Teacher looking to change careers

I started out as a front end developer for an rapidly growing company who builds websites for their clients. I was mostly doing simple wordpress stuff to start. It was very trivial for the most part, even someone with not much background could pick it up. I was already familiar with java, javascript, programming concepts, CSS, html, php, SQL and other basic stuff but that said, i used almost none of it to start. A little bit of css and html but pretty much just made easy customizations to wordpress themes. I quickly got moved to back end development though and got to start actually programming. Mostly with php and python. I graduated from university almost two years ago now and this all happened over the course of a year or so. Now i'm working as a systems analyst for the local health authority.

To answer your question about pay. I started at 24$ per hr and i make just under $29 now which grows to $36 over 5 years experience.

Join the Army.

Alan

I think people underestimate a teachers salary. Yes, it seems like you are under paid, and to an extent you are, but there are certain financial benefits to being a teacher. A great pension being the most overlooked.

Most teacher pensions allow you to get close to your ending salary at full retirement.

Lets say you are a 62 year old teacher making 70k a year (will be more or less depending on state/school district, etc). To be able to spend 70k a year in you would need to have saved around 1.75 million. That is over stating it some. In the private sector you can get Social Security. If you had been making, lets say, 100k at retirement you.ll probably get around 20-24k a year at 62. So you only need 50k or so from your savings. Or about 1.25 million.

It would probably take you saving 10-20k a year to accumulate 1.25 million after 30 years (10k at start, building up to 20k at the end.). 20k on top of 70k takes you up to 90k.

On top of that, you are only working 3/4 time. You get about 4 months off per year, and your days end at around 3. Yes, some teacher work after that, but a lot don't (just like I worked more like 45-55 hours a week most of my life as a software engineer, but some do not).

Teaching is a good career choice for someone willing to sacrifice today's earnings for an relatively early, stable and secure retirement and more free time.

Runningart2004 wrote:

Join the Army.

Alan

can you join the army at 37? what type of jobs could you have?

I think you mean you're looking to "start" a career.

Glorified babysitting with a 3 month vacation isn't a "career."

You are absolutely correct. I don't have a fancy home, I don't drive a fancy car, I never made 6 figures but will be retiring with a 60,000 a year pension and over 900,000 in a taxes deferred anuity.

No worries, I would say I'm pretty average amongst my friends. Most have more debt/less savings but some of those have equity in real estate.

Getting Old wrote:

Hi notteacher,

Apologies if my post came off as an attack on your spending habits / saving ability. I was only trying to push back on the idea that your savings were some kind of indication that teachers are some kind of fat cats. I fully understand the challenges of saving on a middle class income. I'm sure you know that in the world we actually live in - where we don't all make $200K and run sub-15 5Ks - your actually doing fine.

Best of luck to you with your career transition.

Thanks, How did you learn to code in the first place? Did you do it as a hobby or with intention of getting a job?$36/hour salaried (with benefits) would be a pretty nice gig assuming you work public sector hours.

I'm not too worried about the wage. It's low on my list of negatives about the job. My main reason for the change is the boredom.

Notteaching wrote:

Teacher here looking for a career change.

Every day is more boring and just need something engaging that I can attain mastery over. No offence to teachers as I'm sure tons of you love your jobs but it just doesn't match with my personality type.

My only problem is I don't have a distinct skillset. I'm pretty logical/analytical and often feel I have to explain things to colleagues. I'm decently computer savvy and have built my own sites etc.

Any ideas? Any similar experience? I'm 37 and single BTW. Have about 45k in savings.

Substitute teach and enjoy your life. Then after a year or two you may be able to decide what you want to do!

Runningart2004 wrote:

Join the Army.

Alan

I see corrections officer (prison guard) here. You'll probably see a number of your former students.

Fulton J. Sheen wrote:

Notteaching wrote:

Teacher here looking for a career change.

Every day is more boring and just need something engaging that I can attain mastery over. No offence to teachers as I'm sure tons of you love your jobs but it just doesn't match with my personality type.

My only problem is I don't have a distinct skillset. I'm pretty logical/analytical and often feel I have to explain things to colleagues. I'm decently computer savvy and have built my own sites etc.

Any ideas? Any similar experience? I'm 37 and single BTW. Have about 45k in savings.

Substitute teach and enjoy your life. Then after a year or two you may be able to decide what you want to do!

Not so simple now just to drift because of Obama Care. OP will be fined unless he/she buys health insurance even though at 37 chances are slim he/she will ever need it.

Teach co-op. I hear you, teaching the same courses can get monotonous after a while. With co-op, you can see kids work in a huge variety of jobs. You get to learn a lot of new things when you monitor their placements. Kids love showing off their new skills.

Thanks but I just don't want to teach anymore.

Try co-op wrote:

Teach co-op. I hear you, teaching the same courses can get monotonous after a while. With co-op, you can see kids work in a huge variety of jobs. You get to learn a lot of new things when you monitor their placements. Kids love showing off their new skills.

I'm also a former teacher - I went into health care via a two-year RN associates. The biggest pluses (for me) have been: 1) There are a large number of very different jobs all available with just an RN degree. It also seems to be one of the few careers where changing your employer every two years or so is completely normal and acceptable. For both of these reasons, the boredom factor is low. 2) As a former educator, the role of nurse involves a large amount of patient education - many of the things I liked about the specific act of teaching are also necessary in nursing. 3) Pay/benefits/hours are all pretty negotiable and all pretty good.

If you are working in private/independent schools, you could explore the alternatives to teaching inside the building: admissions, financial aid, development. I have done all these and more.

PM at

bcmeegancc@gmail.com

if you want to talk more.

Brian

I'm 37 without kids and I guess I don't see how a 2 year MBA would interfere. That's so short an amount of time and if you go to a good program, you can find a good job. I'm your age and I'm doing a PhD in business - heck, I've completed two years at a program that is ranked in the top 80 but I have the opportunity to jump to a top 20 program in the fall and I'm doing it even through I have to start over ... at 37, because 37 isn't that old and because I get to, in NCAA speak, restart the clock in a field where every publication boosts starting salary by quite a bit - as an example, starting salary at the school in leaving is $130k and it's $200k at the program I'm headed to. and because the program will expose me more intellectualy curious people than where I am now, which fulfills my primary intrinsic need - see below.

But I think the bigger thing is you need to decide what motivates you - what are goal discrepancies do you enjoy resolving, engage you, allow you to experience possible flow, can you build an identity around? It sounds like you haven't found activities outside of the job to satisfy these intrinsic needs, so find a job that does - so that would rule out the insurance job because it sounds like that person finds satisfaction outside of work and his job pays the bills without causing too much stress.

coding: there are so many free and/cheap sources from codeacademy to treehouse to Lynda or enroll in Turing.io

aaaaarrrrrrbyyyy wrote:

Runningart2004 wrote:

Join the Army.

Alan

can you join the army at 37? what type of jobs could you have?

Age limit was recently raised to 40 or 42, but go talk to a recruiter.

Officer route is unlikely as you are over the OCS age limit, but you could try to get a waiver.

There are over 150 careers in the US Army.....

....but you can only select what is available at any certain point. My guess is that you'll have 20 or so jobs available. Do you want a mostly office job or a job that gets you outside more often?

Again, if it interests you go talk to a recruiter. Come back here and I'll try to give you some solid advice.

Alan