Comment Becoming a student (again) (Score 5, Interesting) 401
I lost my job on Sept 11, 2001 of all days... After almost a year of unemployment, in which I couldn't find a bloody thing, I decided to cut my losses and return to school. I have an electronics diploma (I'm an Electronic Technologist - which is inbetween a technician and an engineer). I'm now doing my comp sci degree.
What I quickly discovered was that, as a normal unemployed person I was of little interest to companies. Once I became a student I was in high demand! It didn't take me long to find work (regardless of the season though there are distinct hiring times) and I could choose from really good jobs! The reasons why I found work so easily were :
1) I was much more skilled then the average student (I've got almost 5 years of solid SW development experience).
2) More importantly: as a student under 25 (I think the max age was raised to 28 now), I could fall under the federal government programs here in Canada where the government would subsidize my salary (it's an incentive for companies to hire students). I don't have to apply for it; my employer handles that.
3) The Canadian Federal government has a good website to connect students with jobs in the government. Anyone that applies for funding gets their job posted on their website (real jobs! holy @#%$#!). They also have a special program called FSWEP that helps students find jobs in the federal government. What's really cool about it is that they don't want to know what level of experience you have, only the basic skills. When a hiring manager wants to find somebody the program randomly pulls 4-6 names of people that have the basic skills require (i.e. knows MS office, speaks French, knows C++, etc) and they have to hire one of those people. With that program I got 4 calls - many of them for web development. Looking back I should have taken one of those jobs, a part time job, as the websites in question were really big and complex - it would have been interesting (I'm a C/C++ hacker at heart).
4) I was available for part time working during the school year. Lots of part time jobs during the year! The disadvantage is that it severly effects the time I have to study; I take the minimum amount of courses to be full time. As such, it'll take me 4 years to get my (honours) degree (if I took a full course load I could be done in 2.5-3 years, even less if I took summer courses).
The work has always been interesting and in my general field. The first place I worked at, a charity, I was writing custom video conferencing software using this nice SDK and accompanying hardware (it was very interesting work). I now work in an IT team in the Federal government, on a project to migrate from Win98 to XP.
As for pay, there are definite advantages to being a student. First off, since I fall under those government programs, there are guaranteed minimum levels of salary. At the moment I make $15.61 CND per hour ($10.71 US). Next year I can expect to make around $18/hour if I continue in the federal government. The other advantage is that by being in these organizations, I have the proverbial foot in the door (i.e. where I work now I can apply for any internal job postings).
I think that the biggest advantage of being a student, aside from that fact that I will get the degree I've been desiring for many years (actually I care more about the education then the degree), is that I pay virtually no tax. What I do pay, I will get (virtually) all of it back at tax time!
I know this isn't an option for everyone but in my case I really wanted to get my degree - everything worked out well. Life is good at the moment.
BTW, slightly offtopic but one of the HUGE advantages of being unemployed here in Canada is healthcare: it doesn't cost a cent (well, you do pay for drugs but generics are common & cheap). My wife made extensive use of the healthcase system here (got quickly treated by uber-experts for what, at first, appeared to be cancer). If we had to pay anything at all for the treatment she recieved for 3 months (i.e. even 10%), we'd be completely broke and living with my parents. The parking at the hospital, by itself, burnt a significant hole in my pocket!
What I quickly discovered was that, as a normal unemployed person I was of little interest to companies. Once I became a student I was in high demand! It didn't take me long to find work (regardless of the season though there are distinct hiring times) and I could choose from really good jobs! The reasons why I found work so easily were
1) I was much more skilled then the average student (I've got almost 5 years of solid SW development experience).
2) More importantly: as a student under 25 (I think the max age was raised to 28 now), I could fall under the federal government programs here in Canada where the government would subsidize my salary (it's an incentive for companies to hire students). I don't have to apply for it; my employer handles that.
3) The Canadian Federal government has a good website to connect students with jobs in the government. Anyone that applies for funding gets their job posted on their website (real jobs! holy @#%$#!). They also have a special program called FSWEP that helps students find jobs in the federal government. What's really cool about it is that they don't want to know what level of experience you have, only the basic skills. When a hiring manager wants to find somebody the program randomly pulls 4-6 names of people that have the basic skills require (i.e. knows MS office, speaks French, knows C++, etc) and they have to hire one of those people. With that program I got 4 calls - many of them for web development. Looking back I should have taken one of those jobs, a part time job, as the websites in question were really big and complex - it would have been interesting (I'm a C/C++ hacker at heart).
4) I was available for part time working during the school year. Lots of part time jobs during the year! The disadvantage is that it severly effects the time I have to study; I take the minimum amount of courses to be full time. As such, it'll take me 4 years to get my (honours) degree (if I took a full course load I could be done in 2.5-3 years, even less if I took summer courses).
The work has always been interesting and in my general field. The first place I worked at, a charity, I was writing custom video conferencing software using this nice SDK and accompanying hardware (it was very interesting work). I now work in an IT team in the Federal government, on a project to migrate from Win98 to XP.
As for pay, there are definite advantages to being a student. First off, since I fall under those government programs, there are guaranteed minimum levels of salary. At the moment I make $15.61 CND per hour ($10.71 US). Next year I can expect to make around $18/hour if I continue in the federal government. The other advantage is that by being in these organizations, I have the proverbial foot in the door (i.e. where I work now I can apply for any internal job postings).
I think that the biggest advantage of being a student, aside from that fact that I will get the degree I've been desiring for many years (actually I care more about the education then the degree), is that I pay virtually no tax. What I do pay, I will get (virtually) all of it back at tax time!
I know this isn't an option for everyone but in my case I really wanted to get my degree - everything worked out well. Life is good at the moment.
BTW, slightly offtopic but one of the HUGE advantages of being unemployed here in Canada is healthcare: it doesn't cost a cent (well, you do pay for drugs but generics are common & cheap). My wife made extensive use of the healthcase system here (got quickly treated by uber-experts for what, at first, appeared to be cancer). If we had to pay anything at all for the treatment she recieved for 3 months (i.e. even 10%), we'd be completely broke and living with my parents. The parking at the hospital, by itself, burnt a significant hole in my pocket!
