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Which is better for an IT job? Trade school or college?

I'm thinking of going to CTC and then ito a 4 year, but I'm not sure about the money used vs money gained. Any help for this alongside recommendations? #computer-programming #web-development #html-5

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Wilfred’s Answer

I suggest college if you have the stamina to go through 4 years and you are willing to pay the price. The reason is that with a college degree you have much more flexibility (you want to be able to pick a career that interests you) and the ceiling is higher. Meaning you will come to a point in your career where you want to aim for a higher paying job, maybe become a manager, and a college degree often becomes a requirement to be accepted for this. If you are not able to advance in your career, your pay or you'll see other employees get picked for jobs instead of you, then that's no fun, believe me.
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Joel’s Answer

I agree with the above. If you can overcome the cost and other hurdles, then a 4 year program is going to benefit more in the long run. Not only will your ceiling be higher, but (whether this is right or wrong is a different debate) you'll be more respected in the IT world with a 4 year degree rather than one from a trade school.*


*I'll note that this is from my experience only and I don't have data to back it up.

Thank you comment icon Okay, thank you for the suggestions, I was thinking of heading to a 2 year to start off and going for the full 6 years, thank you for the advice! Arthur
Thank you comment icon One thing to consider - you could go to a community college for 2 years and get most of your gen ed's out of the way and then transfer to a 4 year school to finish up. This can be a considerably cheaper route if money is an issue. Joel Goering
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Sreenivasa’s Answer

From my past experience, it is very important to have a college degree in this competitive world. Since you are aiming for IT jobs, I would suggest you to plan for a Degree in Computer Information Systems OR similar specialization. Hope , it helps. - Thanks

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Mat’s Answer

I can only speak for myself so personally it all depends on how dedicated you are. For me, I went to college for media production which encompassed many areas of media, including web design/development. However, on my own, I did my own training, research and countless hours of practice/tests. All of this lead me to freelancing for 10 years prior to the job I'm currently at. My personal opinion, you can't learn everything in a 6 week or 4 year college degree program. You need to put in your own time into it so you can make it yours and let that shine out which will help you get hired and desired.

Mat recommends the following next steps:

After you accomplish a new skill, document it in your resume. You can even notate the years you're experienced in it.
Practice, practice and more practice. Reach out to family members, friends, and look at ads for any type of coding projects that you can do and play around in. This really helped me with owning my craft and skill a lot. You can even start up a personal portfolio site and once you have items that you're proud of you can include them when you are applying for more jobs as examples.
If you're a student, look into the student plans on lynda.com. I'm sure there are other sites as comparable that you can use. I personally used lynda.com. There are a few excellent channels on youtube that do in-depth dives into different coding languages and use cases.
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