After yet another depressing year of substitute teaching I longed for summer, little did I know what the end of summer would bring. It's been a challenge, but an exciting one with the promise of a new career in the future.
In August I stumbled upon a new Veterans' benefit that had recently been initiated. The Veterans' Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP), well, I think that's what it is. Anyway, there were two primary requirements to be eligible: 1. Be a Veteran (got it, no problem), 2. Be unemployed ( got this one too). I kid you a bit, there are some other requirements, but these are the two important ones. The benefit is simple, if approved you get one calendar year of Montgomery GI Bill benefits to enter a training program for a high-demand skill. The other requirement is that it must be in a community college or vo-tech school. I just looked at the website and there are only about 11,000 slots still available so if this is something you think you may qualify for then get hopping on the application - it is relatively painless so no excuses!
I had to swallow my pride a little and accept that my BA & MA were of little use in the current job market and that my goal of teaching history just wasn't going to happen so I started studying the "in demand" jobs and eliminating the obvious no-goes. Fairly quickly the list was pared down to just a handful of possibilities. I felt that it had to be something in the Information Technology (IT)/computer-related field which in the end left with about half a dozen possibilities.
Finally, after weighing all the options, I talked to one of my wife's colleagues - an IT guru in his own right. When queried about his recommendation for a high-growth, sustainable field, Chris didn't hesitate a moment before he replied "networking." Networking? "Absolutely came his reply - especially "cloud" computing, the newer process of accessing and doing your work on the web itself. Certainly not what I expected to be doing at 53, but a job with fairly guaranteed employment at a pretty decent salary.
So there you have it. I enrolled in the AAS LAN (Local Area Networking) management program at Kirkwood Community College. I just survived my first semester of classes and I came to the realization that just because it's a community college it won't be a cakewalk! Some of the classes were fairly easy and very basic, yet they required almost constant effort to stay up with the curriculum so my time each day consisted mostly of playing catchup. The core class was a real bear, "Introduction to networking," the entire class revolves around Cisco so the textbooks, lectures and tests were all based on what Cisco wants. All of it a totally new ball game to this history major. So as the instructor said, "What Cisco wants, Cisco gets."
I discovered something else, computer/techie people really are different. Not necessarily different as in odd although there are a few of those characters too. Different in thought process, conversations and rationale. It took this old liberal arts guy just about the entire semester to figure out the best way to function in the techie world! So much so that I am repeating one of my core classes in the upcoming spring semester. I just couldn't get a solid grasp of networks, subnetting and other processes that are at the center of the networking field. Yeah, a real duh moment I know. I passed the class, but just barely. The instructor suggested that if my schedule allowed it that I should retake the class and that she would be more than willing to provide extra help to get to the level of proficiency that she felt I needed to succeed in the field.
While I have a full schedule for the upcoming semester, I still have Fridays off. I do hope to continue to substitute teach in the area to maintain a little more income to supplement the GI Bill payment. Woody has his work cut out for him that's for sure! My wife is fully supportive of this new venture. Seeing this as a stepping stone to a little more fiscal security down the road. Me too.
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