On Tue, Nov 03, 2015 at 07:00:09PM +0000, Kevin Jensen wrote: > I don't want to oversell myself, so to clarify, I've worked for 10 years as > a pharmacy technician and did freelance on the side for 7 years. Businesses > in Price are a hard sell on a website (they stick with more traditional > marketing). So I've worked with a handful of clients, but with coal on the > decline lots of people are leaving the area and businesses are closing. > > My main goals are to do front- and/or back-end development with the option > to move into management. I guess I should have included all that in my > initial email. :)
An alternative is business operations software, particularly if you want to stick around a small towns in Utah where inventory, shipping, and logistics represent a bigger chunk of the economy than online consumer sales. Check out point of sale [POS] (i.e. cash register) systems and inventory management and customer relationship management [CRM] (sales.) Often the folks managing these systems are not technically inclined and are looking for someone to help them "tame the system." Specifically someone who knows both the problem domain and the software system. You may be able to leverage your experience as a pharmacy tech, which (I assume) includes familiarity with inventory and POS systems. Just knowing the name of the system and a little about programming it may help you if you're talking to a middle level management type if a blend of tech and later management is your goal. Business operations software will be mostly closed source. A couple of exceptions are Odoo and SugarCRM. Most established businesses won't be using those (perhaps SugarCRM, but Odoo is pretty new.) There are opportunities opening up in the POS area with the current regulation change requiring "chip enabled" credit card readers in the near future: every business will have to change them out if they haven't already. Anyways, something to think about. It's not web dev, but it is tech, and if small towns are your thing, it's another option. > > On Tue, Nov 3, 2015, 11:10 AM Chuck Crandall <[email protected]> wrote: > > > My 2 cents... After 7 years of freelance much of what a university has to > > offer will be old news to you. Consider creating your own educational path > > that builds on what you already know, rather than starting from scratch. I > > would recommend specializing your training to make you more marketable in > > the global workforce. I can tell you that experienced Drupal developers > > are currently finding work regardless of where they live. And I imagine > > the same goes for other specialized skills, like WordPress development, > > Symphony, Mongo, etc. > > > > Not that "classical training" is a bad thing. I have a BS in computer > > engineering from BYU, and that was the right choice for me. But I was > > starting from ground zero, had never written a line of code in my life. > > With so many options for online learning now, I wouldn't feel obligated to > > drop everything and dedicate yourself to getting a degree full time. > > > > > > > > Chuck Crandall > > Unicon, Inc. > > > > > > On Tue, Nov 3, 2015 at 10:44 AM, Steve Meyers <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > > > On 11/03/2015 09:53 AM, Derek Caswell wrote: > > > > I do agree with Andrew on a lot his points about "classically trained" > > > > developers but I still think there is a lot of value in the education > > > > process and the skills that it gives you in critical thinking. My > > > > recommendation to most people is to get the degree but don't think that > > > the > > > > degree is going to get you a great high-paying job. You need to figure > > > out > > > > ASAP what you want to do like programming, administration, etc. and > > then > > > > get as much real world experience in that as you can get while getting > > > the > > > > degree. That experience is what is going to shape you into a valuable > > > > > > It's definitely best to have a "real job" while going to school. When > > > hiring kids fresh out of college, I always favored the ones who had > > > decent programming jobs already. There's benefit to both real world > > > experience and "classical training". > > > > > > Steve > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > > UPHPU mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu > > > IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > UPHPU mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu > > IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net > > > > _______________________________________________ > > UPHPU mailing list > [email protected] > http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu > IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net -- Robert Stewart (801-400-3255) _______________________________________________ UPHPU mailing list [email protected] http://uphpu.org/mailman/listinfo/uphpu IRC: #uphpu on irc.freenode.net
