I was sure this type of concern might be common and thought I might find some relatable posts but either due to bad searches or what, but didn’t find any good information so ended up creating this thread.
I entered college back in 1994 and it was a total disaster from an academic standpoint. Long story short, after 5 years of being lost, I was dismissed from my school without being anywhere close to getting a degree. Serendipitously around that time, the startup I was interning for offered me a fulltime position. I started working as a web developer and was able to make a nice living for myself without a degree. I still do the same line of work and after a recent pay cut, make about 90K/yr.
From my personal experience and my colleagues, I feel the life span of a web developer is relatively short lived. So here I am at 37 years old, married and with a 6 months old baby, and I feel like my career train is nearing the final stop. So I am faced with the option of trying to stay relevant with the never ending new technologies and try to look more appealing than recent college grads or transitioning into a different career.
After weighing my options, I am leaning a bit towards a new career, and pursing an Accounting degree was top on the list. Not only because it opens things up to so many different career options, I am also looking for a career that has longevity, where experience and age doesn’t negatively impact employment chances. Plus I always liked finance and don’t mind the proverbial number crunching. If I do go down this path, then I intend to get the CFA charter. Main reason being that it would cost a whole lot more for graduate school compared to the fees to take the CFA exams.
Needless to say I am a totally different person from my first stint at college and am laser focused. Regardless of my drive, I am 37 and will be almost 20 years older than the typical 1st year college student. Do you think it makes sense for me to pursue this option? What other career moves could I be looking at?
It will take a long time and you are fooling yourself if you think it is going to be easy to be an inexperienced 45yo in a new field. I don’t see why you don’t keep your skills sharp in your industry. I have a friend who switched from a chem career into db programming later in life and just nearing retirement at 65 with stable employment and high pay. So I think it is ridiculous that you think you are out of jobs in one of the few areas that you can get jobs in these days. If you need to sharpen up skills into a more marketable area try a boot camp to reposition yourself. Your experience with dev will still be relevant. Just my two cents. I also know someone who transitioned out of programming work into project mgmt.
Wonder if you have talked with anyone holding the jobs you are looking at?
Fyi, you do know that you have to submit all prior transcripts when you apply to new college, right? No matter how long ago. There are degree completion programs for working adults that may be better for you. Are you sure you would transfer as a freshman still?
Hi BrownParent, thanks for the feedback. Great points! I agree that it is certainly possible to maintain a career in programming till retirement. I have been doing this for almost 15 years but I just can’t recall coming across anyone over 50 in my field. I am looking for a career where I can eventually make great money and not be out of a job by the time I am in my early 50s. So to me, re-educating myself into a field such as accounting or actuary seems better than adding more tools to my programming toolbox.
Do you know if your contact who transitioned into a PM role has had any noticeable change in their income?
I haven’t spoken to anyone in the finance or accounting fields, but have been posting some messages asking for feedback on various boards.
I am aware of the transcript issue. The school I dropped out from does have a forgiveness program that will not count grades lower than Cs towards your GPA for my situation, but the courses taken will show on the transcript. I was going for a communications degree so I would pretty much need to start almost as a freshman. Can you recommend any good resources for the degree completion programs for working adults?
@sung1contrarian I agree that getting your CFA would be less expensive than pursuing grad school. Also, people will look at where you went to grad school and its ranking while if you pass the CFA series then that’s great. However, let’s not underestimate the CFA exam and don’t forget the 4 years of related work experience you need to get certified. You’re looking at a minimum of 3 years to pass the series and I think that’s if you pass all of them on the first time. I forget the stats but it’s low. Good luck and keep us posted.
@sung1contrarian
The real issue I see is that you will be 41 when you finally graduate and that is assuming you do 4 years of school straight. The only way I see this working out is if you can get a job with a Big 4 Accounting firm straight out of undergrad.
You’ll want to first take classes at a local community college then transfer into a 4=yr with good recruitment.
My family immigrated here from Russia, so my dad got his CPA when he was about 33 and his CFA at about 37. I’m not going to say it was easy, especially because he got turned down at so many job interviews because of his accent, but he does earn pretty good money now. Keep in mind, though, that unless you work for a big company, you don’t necessarily have as much job security as you might imagine. When you work at a company for a while, your specialization begins to narrow, and it’s often difficult to transfer those skills to another job, so if something happens at the company you work for, you may be in trouble. That’s true for a lot of professions, though.
Anyway, good luck, and don’t let age alone put you off!
Not sure if OP is still reading, but you might consider getting your 4-year degree through a program like University Without Walls at UMass Amherst and working toward your CFA via grad school courses. From their web site, it appears they try very hard to grant college credit for work experience. You might be able to design a hybrid 4-year program in Business Administration & Web Design. If possible, this could leverage your work experience and give you the foundational undergrad finance/accounting/business courses you’d need and you might earn a 4-year degree a lot faster.
I have encouraged my D to investigate them. She has halted her studies (vocal performance/musical theatre) and is considering a finance degree.) I’m hoping that she could get a hybrid Theatre Arts & Finance or some such…
On the other side of things, I’m a 50-something software engineer working with lots of 50-somethings. Most of my friends from my past work lives, though, are still working in this field surrounded by 20-somethings. We dinosaurs are still out here! And I no longer believe in job stability – or at least, I believe job stability only exists by maintaining your skills or being very, very lucky (or both.)