Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

Generals Die Last, Specialization Is For Insects

From time to time, I get emails from (probably) spotty geeks asking for advice on “what should I do with my life?”. At their age, I’d imagine that they should be decideding what course of study to pursue. So let’s get this off my chest - specialization is for insects so please choose a field of study that is general enough to allow you flexibility in your career options.

In 1999, I entered the job market armed with a variety of specialized IT skills. These skills paid a very handsome sign-on bonus with fantastic career options.

8 years later today, I’m glad that I dropped those IT skills fast because according to “The top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills” report by Computerworld, those skills are dead, babyyy.

I know some of the folk who graduated with me, are still saddled with jobs using COBOL, C and Coldfusion (my own particular field of expertise in 1999). For those of you who are reading this with question marks appearing above your head, I’d say EXACTLY!!!

Almost every kind of IT job except project management tends to push you towards specialization. While this may be exciting after awhile, specialization comes with an expiry date. So just imagine being laid off from your exciting COBOL programmer job at age 40 with little or no prospects of getting a similar job with the same paycheck.

So anyway back to the topic of deciding what to study. I’ve found that folk who majored in English Lit and Physics seem to be able to pickup the pace pretty quickly in most anything. So I’d suggest a general business or science degree.

Oh and I do think you should go travel alone before hitting the books. It really does help broaden your mind.

aye… cobol ish like so retro…
but i think there’ll still be demand somewhere…
afterall, still got old systems or mainframes ard…

this advice is too lame.

yes, but will that cobol job pay a 40 year old the same as they would a 20 year old?

Woo hoo, I didn’t see RPG listed so it must be thriving!!
Now if I could only find anyone who needs that skill….

eh i wouldn’t count on it.
but well, i foresee they might pay more if their farking mainframe that broke down needs urgent help and there’s only u tis cobol smartie. =D

Travel now, before u are old and wrinkled and too tired to even go nearby hawker to buy ur lunch.