8 million jobs lost in the recession, that are never coming back.
As one of those "construction" jobs in a severe bubble state, I've decided that I, as an architect, am superfluous to the general market. Furthermore, since I didn't get the sort of career opportunities that it turns out to be of interest to the new economy, it's time to retool myself.
So this blog needs to change again, to help me. I'm heading into information systems, attracted by databases. I've been known to tell people, "we really need a database to keep track of all this, and if we could get this other source of data, and cross it with our stuff, then maybe it could tell us X..." I want to learn how to do that better, and find a place to use my skills.
I've been accepted into UAH's business school, where I'm thinking I'm going to pursue a MS-IS. I've been collecting old textbooks for some of the prerequisite courses I need to make up:
- One semester of graduate or two semesters undergraduate accounting
- One semester of computer programming (any language)
- One semester of economics which includes microeconomics
- One semester of statistics
- One semester of calculus
- One semester of business communications
I'd taken a statistics course as part of my psychology certificate, but it was targeted to experiment design. Later I read The Four-Hour Work Week, and was intrigued by Tim Ferriss' use of regressions to usefully crunch data. I've just had a great time reading Super Crunchers, and wonder how I can try some of these methods myself.
I've done some real-world accounting, and always felt I was constructing a jigsaw puzzle of the larger picture. Taking a training course in Quickbooks helped, but I never really did enough of it to feel that I could control the system. The old textbooks I've picked up are "managerial" accounting, which are already orienting me.
For computer programming, I'm not sure how to proceed. In Reality Check, Guy Kawasaki advocates MySQL as the way to go for databases these days. People who have been in programming for the last couple of decades advocate Pascal. I think I want to work through my Information Technology and Society textbook first, though I'll probably do both and more.