If you’re in the process of exploring new professional opportunities, you might be considering a career in tech. Careers in tech, particularly if you want to get into software engineering or programming, are becoming more readily accessible to anybody, and are brilliant career choices with lots of opportunities, job security, and progression on offer.
Tech Jobs Are Here to Stay
The world desperately needs people with a strong technical background, and as technology becomes more and more advanced, there are simply not enough people to satisfy the demand right now. These days, there are more ideas for new software products then there are people who can build them.
Programming requires creative thinking. While machines are taking over more and more, they can’t quite replace creative thinking that well, and probably won’t for a while. While there are AIs for generating code, we’re nowhere near a point where programmers are going to be taken over by machines. They don’t have the capabilities for creative thinking and a deep understanding of human needs that makes programmers successful.
You Can Earn a Lot While Studying
Most people tend to work menial jobs when they’re studying; they don’t have the qualifications yet to do something better, plus minimum wage jobs tend to offer more flexible hours that can fit around studies while helping to pay the bills.
But, studying computer science to manage Git repositories with a Git GUI opens up opportunities that aren’t available to most students. While completing your online computer science masters, you could work as:
- A web developer
- A programmer
- A software engineer
- IT support
- In your own business
- Freelance
The opportunities are endless, and when you study computer science, you’ll get the basic skills needed to work successfully in pretty much any of these fields. Plus, if you want extra flexibility – nobody likes spending eight hours waiting tables after a long day of studying – you can get work as a freelance web developer or programmer, or even develop your own idea and start a business from it, all while still in college. If you choose to study online rather than on campus, you’ll have even more flexibility and freedom to get started with your own business, whether you’re developing websites, creating an app, or providing remote IT support.
You Can Integrate Your Passions
What if you’re passionate about something that isn’t strictly computer science? The good thing about getting into this field is that it can be integrated with pretty much anything. Passionate about fashion and beauty? You could develop an app that focuses on styling or selecting the right makeup products. Tech has seeped into pretty much every aspect of our lives, and it’s easy for you to combine your computer science, programming, developing or coding knowledge with a love of:
- Fashion & beauty
- Art
- Sports
- Home design
- Entertainment
- Film
- Business & marketing
- Food
Plus, pretty much anything else you might be interested in.
The opportunities are endless – you could create an app for your favorite sports team, for example, or if you love cooking, you could develop a recipe-sharing site. There are so many different areas where you can focus your computer science skills. If you’re passionate about something and not entirely sure how you could focus on it as a career avenue, then computer science will open up the opportunity for you to do just that.
It’s a Well-Paid Industry
According to Labor Department reports, the average salary for a software developer in 2015 was $98, 260. And it’s a number that’s constantly growing, not to mention that the better you are, the more you can earn – the highest-paid 10% of software developers in 2015 earned over $150,00 per year. Today, a junior developer with a year of relevant experience can easily make $80k or more; it’s definitely a profession that’s in the minority when it comes to paying well from the beginning.
The Sky’s the Limit
Software developers have a unique set of opportunities; the sky really is the limit when it comes to this career. You could easily code for your entire career and still continue growing and climbing the career ladder. And if you don’t want to code forever, there are plenty of career progression opportunities that allow you to branch out into something else. Developers often turn their career into becoming successful:
- Consultants
- Executives
- Inventors
- Teachers
- Public speakers
- Entrepreneurs
There really are absolutely no limits to the career growth possibilities that you can take advantage of when you study computer science. Plus, with tech integrated into every aspect of our lives, there’s no need to work for a tech company forever. Many successful developers and software engineers go on to work in industries such as finance, law, education, and many more.
You’re Always Learning Something New
The evolution of tech is happening at a faster rate than everybody’s ability to keep up with everything. Technology is accelerating at such a rapid pace that for developers, and there’s always something new coming along for them to learn.
For people who love a challenge and hate the idea of stagnating in a career where eventually you’ll know pretty much everything that there is to know about what you do, pursuing computer science is the perfect option. Big software companies are always developing new specialized frameworks and languages in order to solve their problems more naturally – even if you know all the coding languages out there, there’s bound to be a new, niche one that comes along for you to get into.
In short, there’s absolutely no way that you could learn everything and keep up with all the new technologies and industry trends; there are just too many new ones, and there’ll be even more future trends for you to explore.
Alongside excellent career opportunities and great entry-level pay rates, programming can be both challenging and rewarding, plus a huge amount of fun. There’s always a new problem to solve, and if you want a career where you can do something meaningful, imagine how inspired and fulfilled you will feel when you develop the next piece of tech that changes lives!
