So who is this Stam anyway?

Career

Yup, that word. Big one, ain't it?

For some, anyway. Mostly those of us who're still staring the Career Choice down the barrel.

Which is what I'm doing now.

What should I go into? Is it worth sticking with technical writing, at least for the moment? I'm not managing to get anything resembling a solid job, at least not yet.

I'm planning on going to a counsellor here on Thursday, in the UJIA (they help people from the U.K. who want to move to Israel, and they also handle us Australians and the South Africans). She seemed to think there was still point in me considering technical writing, so maybe I'm just not looking in the right way.

Although...from the little I hear, regular technical writers are usually the first to go if there's layoffs. So even if I do continue in that, I'm probably going to branch out some into something else...

And although I still know very little about most of these, here's the short list of possibilities I've come up with so far, either for learning while working or just to learn full-time:

Cisco CCNA	-	from what I've heard, this is hard. I'd might have to take a course or two before going for this one (MCSE or some networking prep, maybe). And that's just the beginning level of Cisco. I think.
Oracle	-	several possibilities here. It's DB, and I already know Access. I could start with SQL and work further up, I suppose, or go for DBA.
Java	-	also apparently hard to learn. I'm mildly embarrassed to say that although I play several Java games on Neopets I know absolutely nothing about it.
Programming	-	pick a language, any language. C? C++? Another area I have little clue about.
Helpdesk	-	my brother does this. I think he has a MCSE or something, plus practical experience in dealing with nearly-comletely-computer-illiterate people. You probably need incredible amounts of patience, but since stupidity is about as common as hydrogen atoms, there's little enough chance you'd find yourself out of work.
QA	-	quality assurance. Don't really know much about this either...but I'm pretty good at spotting mistakes. Most of the time.

That's all I've managed to come up with so far, and that was despite giving Google a pretty good workout. And right now I'm still trying to figure out which of them I'd like to take, which are stupidly difficult, and which are worthwhile...

And if anyone out there who's reading this has any advice or suggestions, please do speak up?

Thanks! :)

Posted by adam at October 29, 2003 12:08 AM