I've never seen a posting for an IT gig below managerial level that didn't require a 4-year degree "or equivalent experience," which generally translates to 5 years of actually doing the job. Companies have a habit of plucking enterprising individuals off of internships, the helpdesk, or operations center, and giving them a shot at something better. That's where you get the experience, and then you're free to do what you want with it after that.
That's the path I took. I got some real world experience in the Navy, though not in a role that directly translates in any way to what I do today. So, I landed in a data center as a night operator, got a shot at systems work, and ran from there. The upshot is that I got my education while getting paid, rather than while accumulating debt.
I've tried taking college courses related to IT, but the ones I tried were painfully awful. I just don't have the same tolerance for slow-moving, largely irrelevant, excessively time-consuming activities in my adulthood. For example, the first college course I took was on networking, but it focused entirely on procedures for configuring a Windows NT server on a network. I didn't care about pointy-clicky procedures on a single proprietary (and soon to be outdated) platform, I wanted to know how it works. So I dropped the course, bought a book, problem solved.
Another course I tried was in web programming. The teacher kept screwing up his sample code, and I had to keep correcting him in order to get the class moving again.
In general, I'd never recommend a child go into development work. For once thing, it's too easy to outsource. There are other specialties in IT that are far more stable. The key is to find something where you have to at least occasionally touch the platforms. Network, systems, storage, and security admins come to mind.
Last edited by Dude; 03/05/13 12:00 PM.
