Are you ready to jump into the tech field and find the job of your dreams? If so, you need to know two things upfront. First, what are the most relevant, in-demand skills in today’s job market? Second, what’s the smartest way to earn a college degree in a technical field and pay for it?
Getting and Financing Your Degree
Once you’ve whittled your list of favorite schools down to just two or three, consider applying to all and seeing what kind of financial aid packages they offer. Some institutions have their own grants (money you don’t have to pay back) and specialty scholarships for older students. It never hurts to ask the admissions office about what’s available.
The other piece of the education puzzle is financing or paying for the entire degree program, even if you are lucky enough to get a grant or a partial scholarship. The most effective, common-sense way to achieve this is to apply for a student loan from a private lender. These lenders have loans for students of all ages and backgrounds. It doesn’t matter if you’re attending college for the first time or taking a mid-career break to complete or start a degree. Private loans come with competitive rates, realistic terms, and other features that are just right for any budget.
In-Demand Skills You Can Start Learning Today
Even if you’re headed to a degree program that encompasses all the important IT skill sets, it’s a good idea to become familiar with employers’ needs and teaching yourself a few basics right away. One advantage of tech subjects is that you can learn quite a bit on your own. That way, if you know what hiring managers want, go ahead and do a little DIY education in your spare time. What skills are most beloved by the biggest corporations in the niche? Here’s a quick look at seven of them, listed in no particular order of preference.
Cloud-Related Skills
So much of the business universe is transitioning to cloud-based services, anyone who neglects this skill area is losing out on multiple opportunities. Fortunately, nearly every academic program, internship, and part-time IT-related job will teach you the basics of delivering all kinds of computer services via the internet.
Project Management
If you intend to move up in the field or are considering a career as a consultant, learning project management techniques will serve you well. These are not the kinds of things you’ll learn in your first year on a job, but some college programs will offer classes in the subject. Project managers lead teams of tech professionals on a number of complex, large operations. Once you’ve reached this level of expertise, you can pretty much choose any niche you find interesting, including healthcare, consulting, product marketing, energy, construction, and more. Many project managers have five or more years of professional experience in multi-disciplinary subject areas. They also earn higher salaries than many other IT practitioners.
Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is one of the hottest sub-topics within the entire IT segment. Many colleges now offer a major in the subject. That’s how high demand is from students and from employers. Why? If you read the news, it’s pretty obvious that hacking and ransomware attacks are becoming more common. Companies want to protect themselves against attacks, data theft, system interference, corporate espionage operations, and general dangers to their data, company secrets, and hardware. Even if you specialize in a different subject, be sure to take at least one or two courses in cybersecurity.
Artificial Intelligence
If you have hopes of entering the machine learning niche or are attracted to the idea of working with big data, business intelligence, or data architecture, AI skills are necessary. How to acquire them? Take courses in AI or let your supervisor know your interest in the subject. They can put you on projects where you’ll learn about computer processes that involve imitating human intelligence.
Software Engineering
Are you a gaming enthusiast to the extent that you want a career as a game developer? Or, perhaps your interests lie in the area of consulting, web development, or multi-media programming. If any or all of those topics sound like a career area you’d enjoy, software engineering skills will be at the heart of what you do. Software engineers apply the core concepts of engineering to the development and creation of computer software. There’s a specific career path for software engineers, and most college computer science programs offer a major or at least a specialization in the subject.
User Experience and User Interface Design
You won’t necessarily need a college degree to get a job in this field, but it can help increase your earning potential if you have both a degree and relevant experience. In fact, many college students do UI and UX (user interface and user experience) work on the side or as interns while in school. You can teach yourself many of the basics. Your main job in this field is to design user-facing websites and pages that are both appealing to prospective customers/users and are user friendly in terms of navigation, buying, sending messages, etc.
Data Analytics
Data analytic skills are not the sort of thing you pick up on your own. It’s helpful to take a formal class or learn the basics on the job. What do these analysts do? The standard definition refers to managing, using, retrieving, and storing all sorts of information in order to gain a better understanding of a particular topic, like profit trends, the percentage of products that are defective, the number of customers who want additional services, and more. Typical job titles in this niche tend to include the word “data,” like data engineer, analyst, or consultant. Most degree programs cover everything you need to know to snag a job as soon as, or ever before, you graduate. Still, it’s wise to keep a skills checklist handy and view it every so often to make certain you’re up to date on your capabilities.
