 and azure active directory in the cloud is changing a lot of things even now ….. as microsoft wants to make things cheaper by making them simpler and using less capex for hardware and less open in the way of support staff.
Get a bass guitar, drop out, and form a punk band. Be the Sid Vicious of the band. Learn to play, but just enough. Focus on your stage presence to upstage everyone else. You'll be going solo at age 21 if you're still alive.
Only allow people without jobs into the band and be very picky about the drummer. Make sure he's in it for at least 12 months. Drummer kill most gig-ready bands as they either get to nervous to gig or OD.
The next wave of punk is due. You could ride the wave into a life of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
Now here's some more advice - a band is not a democracy. YOU are the leader, you hire and fire as you see fit. Make someone your number 2 man (preferably the singer if you're not going to sing initialy. Also find the one you trust most and make them the money man. Responsible for all the finances. You better make it clear you're cut hs throat if he ever cheats anyone one cent though.
Go ahead - live my dream. I'll buy your records.
Go grab a bunch of records to influence you (assuming you listen to (profanity) modern music). Here's your list:
Sex Pistols
Stiff Little Fingers (Inflammable Material)
Screeching Weasel
Riverdales (the third album)
Public Image Ltd (Metal Box)
Circle Jerks (album with the picture of the freaks on the cover)
Off!
Sallyanne Atkinson Hate Squad Search Youtube for the band name + "F*** Off Idiot.I'll give you some advice that I wish I had received earlier. Im mid 20's earning 6 figures in IT, but man do I regret not doing a job with a higher barrier to entry.
I got a uni degree, but people with not as much experience or qualifications can push their way into the competitive IT job market.
Get a qualification for a job that needs it, then randoms cant come in and compete in your job market at will eg a trade, psychologist, doctor.. whatever has that barrier to entry.
The mass migrants are killing IT in australia, someone will just come in and contract your job for less money. Definitely a controversial statement (which people will disagree with) but I see it every day.
Get a security clearance and work in the Defence Industry. Only Australian Citizens can get a Security Clearance, Perm residents etc have to wait until they are citizens before they can even apply for one. IT Degree + Security Clearance can get you a good job working for a Defence Contractor on a cool job like the Combat System Software for a Ship or the software for Air traffic Control or for Army Battle Management Systems etc.
If you do not finish year 12, you wont have the range of skills necessary to be successful in IT, you need to understand how a whole range of systems work together, you need to have a decent understanding of maths, statistics, logic and problem solving. Probably the biggest thing that will differentiate you from the competition is your competency in the english language. Having tertiary qualifications are very helpful but not mandatory, if you are passionate, you will make yourself successful.
Also, people saying that immigrants are killing the industry are not correct, the good IT jobs cannot be outsourced/off-shored/allocated to a low paid immigrant, as they require a very diverse set of skills that cannot just be taught in university. As soon as they can do the job well, they will move on to a better position. Once you are talking about mid-high tier employment, the damage that a cheap ABC worker can do to an organisation completely outweighs the benefits of paying a much higher salary to an expert.
Make yourself a very desirable applicant with skills that are unique and difficult to obtain, you need to have passion and a massive desire to be good at what you want to be, basically it has to be your hobby as well as your career.
Stay in school. If you're interested in IT then do a couple of cert3 and 4 courses in the evenings (probably one at a time). They're not difficult, and they're pretty cheap. Honestly, you will really struggle to find white collar work without a year 12 equivalent at minimum.
It's true that people don't generally care about your grades once you have a few years experience, but people will still want to see that you have formal qualifications.
There's also the issue of roundedness. It's important in life to have a well rounded education; too often we forget that education can sometimes be for education's sake - not just to get a job. If you choose the wrong discipline then you will have time to change it later, but cover all the bases by doing maths, english, science, and maybe even a social science.
Lastly, don't stress too much. You're young, work hard and get your work done, but have fun after that. You're only young once, and many people look back at highschool as some of the most fun years of their life.
I'll just leave this here - because I love SMBC: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/potential-2
As someone that already works in IT, I'd say stay and complete school, but don't bother with university. If it's something you want to take up in the future, there's always time.
Finish your HSC and start off looking for some volunteering or part time work to get your experience going. Then look at a few short courses or certifications to get your qualifications up.
Once you're in, you're away. I'd happily take on a young staff member if they just showed they had the right attitude, and some passion. Experience and qualifications aren't everything, but at least finish school first.And in year 10, you absolutely don't have to decide what you're going to do in the future. I still only have a vague idea and I'm in my 30s.
Sure, I'd take on someone for desktop support who didn't have a degree, but there's a limit to how high they'd get promoted. You wouldn't promote someone to systems architect if they didn't have a technical degree.
Not immediately no, but they could happily work their way up, and there is options to do a degree at any point rather than rush into one at 18 and then regret it later.
Invest 3 years and have a high paying job at age 30 instead of 45. Makes sense to get a degree.
@leethompson: nothing guarantees anything, but at least with a degree you'll move through your career faster. Good investment of 3-4 years.
@Quantumcat:
A degree doesn't guarantee moving through a career faster either.
It really depends on so many factors, just saying "It's a good investment" is far to general.@leethompson: well it won't make it slower! It means that you have to start with a really entry level job (no experience no training), and any time you're forced to work in a job where you aren't learning any new skills you can't make any progress (pretty much all your jobs for the first couple of years, then here and there if you lose your job and just have to take something to keep a roof over your head). Whereas a graduate can start in a graduate job (already at mid level professional when the program is over, that could take ten years for others to reach), then any time they go for a new job they have both their experience and their degree to claim as necessary qualifications - if they want to do something totally new there's still a chance of getting that job. Whereas someone with no degree is not going to get it if they can't claim any experience in it. Plus, if two people are going for the same job and they have the same experience, and the recruitment panel likes them all as much, the one with the degree will get it.
By way of case study, my sister is an EL2 aged 30, her husband is only an APS5 aged about 35 (levels go APS1-6, EL1-2, SES band 1-3) Guess which one has a degree? If you do a grad program, when you finish you're usually either an APS4 or APS5 - so he has spent around 17 years getting to where someone could get to in 4-8 (3-4 year degree, 1-2 year grad program, 0-2 years to get to APS5 if the program didn't put you there already).@Quantumcat:
So actually it depends what degree you do, and what job you want to do at the end. So it's not always a good investment. Plus if you do one just because you may come out the other end with a useless degree and a load of debt.
IT Manager is my designation at Department of Education and Training and I won't hire anyone with less than a bachelor degree TBH, no matter how much experience they have on hand. You won't be able to compete with people with IT degree once you are up for promotion.
I won't hire anyone with less than a bachelor degree TBH, no matter how much experience they have on hand.
I know that I've asked the same question below, but why not? I've found that the higher you get, the less technical knowledge you need to have. That's what SMEs in the team are for.
Most of the Government panels that hire contractors set qualifications for the different skillsets and experience levels. Generalizing here and i work mostly on large federal government panels but only the lowest level jobs dont require a degree for consulting work. If you are competing against others for a role, and the other candidates satisfy the requirements, why would a Public Servant go through the additional effort to understand your personal qualities and experience and evaluate how that matches up to a degree qualified candidate, imagine also that they possibly have 30 people like you to evaluate. Why would they do that if they already have fully qualified candidates that meet the selection criteria, why would they go to the effort to justify a waiver for you?
why would a Public Servant go through the additional effort to understand your personal qualities and experience and evaluate how that matches up to a degree qualified candidate,
That is how I expect a lazy manager to find a new employee. Not sure about you, but the first thing I'd think of when looking at a resume is "can this person do the job?".
There's a lot more to hiring someone than just experience and qualifications. There's team fit, personality, attitude and whole range of things that can't be judged by a resume.
@bobbified: Sure…if you have time. I literally have been given 200 CVs to review to pick one entry level person…oh and I need an answer in the morning. Not a lot of scope to get to know individuals. For a senior role like an MD or Chief Engineer, sure you do independent testing, background checks etc. For an entry level or junior role or even worse, for a contractor role the first cut is a review of CVs
This is a government/large corporate thing. I am working in an agency now where the Technical Lead is completely self-taught and an absolute gun developer/innovator. I almost believe education requirements in an industry such as IT are useless. Formal training accounts for nothing but time wasted. Usually the most passionate/genius people i've worked with do not have a stellar credentials/education, and those who do only do so because the industry requires it.
This is coming from someone with 2 bachelors who is now behind many of his peers.
I almost believe education requirements in an industry such as IT are useless.
I don't think a degree is as important as others have made it out to be and it's not only the IT industry. There are professions like doctors, lawyers, engineers where the qualification is a must, but most others don't require anything! At the start, a degree might help with the foot in the door, but after a few years I've found that experience counts much more.
I've got no degree myself and I've worked throughout the financial services industry in their business areas (where lots of people have business/economics degrees) and then into their IT areas as the lead systems analyst for many years. During that time, I've had offers for delivery lead and IT project manager roles. What's interesting is, there were people in the IT area with a whole range of totally unrelated degrees such as education, commerce and a whole range.
I won't hire anyone with less than a bachelor degree TBH,
For certain positions you don't have a choice.
Completing year 10 only will limit your options of employment in future. At the very least, complete Year 12. Then if you want to go to work, go to work. After you start working, you'll be able to go to uni later if decide you want or need to.
You'll often find that jobs ask for a bachelor's degree, even if it's not in a related course. This shows the employer that you're able to successfully commit to something for a number of years.
I, myself, have not gone to uni and don't have a degree, but I was given an entry level opportunity straight out of high school and gone from there. In the almost-20 years that I've been working, I haven't had any problems getting into jobs that advertise the requirement to have a degree, but that's because I've made myself well known to everyone and kept a good reputation in the industry. I've got by so far from working hard and building relationships with everyone. It's not impossible to move up with without a degree, but there's no harm in making sure you give yourself the best opportunities possible.
I'm in IT, won't hire anyone with a bachelor degree as well.
Finish Year 12, and do a degree. Get an entry level job in whatever you like, get 3-4 years experience then move to a higher paying job if promotion is not possible.
That way you won't regret anything.
won't hire anyone with a bachelor degree as well.
Why's that? I've been told a few times from people that I know that it's because the employer wants to be able to see some commitment. Wouldn't experience show the same thing?
Who you are competing against will most likely have a degree.
It's about putting your best foot forward.
If everyone has a degree and similar experience, then the applicants without a degree will be first to go.
It also shows your drive and passion towards your career.
Having a degree also shows that whatever you learned in your course, especially with coding, you were able to apply in tests, exams and pass the conditions at the time.
While I agree with most of what you've written, I have never seen a resume of someone who's backed by a good amount of experience being tossed aside because they don't have a degree and someone else does.
It also shows your drive and passion towards your career.
I don't think anything shows drive and passion more than someone who's taught themselves everything they need to know about something and is now capable of performing a role that someone else who has had to spend years at university. It also likely tells you that that person is quite intelligent and can pick things up quickly.
Of course if 2 people have the same experience and one has a degree you'd pick the one with the degree.
However if you had a 21 year old fresh from university with 0 experience, and a 21 year old with 3 years of experience but no degree? I'd take the 2nd one every time.
you're young and healthy you have a few options:
- Sell some of your organs, lung, liver, etc, good financial start on life
- Hit the gym and roids get some crap neck tatts and become a bikie and farm other peoples organs, or whatever else they do for cash.
You have issues
Become a plumber. That is where the money is.
laying pipe yo!
As they unblock public toilets…
I RECOMMEND stay in school, and do a uni/TAFE degree after that. A lot of people here talks about usefulness of uni/TAFE courses when it comes to IT (especially programming), I agree with most of them that, about half of the courses you will do is fxxking useless because I can and I already learnt all the stuff by myself during free time back in high school. But I still STRONGLY RECOMMEND a higher education, here why:
1) A degree looks better than no degree for a fresh graduate/someone new to workforce. IT do prefer experience more than degrees, but degree is what will open the door for you when you are first time job-hunting. Of course, if you are doing some crazy good work like being a important contributor in some famous/wide-used open source projects or something during your free time, then degree won't matter for you.
2) Uni/TAFE is a very very good environment to build up your network and social skills. During the uni/TAFE, you will meet a lot of people or even friends for life that could help or will help you in the future. You also build up a lot of social skills that is needed in the real world, as Uni/TAFE is like a small real-world society. There is concept in Japan called "Reading the air", I suggest you read about that, these kind of thing is not something high school would help you learn. The place I am working at at the moment had some crazy stories on few new graduates/high schooler that has no idea how a social interaction in the real world works, don't be one of these guys.
3) If you are able to get into Uni, take the plunge and go on to exchange. It helps with your resume and actually opens up your perspective.
Good luck in the future mate, you are still young, no need to rush! :)
Don't do IT. I used to love it, then I got a job in it 15 years ago, moved up the ranks, am responsible for shitloads, it's good pay but now I hate IT. IE I lost my first love for IT. It's thankless, meaningless (everything is ephemeral, ie replaced or superseded within a short time), and high stress (once you've advanced). Burnout rate in IT is one of the highest of all professions.
My advice, finish Year 12, get a job, get some real life experience, travel if you can, then decide what you really want to be once you know the world and yourself a little better.
Just my 2c
moved up the ranks, am responsible for shitloads, it's good pay but now I hate it.
This would apply to most white collar work.
I lost my first love for IT
That's a work/life balance problem which can happen in any field.
Burnout rate in IT is one of the highest of all professions
Stats for that? I disagree.
My advice, finish Year 12, get a job, get some real life experience, travel if you can, then decide what you really want to be once you know the world and yourself a little better.
100% agree with this part :)
You're in year 10, you may think you have a career path planned out but at this point in your life nothing is set in stone. Stay in school to increase your options. Finish year 12 then go to work, or continue to uni - they are both good options.
I have no advice to offer except try not to do anything that will limit your options - oh and don't listen to anyone that tells you that you need your career mapped out now :)
Stay in school and finish year 12. It's pretty rare to have such overwhelming consensus on Ozbargain and it's because we've all seen what happens when you don't, whether it's ourselves or through friends or loved ones. Just. don't. do. it. You will thank this place later. I'm sure you've got people in your ear encouraging you to do it, I know how much it seems to make sense - but take it from me, your thoughts can be liars. Your thoughts will lie to protect your feelings, but not your future.
Not completing year 12 holds you back in more ways than you can imagine right now - from hiring practices to negative perceptions. Yes you will find people who might disagree but you always will find people who will side with you when trying to convince yourself of something. When i was in year 10 I was not doing well and I was very tempted just like you are now. I didn't do very well in year 12 either (for a few reasons), and it slowed me down a few years - but I sharpened up in my twenties and I'm a doctor now. That could never have happened if I'd pulled out. You don't know who you're going to be in five or ten years time - things change and if you stick it out, your future self is going to be very grateful. Lots of bad stuff can happen to you in life, but your education is something that can never be taken away from you. People might scoff at a 'piece of paper', but it is a piece of paper that can never be stolen away from you, ever.
If I were you, I would teach myself whatever the du jour programming language is at the moment, and teach it to yourself as a hobby. My brother did that (also a delinquent teenager), and while he also was hardly a star performer in year 12, wounded up working on some side projects that ended up going quite large and he's fine now. For him it was C++, no idea what it is now. You don't have to like school, you don't have to be good at it, just finish it. Get it done. You've been doing this for ten years now, why would you pull out with only two years left to go? Once you've finished, the world is yours. You don't have to go to university, you can do whatever you want, but don't pull out at year 10. You might have been able to do that 30 years ago and get away with it, but if you do it now, your job prospects will rapidly diminish over time - the majority of your age group WILL finish, even if they're no good at it, and the world will have an advantage over you. Good luck.
Firstly, well done for taking the time to think this through.
Secondly, be careful who you ask, and take, advice from.
Third; try and think forwards. It is incredibly hard at your stage of life, but try and picture yourself actually doing your ideal job in 10, 20, 30 years time. Are you in an office, a workshop, out in the open; in this country, in another somewhere?
When you have an idea of your end-point then you will have more ideas of how to reach it.
Finally and most importantly, do not jeopardise your dreams with limiting beliefs.
Most of us are capable of far more than we actually achieve because we convince ourselves that we don't have what it takes to make the grade, so we opt for a soft and easy solution.
Good luck on your journey. And enjoy it.
I finsihed year 12 then did 2 years tafe doing Network Engineering and got hired after into a I.T company that preferred people with hands on experience than a UNI person with none hope that helps mate
I did level 1/2 help desk
Built servers
Daily backups and reports monthly
Onsite visits for the local government
Imaged laptops and desktops with a SOEWas pretty fun !!
I did level 1/2 help desk
Built servers
Daily backups and reports monthly
Onsite visits for the local government
Imaged laptops and desktops with a SOENo offence but that sounds like hell to me :(
Most of that can be automated anyway.It was! but it was a Monday to Friday job, beers every Friday arvo and I did anything I wanted without question.
Yeah, not having to worry about work after hours would be good
Was pretty fun !!
What do you do now?
After that I went to work at Computer Alliance in sales, then went to JB selling Hifi, I.T and Audio.. A base wage with commission is nuts :)
Study hard and concentrate on getting the best marks.
This will allow you to choose what you want to do.
You can always decide later on exact course of action.
IT manager here. No degree, no job. Unless you have more than a decade of prior experience - which a 16yo doesn't have.
Hi airzone i am a network admin with 15 years experience in IT. I started with a traineeship and worked my way up through the ranks. The next step in my career would be a coordinator / team leader position . Would you consider someone like me for such a role or do you believe I may have reached my limit without a degree? Thanks
Team lead shouldn't be a problem, but the more you move into management, the more a lack of degree will hinder. The sad thing is once your that far into a career, a degree is simply a checkbox and probably won't provide personal value.
What I would be looking for in you would be your soft skills. How well can you read people, how well you motivate, lead, manage conflict and priorities, think outside the box. Can you see something from a perspective you don't agree with?
The difference between you and the op is that your experience speaks and I'd likely call you in for interview. With the op, at 16/17/18 years old, no year 12, no degree, I wouldn't even pick up the phone. There are so many other more "qualified" entry level IT people for me to select from.
Imo, op should think long and hard about how he/she fits into the candidate pool because op will be a very small fish in a large pool.
Thank you for the above advice I appreciate the time you spent
Do the VET program. I studied Creative Design at tafe and did work experience once a week and ended up getting employment out of it. Been here for 6 years now.
I think either of your choices is all right. Though you should probably make sure you have a good idea of the career you are getting into, by that I mean talking to (lots of) people in the industry, face-to-face is better if that's possible.
I see that you are more into the hardware side of IT, that's just fine. But I just wonder whether you have considered the software side, coding to be precise, which (in my opinion) is both more approachable and offering a larger range of opportunities at the moment.
There are plenty of good (free) courses and learning material online, you only need a reasonably modern computer and a few hours a week to get started. If you are interested in building for the web, I would suggest taking a look at this freeCodeCamp, even if you are not, I would still suggest spending some time to see what's it about.I myself got an entry level job as a barista at a city located company where I internally transferred to an IT help desk position in which I’ve now moved up (they have way too many different made up promotions in the IT sector).
I did a Cert IV in IT during my years 11/12 and finished high school. Started a degree in software engineering - finished first year before being promoted within the company. I’m only 22 so it’s fairly recent.
All I can say is that there’s millions of possibly pathways you can choose to get where you want to go. I’d recommend finishing high school - preferably with doing a Cert course during it.
If you’re determined enough you can work any job you can get your hands on (preferably IT based) but honestly anywhere - fast food even - study intensively in your own time. Try to internally transfer within the company or else just freelance. You’re in year 10 - people can advise you on what do to but truthfully you have full control of your life. Make connections and move up.
I.T.: maybe after 10 yrs you'll be on $100k
Trade: on $100k + after 4 yrsA good developer will hit 100k within 5 years in a major city like Sydney.
I was on 100k in I.T. within 4 years of graduating? I know quite a few people like this.
I meant to say (in my response above) that certificate courses are fine to have, but I'm not overly impressed with how little they actually require you to know in order to obtain them.
My daughter has certs: I/II/& III in I.T. Her's were TAFE courses offered during years 10-12. They were okay courses in the basics. That being said— she learned more here, with me, helping with upgrades, listening to me rant, and building her own desktop than she actually got from the certs.
To that end, there's no reason at all that you can't start self-training on 2nd-hand components, right now. Personally, I've always found hardware a breeze and software a nightmare. However, there are PC toss-outs during every verge collection and plenty for nearly nothing on Gumtree. Try your hand at disk cloning, network security, FTP, tunneling, VPNs, upgrades, etc. All of this can be done in your your time while you remain in school.
Too bad you don't have The Big Picture in your school. You could always look for a school nearby that does. It would suit your needs to an absolute "T".
Good luck!
So the big picture essentially makes school enjoyable and is an alternative entry to UNI?
Figure out what it is in IT you enjoy.
Programming, start learning a reasonably easy high level language like python. Practice, repeat, repeat, repeat. Build a portfolio of projects, assist on open source projects.
Networking, self study a CCNA/CCNP while you finish high school.
Administration, head down a MSC# desired path.
Practice abstract thinking and problem solving, the ability to think outside of the box will be a core skill above all else.
When you go to uni,, your first year is going to draw upon those general skills.
You may be fantastic at IT, but like many people have mentioned certain businesses won't look twice at an applicant without a tertiary degree. They get flooded with applicants and filter accordingly.
You could be an amazing programmer, with a spectacular portfolio, but unless you get the chance to demonstrate your talents or you're head-hunted, that skill will not be reflected on any applications. Some people get lucky, and some people put in a significant amount of workload to get to where they are. Only you can make it happen.
Hey man, I'm in a similar situation as you.
Currently Year 10, selective school student in urban NSW.
I want to become someone that works in the IT field like you, considering that I am taking accelerated IPT (Information Processing Technology, so I will be sitting the HSC exam for that in the coming months) and accelerated chemistry (not so relevant to IT).
I don't know what it's really like in Western Australia - heck, I don't even know if you guys have the same HSC exams as NSW. But from what I can see, I reckon it's a better idea to stay in school and go to university.
Your situation might differ because your school may be quite different from mine. My school has a 100% university acceptance rate, so it would really only make sense for me to head onto university.
My hope is that, in a few years, that I will be a Database Admin, or maybe even a prosecutor/lawyer if things don't necessarily go my way.
Good luck ;)Hey I actually just started working Full time in the IT Industry. I highly recommend getting a university degree first if you are considering a career in IT. Some places will only hire you if you have a university degree or are working to complete one.
Also, some companies will even sponsor your tafe courses. I am currently studying in Tafe part time and it is fully paid for by my company.
Read this book
https://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwe…Nobody becomes successful through luck, even those famous rich people who never finished University, they were far more prepared than the fairy tale would have you believe.
The book will also prove, without a doubt, that however smart you don't think you are, it is not a limitation.
Yes you can become a Doctor/Lawyer/Engineer after leaving high school in year 10. No stress.
You will just spend the best years of your life playing catch up while the kid who studied straight through is now entering the workforce as a professional.It is the aim of our government for at least 40% of the population to have a degree. This means having a degree will be less valuable. This also means having the wrong degree will be less valuable.
You mention IT, the future of IT is data science. Mathematics. Phd Mathematics not high school drop out mathematics.
Don't aim for a position that will be replaced by a robot in a few years.Ooh read this too - The Brain that Changes Itself:
https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-brain-that-changes-itself-n…
I read it when I was seriously questioning whether or not I was smart enough to change careers. Safe to say it changed the way I think in more ways than one.
Stay in school, uni is actually a lot of fun, you don't want to miss that experience.
Also things can change, you might change your mind later especially because you'll get exposed to a lot of things you haven't experienced yet. So you'll want to keep your options open.
In the meantime, you can enjoy IT as a hobby and expand and grow on it. Sometimes we are better at our hobbies than our professions, it stays fun even if we don't make money on it.
Not IT. But WA has a shortage of chefs and tradesmen. Ever thought of an apprenticeship?
If you work in mining (not necessarily as a miner), you're paid really well also.
I don't work in anything related to IT, however I would highly recommend you finish year 12. While there are many pathways you can take to get to your ideal job, I think by only finishing year 10 you might be closing out some options.
There is no need to decide your future right now, the career I thought I would do in year 10 is totally different what I ended up doing. Continue IT as a hobby for now, enjoy your time at school, study hard but smart. By the end of year 12 if you put enough effort into it you might surprise yourself and go straight into an IT related degree or if not that TAFE course will still be waiting.stay away from girls
It doesn't matter what you choose to do so long as apply yourself as best as you can in each endeavour.
There's no shortage of data to support the argument that those who finish year 12 do financially better in life than those who don't and those who finish a higher education degree do financially better than all other cohorts. The benefits start diminishing at postgraduate degree completion, but maybe that trend may change as the bar for entry-level employment raises ever higher.
I think there's a clear market shift in capital cities to use the bachelor's degree as the basic prerequisite. Those who don't typically do not have a bachelor's degree either and seek to employ someone like them.
Bitcoin
I don't have any specific advice, but I want to stress that you're at a time in your life where it's super super important that you put a lot of thought into what it is you want to do, and be very sure that what you want now is going to still end up being what you want.
I made the mistake of not putting much thought into it and not doing enough research into the career I thought I wanted. I ended up wasting a few years of my life studying for something I ended up being very wrong about wanting to do. It wasn't what I thought it'd be.
So make sure you research it. I know you like IT. Look into what are the end jobs you can get out of your IT course, and what those day to day duties entail and whether you will be good at or will enjoy doing them. And also about job prospects. How many hire for that job, and where are those jobs located. How much competition do you face? How hard is it to land a job?
I know that wasn't what you're asking about, but do take the advice.
I don't know enough about what you're getting into to give you any further advice I'm afraid.
I may not be the smartest kid in my year.
Don't need to be the smartest to be highly successful mate. I study psychology, and one of the most interesting and true, aspects of who does well at education, is conscientious.. ie . A person who tries very hard; puts in lots of work, tries to be well organized and willing to do whatever it takes to do well (eg. Not going out drinking/partying all time in exam time) , can actually do much better than a 'smarter person' who isn't as conscientious .
There are even people completing medical degrees, and law degrees, that aren't the smartest people, just are dedicated and work really hard.
Talk to your career advisors at school, and contact companies you might want to work at, ask them directly what do you want from you're employees . Explain where you want to be in 10 years time, 20 years time, ie what you want to progress with through your career with their company.Love this - it's about so much more than being smart. Diligence and persistence are a set of magic keys that can take you much further than simple cleverness.
Definitely stay in school and finish year 12. If you don’t get into that VET course you wanted, study some developer courses outside of school and create a side project to give you exposure and experience.
PM me if you’re interested in development as I can message you bunch of helpful courses.
Two pieces of advice.
1) If you are super interested in IT and really want to learn and be someone who makes a difference, pursue your studies seriously. Get to PhD in AI or Robotics and you can eventually become a Technology Evangelist. Make sure you focus on your soft skills as well. Networking (real-world) and presenting skills are as important as your IT skills.
2) Do not start your career with a big firm. Aim at a start-up which is where you can learn all aspects and later in your career you can decide whether you want to move a Tech giant or start your own (the latter should be your eventual target).
PS: The city where I started my first job, there is a saying: If you throw a stone up, it will land either on a dog or on a software engineer. That’s how many there are. And believe me, 95% of them do mundane, uninteresting shite. Don’t end up being a software slave.
You see school as a hinderance and irrelevant to your goals. There’s more to school than what’s in the text book and teachers. It teaches you to be conscientious, to solve problems, to schedule workload, manage stress and grasp new ideas, all of which you’ll need in IT. If you quit school you’ve failed one of the first huge milestones in your life. Pretty much giving up on your goals before they start. I’ve seen people do poor at school and have great success in IT, but they finished and did a course. This is a no-brainer.
I work in the Defence industry and our industry is currently hiring people hand over fist. For most of the good paying roles a degree is literally the price of entry. There will eventually be jobs welding together ships and submarines that will be vocational trades but the knowledge level work which pays better needs a degree just to get a foot in the door. Every day i see loads of CVs from guys with impressive experience, many former tradespeople etc who would probably do a good job but in some sectors there is safety legislation mandating that people must have an engineering degree etc. If i have 30 people after a single role and 30% of them already have the required degree, I am going to take some convincing to champion one of the other 70% that doesnt have the required degree because i see some kind of spark in his application etc. Practically it just doesnt happen for highly sought after roles.
Some of the IT courses at Uni aern't that hard to get into, you don't need a super high ATAR. Contrary to university marketing, most employers don't go through the process of evaluating the different courses from different universities. I worked for an engineering company once that did but most others I've worked fro simply look for the right degree in your CV. I've never seen an HR department base selection on grades or marks. The upshot here is that if you can just get through High School, get into any uni, get an IT degree you probably wont be disadvantaged from the kid that made the top 20 in the state and went to the best Uni. The University 'prestige' factor probably helps if you want to be a lawyer or an accountant and get a traineeship with a 'Big 4' firm but for most other jobs a degree is a degree, most companies dont weigh up the course content from different degrees, they just look for if you have the quals or not.
The other thing I would say is that time will never be easier in your life to do all of this than now. If you take the easy option and drop out of school, chances are that in 15 or 20 years time you will look back thinking what was I thinking. You will be stuck in a mid level or low level job with no chance of promotion and your boss will be the kid, 5-10 years younger that did stick out high school and get a degree. You will maybe try and go back to night school to get a degree but you'll be doing it part time (taking twice as long), having to do it at nights and weekends when you arent at work and you will probably be doing it at a time where you have partner and maybe young kids. Maybe buying a house or having other responsibilities. Much easier to just get it out of the way when you are young with no commitments.
I still think you should finish high school and uni, almost entirely because if IT doesnt work out, or you find something else, youre not limiting yourself too early. Im all for you chasing your dream job, Ill support you 100% in that, but what I do mean is that you shouldnt be closing off all your options.Yr 10 is a huge step from normal high school bs to now ATAR and TAFE bs, but youre still young.I'd say finish school, do whatever that'll help you along into getting a job in IT. I dont quite know what that involves but I can say for me, all my work for charity, working part time as a tutor and the occasional volunteer work really helped me out. So i dunno maybe in your case attending IT classes or whatever might make companies go "Oh this guy was putting in a lot of effort into IT, maybe he'll put in just as much effort with us"
IF you don't have an academic brain, then don't go to Uni, it is a waste. Rather get a trade that you can use for life. ie. Electrician, Plumber, etc.
Hey so what kind of trade apprenticeships can I do?
Honestly, I would go speak to someone about it at school or go to https://myfuture.edu.au/
and remember that you are still young, so if you don't like something, you can change now.
All the states have different options for Apprenticeships, so just search google for Apprenticeships where you live. There is a lot of info and ways forward.
Because you are interested in IT, I would finish Year 12, and go from there.
Stay in school, finish high school, go to uni, you'll need it to work in technology, if you don't they won't bother considering your applications.
(Currently working as a building automation engineer)
Lots of great comments here already - you need a tertiary qualification to be taken seriously (in professional fields).
Unless you're the exception, high school completion is the bare requirement even for unlicensed careers. It shows basic capability to maintain attendence and stay out of trouble.
If you're a high school "drop out" and you're applying for an entry level job, you can talk yourself up (as much as it may be true), all else being equal, I'd pick someone with better paper specs.
Hey man, I hope this comment would get to you under all these "stay in high school" posts.
I'm 22 now and I'm currently working as a Software Engineer in Sydney.
My advice would be to leave high school and start doing TAFE in IT if you're sure what you want to do in the IT industry whether it be software development, networking, etc. There isn't any point staying in high school learning subjects that won't interest you just to get subject scaling for the university you want to get in. Not worth all the stress. I've done that for my Year 12 HSC and all I can say is I don't remember much from what I learnt in the subjects. You'll be missing out on a lot of the social elements in your senior years of high school however.
Going through TAFE is not a bad thing for a school leaver and you'll still be able to get into university that way. For example, if you finish your Certificate III and IV and your Diploma of IT in Networking, you'll be able to skip the first year of university dependent on which university you go to. I know many people who have done this and I'm pretty jealous that I didn't choose this path in the first place.
For software engineers the opportunity is even better, I know some software engineers who have done TAFE diplomas and are full time engineers without going through an university degree. Just be prepared to be up to date with all the evolving technology however.
Again, it's best to figure out what you want to do if you decide to leave high school, but I rather do a couple of certificates in TAFE than waste my time on high school subjects that don't interest me.
So much reason to stay in school. Take your time with it, push the boundaries with behaviour and teachers to see what you can get away with. Learn more about social stuff, develop a few more meaningful life-long friendships. I'd have probably 1 friend right now if I didn't have old friends from school. If school is too easy, see how much other stuff you can succeed at simultaneously, if school is challenging, find out how much you can improve yourself at standardised test-taking (or what you can get away with cheating if that's your thing), it's all kinda like a play-ground where you figure shit out. You can leave early but it's a huge loss not milking those years for all they're worth. Re: behaviour, any trouble you got in during school doesn't really affect the real world but make sure not to turn into an entitled shit bag if you find you can get away with anything lol.
Anyway do what you want, you already got your answer, just know that it's not based on blind following of the status quo, there's a buttload of reasons, find them and you tell us :>Having gone through the same stuff many years ago - my advice to you is to do the tafe course in IT while in school, then finish off the VET course, go to uni and you will get credits for the course, finish the degree. You will pay less for the degree this way and you'll come out with a diploma or advanced diploma and a degree, and possibly more experience than those with uni degree only.
Also tafe is easier to do as long as you put in the effort, have friends who found work straight from tafe too.
Good luck
Personal experience as an IT professional. Finish year 12, don't bother with uni, go study at tafe or find a traineeship while you live at home. Slowly develop your skills while working or studying and if you haven't found a job go into a helpdesk role. Do not work for a call centre, etc because they are aids, but if you want experience i guess they are good.
Level 1 helpdesk is where you will start regardless of education, you cannot just jump into whatever meme job the kids are praising these days, usually cyber security type bs that everyones into now.
Helpdesk isn't that bad, it's a good starting point, relaxed environment if you aren't in a call centre and work for a small-med company like a tafe or a school. Aim to work in a school\uni or tafe enviornment (they're the best)
I work for an American-based IT company in Sydney. We don't accept anyone without completing a tertiary qualification. It doesn't have to be an IT degree, but a degree because it proves you can work hard, and smart enough to get in and achieve a degree. I don't know if this is the correct hiring way but this is the norm in many IT companies.
I say, stay in school, and go study coding in uni/TAFE. Usually there's additional aptitude tests before you get interviewed too to prove you actually know how to code.
Study is important, but school/uni didn't teach much about how to manage stakeholders, influencing others, negotiation techniques, etc.
It didn't teach emotional intelligence either.
These things comes from work.
If you got heaps of experience and find that the only thing stopping you is a piece of paper, go to China and buy fake degree from your favorite uni.
Computer Science Courseonline
That's one bundle— there are many there & elsewhere for at-home study, on the cheap.
Look to see if you can get into a school next year that offers "The Big Picture" program. I see you're listed in Perth, so there are some near you. This teaching style is exactly what you're looking for— you determine the thing you're passionate about & you arrange your internship, which becomes your course for that term (or more). Watch the "About us" videos to get an idea of how it all works. My daughter was a part of it & it saved her school career + gave her what she needed to get into uni. She's now in her 2nd year studying a dbl-major in Gaming Arts Design + Global Politics & Policy (+ got an internship with a local MP, on the side). Prior to Big Picture, she wanted to drop-out.
I thought I'd already posted this, but I don't see that post here?
:)
You're still young, don't close all your doors just yet. You may regret it later on.