Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - anyone making 50-75k a year?

intecel · 10-09-2007, 08:26 PM

I make a little more than $50k right now in IT at 27 years old as a high school dropout living near Orlando.

My progression: At 15, I took a typing class in high school. My first job at 16 was data entry for a credit processing center ($6 per hour). At 17, I went to work tech support for ISPs ($8 per hour). I dropped out of high school in the middle of 11th grade, moved out of my parent's house, quit work, lived with friends and partied a little too hard.

I then moved to chicago for a few months to get away from the party lifestyle. When I came back to orlando, I had my crappy car, and no money to my name. I got a job doing tech support as soon as I got back ($11 an hour). I went and took the G.E.D. test and aced it, so I was finally a H.S. graduate. I did that job for about 2 years and got promoted to the Quality Assurance team, working with the programmers. This brought me to about $30,000 per year. About 6 months later, the company held mass layoffs and dropped the whole development department.

I was unemployed for 9 months ($1000 per month).

The head programmer from the last job called me up and offered me a job with his new company as Quality Assurance ($35k a year). I ended up doing QA, lead tech support, shipping. I ended up learning on my own how to make reports, programming with Delphi, and that was added into my job description. All these brought me to about $43k a year.

I got offered a better job doing strictly Delphi programming by someone I worked with years ago in my first QA position ($45k a year start), which I took. I now make a little over that now.

I decided that I wanted to go back to classes because most programming positions require a B.S. from what I've seen over the past few years. The boss decided it would be a good perk to pay for my tuition, so I'm now a 27 year old Freshman (almost sophomore) in college. I'm working towards my A.S. in computer programming now, which I should be done at the end of Spring 2009, and I should have my General A.A. at the end of Fall 2009.

That's where I'm lost. I'm not sure if I want to take part time jobs and student loans to finish my next 2 years, or see if I can still work and school full time at a state university, or take a few classes here and there until I finish the B.S.

10-09-2007, 08:26 PM	#18 (permalink)
intecel Psycho	I make a little more than $50k right now in IT at 27 years old as a high school dropout living near Orlando. My progression: At 15, I took a typing class in high school. My first job at 16 was data entry for a credit processing center ($6 per hour). At 17, I went to work tech support for ISPs ($8 per hour). I dropped out of high school in the middle of 11th grade, moved out of my parent's house, quit work, lived with friends and partied a little too hard. I then moved to chicago for a few months to get away from the party lifestyle. When I came back to orlando, I had my crappy car, and no money to my name. I got a job doing tech support as soon as I got back ($11 an hour). I went and took the G.E.D. test and aced it, so I was finally a H.S. graduate. I did that job for about 2 years and got promoted to the Quality Assurance team, working with the programmers. This brought me to about $30,000 per year. About 6 months later, the company held mass layoffs and dropped the whole development department. I was unemployed for 9 months ($1000 per month). The head programmer from the last job called me up and offered me a job with his new company as Quality Assurance ($35k a year). I ended up doing QA, lead tech support, shipping. I ended up learning on my own how to make reports, programming with Delphi, and that was added into my job description. All these brought me to about $43k a year. I got offered a better job doing strictly Delphi programming by someone I worked with years ago in my first QA position ($45k a year start), which I took. I now make a little over that now. I decided that I wanted to go back to classes because most programming positions require a B.S. from what I've seen over the past few years. The boss decided it would be a good perk to pay for my tuition, so I'm now a 27 year old Freshman (almost sophomore) in college. I'm working towards my A.S. in computer programming now, which I should be done at the end of Spring 2009, and I should have my General A.A. at the end of Fall 2009. That's where I'm lost. I'm not sure if I want to take part time jobs and student loans to finish my next 2 years, or see if I can still work and school full time at a state university, or take a few classes here and there until I finish the B.S.