What every college student interested in career in tech needs to know

Exiting, Fun, And Innovative. Those are three words that you often hear associated with a career in the technology industry, but there are three other words you should consider, Monotonous, Repetitive and Unfulfilling. How can the same industry present two different and contrasting job experiences?

The fact is that the tech industry has its dull side as well as its exciting side. If you are lucky to be part of the creative side, then you are probably going to have a good time. However, some people have to be the conductor, and others the orchestra (a Steve Jobs reference there), and if you are lucky, you will get to spend part of your career doing grunt work and part of your career doing creative work. If you are unlucky, then you will end up like Dilbert from the comic strip of the same name.

Your Qualifications Become Redundant After Five Years (Maybe Two)

Some qualifications become redundant in five years. This is not a figure that is casually thrown out. Your college professors should have mentioned this magic number to you. We have all seen seismic shifts over the years that have rendered qualifications useless, such as VCR repair people, but the five-year figure applies on a regular basis. It usually applies to industries that invest billions into research, such as psychology, pharmaceuticals, military tech, and so forth. The technology industry is rife with areas where your qualifications will become redundant in five years.

There are also some tech qualifications that become redundant in as few as two years, but you will be happy to know that firstly they are always highly specialized qualifications, and secondly, such qualifications almost always pay well. They pay well because it is tough to find people who biannually go to the trouble of updating their skills and knowledge to keep up with modern technology.

Most People in The Tech Industry Are Perpetually Learning

Your qualifications are going to start expiring as soon as you graduate, which means you need to settle your mind to the fact that you will spend a lot of your career learning new technology. If you stick with the old, then you will have a very hard time getting new work. How many people do you think are still hiring C programmers (old C, not C++ onwards)? How many people do you think are being hired to create a writing services website using just the old HTML code?

An Unassailable Love for Your Profession Is Desired If You Want A Career

A career in the technology sector requires an unstoppable love for the area you work in. Nobody says you have to enjoy writing your million lines of spaghetti logic code, but you do need a love for your chosen career if you are going to stick with it.

A job in the technology sector is not something you can fall into. This is because you need to keep learning and keep improving yourself if you wish to compete, and that is not appealing to people who felling into the profession.

For example, a person who falls into the end-of-life services industry can spend most of his or her career doing the same thing and getting paid for it, but people in the technology industry cannot. People in the tire development industry are having to learn how to print 3D rubber, and people in the building-tech industry are having to learn how to develop plastics rivets that can withstand earthquakes. People in most aspects of the technology sector are having to learn, learn, learn on a regular basis.

Much of The Grunt Work Is Painfully Boring

The romance surrounding most career choices is always better than the real thing. You may see the screaming crowds packed into stadiums for singing celebrities, but you do not seem them crammed into sweaty tour buses with six of their training staff. You may think that an erotic photographer has the greatest job ever, but you do not see him having to convince unhinged models to come out of the bathroom after they decided that the harsh lights are damaging their hair follicles.

The fact is that the technology industry has its fair share of grunt work. You may have seen an episode of CSI Miami and figured you want to be a CSI up until you visit your local CSI lab and realize it is nothing more than a factory with lab coats. All areas of the technology industry, from the graphic modelers to the coders, are forced to do repetitive grunt work because it is part of the job. TV and movies show you the innovative and exciting side of the tech industry because the rest of it is rather dull and repetitive. Even when they show you Tony Stark making his Iron Man tech, they do not show the hours of welding, the hours of coding, the hours of testing, testing, testing and testing.

Do not be dissuaded from a career in the tech industry, just be prepared to lower your rose-tinted spectacles and realize that work is rarely called Work because it is fun.