You're going to have to be really good and really lucky to get the money you're hoping for in five years with a degree from a technical school. I would try to get a bachelor's degree from a four year school before I would waste time with a technical school. Those technical schools sound like they love to fill your head with all these dreams of what could happen if you go to their program and give them a lot of money. I don't think you'll get your money's worth out of it, especially if you had spent that money on going to a real university instead.

Good luck. You might see if you can find a job in IT so you can get a better idea what the work is like. You may find it's not for you and you can pursue other interests.

 

Hard to survive in CA with less than six figures?

I lived here in not-so-cheap San Diego for about a year living off unemployment from MA.

Hardly what I would call a six figure salary.

$8k/mo ~$96k/yr

I don't know what tax brackets look like at that level, but let's assume you net 60% into your pockets. That leaves you with $4800/mo to spend in whatever wacky fashion you want.

$1000/mo car
$3000/mo mortgage
$800/mo on all the other crap 1 person can spend

$3k/mo on your mortgage will get you a $500k house at probably somewhere in the mid 6% range on a 30 yr fixed. You can probably do better on the interest if you do some homework on loan types and how they work. Just ask some of the mortgage folks that lurk in OT.

$1k/mo on your car will get you somewhere in the $50k range if you go 60 months @ 6%. That's an awfully long term with nothing down and a beatable rate if you are pulling in $96k/yr.

$800/mo on everything else? Gas? Food? Utilities? Entertainment?

Yeah. A half million dollar home, a 5 series BMW, all on your own in sunny California.

People that make the $100k-300k salaries typically have some very specialized skills and are immensely talented. They make that money because nobody else around can bring to the table what they offer. I know engineers that have been in their fields for decades and still don't make what you are looking for. On the flip side, I do know people who have been quite successful and just about each of them work for themselves.

Goals are good to have, but be aware that you might be in for a rude awakening when you see your goals are virtually impossible to attain.

The bigger bucks will always come from an executive position, something finance related, or sales. This isn't to say it's not possible to make a lot of money in technology fields. Far from it. But if you're good with people you can make a sales career into $ you may never ever see "working on" computers. I just see more financially successful folks NOT in the geeky technical side of things.

Building computers.

Do you mean assembling computers? Designing the parts?

If you mean slapping parts together on an assembly line, then see what steve_c said.

If you want to design chips and whatnot, consider a program in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering. You'll learn the nuts and bolts behind what makes your computer run when you flip the power switch. That same knowledge will let you sit down and put your own ideas and designs onto paper.

 

IT is either outsourced or insourced. I would pick a different track, something they can't outsource, like medicine or law.

 

Ah well a uni degree in CS is fairly worthless on its own unless it's from one of the very top schools. Experience is what matters. What's going to be hard is graduating without experience and trying to get a good first job. If you are going to school and you want a guaranteed good salary both during and after school, go into engineering and try to co-op on and off semesters. It will pay for your schooling and give you experience before you graduate. The people I know who did that walked out of school making 10-20% more money right off the bat, with a TON of offers. There was once a job market for salaried DBAs that reliably put recent grads into scads of money but those days are mostly gone to Bangalore.

I wouldn't take the tech institute's word for how employable you would be in IT with a degree from them. Instead, search on Monster or craigslist and enter your desired job responsibilities and qualifications. I think the chances of making above 150k with a technical degree and a few years of experience are very close to zero. Most of the higher paying jobs are going to be taken by people with at least 7-10 years of experience, even if they don't ask for that much in the posting. Also, forget doing things on the hardware side, that is minimum wage territory with no real mobility. Long story short is, nobody's going to throw money at you with no experience, and it's all going to be much harder if you didn't go to a 4-year university.

If what you want is a tech degree and decent salary really quick, maybe try something in medical diagnostics, imaging, or record-keeping technology and try to get really, really good at it. BIG opportunities in that space over the next few decades and schooling won't matter as much. I know one guy who is an independent medical tech who makes over 200k and is in his early thirties. Of course, he works 80 hour weeks but that is America for ya...

 

May I make a suggestion, that some of you take a look at some of the salary surveys that are published by some of the IT magazines. Here is a link to the Info World 2004 Salary Survey. Information Week also publishes an annual salary survey, but I don't think it is coming out until later this month. If you want to look at computer engineering salaries, look at EE Times, they also publish an annual salary survey.

 

Thank you WhiteS2k for posting that link.. I would suggest that most of you take a look at that.

Those websites/magazines/monster.com are the places that i see IT people gettin paid the bucks.. thats why i had it in my head at first that that is what IT people are making..

I understand these quotes are from the higher paid individuals, but the AVG for the Execs was 117,000 .. . pretty darn close to want i proposed (150k).

Let me know what you all think about this post from WhiteS2k!!

 

to make exec you are likely looking at 10-15 years. even then, only 5% will make that kind of $ in their career.

you may be able to do it in 5 IF AN ONLY IF you are the top 1%, and have a BA; MBA helps more, too.

these glamorous jobs in monster are seeking specific individuals with specific skills. it is probably a 1 in 5000 kind of skill set, or the pay would not be that high. For the job I have, 1,000 people applied. for those big buck monster high profile jobs you are looking at 5-10,000 applicants.

also, those salaries you see are self reported. many are exaggerations.

 

Might want to look into what it takes to reach those positions rather than simply quoting numbers.

 

Yeah, the chances of you becoming an executive making six figures within five years without a BS or Masters degree is pretty slim. It seems like you don't really want to listen to the naysayers and just want to keep believing that you'll be rolling in money within five years. It could happen, but the chances are pretty slim.

 

wicker bill.. what is a "BS" and "MBA" degree??

No i am listening to the naysayers, but to be honest I dont know what I should go with instead of IT.. Only just to go through IT and focus on exec positions.