Sup TESF, I'm at a point in my life I have to decide on a career which is going to supply me with income for the rest of my days.

I've narrowed it down to a few courses. And I'm looking for feedback on what course would have better emplyment chances, and how demanding the position is.

Web Design
Graphic Design (my top choice and most interesting)
PC Repair & Maintanence
Game Design (3D Modeling, Texturing)

All courses allow me to work full time, an from home. And all are $9800-$10500. (

The Graphic Design position has an average salary of $52,000. The most out of all of them. And allows freelance work. And the tuition goes down since I have Photoshop CS5, Illustrator, and InDesign, the 3 software packs they require.

What do you guys think?

Galuf, I'm totally ignorant on the courses, but does the college/school have a good reputation and job placement track record? Is it for profit or non profit? I have no idea how things are in Canada, but there are so many questionable trade schools in the US that just take students for a ride and they're no more able to get a job than when they started the course. Just want to make sure its a good institution, that's all.

I'd say go with web design or graphic design, since it's got a pretty solid future in terms of you finding employment. People are always going to need websites designing.

Game design might be something you'd enjoy, but I don't think it's that easy to get a job or any experience in it outside of your course, since it's a very competitive area. At least with web/ graphic design you can be self-employed.

Also, like Jeffredo said, check out the reputation of the school or college. Somewhere with a good reputation is likely to have contacts within the industry, and will be able to help you find employment.

Good luck!

I personally wouldn't go into game design. I would go with whatever you like most which seems to be graphic design.

Word of advice: don't take any programs that are geared specifically towards the video game industry. If you end up disliking it, you're [censored]. That's assuming you even get in the industry (good luck!).

PC Repair & Maintenance - there will always be a high demand for it

Wow, the new forum is about as glitchy as a Bethesda game.....

Just do what you will enjoy the most.

Having done the exact opposite of the above and hated every minute of my 'higher' education, which by all accounts should be the greatest years of your life, I beg you not to do the same!

www.cd-ed.com

It was recommended by my high school teachers long ago. They do have success stories and whatnot.

Join the military.

Nope. Computers are becoming more and more disposable these days.

I don't think the general public will see computers as "disposable" for many, many years to come. I do think they will figure out that they no longer need to get a new one when they can just up grade components, but to those of us that are poor, disposable is not a word we use, hell, my mom is using an 8 year old computer that she got from a school that was upgrading.

Keep in mind that this is Canada we are talking about here.

Tempting. But the amount of time away from everyone and being under authority makes this a no go.

Consumer computers, yeah, but in the workforce computers are expected to last 10 years and only get upgraded by much groveling. To say nothing of REAL computers and network maintenance in the corporate world.

That said, that major seems odd to me, and not something I'd persue.

My personal vote goes for web design with a side serving of server and client-side scripting (PHP, Ruby, javascript, etc). That'll be useful for a long time and I personally find it fun

That said, I'd be verifying my verifications of how legitimate this place is and the REAL success rate. Such services are notorious for not being nearly as good as they make themselves out to be in order to get your money in return for a worthless piece of paper.

My father went to school for web design and graphic design, long story short, do not go to school for web design. Its one of those things that you can take a few classes in and then practice yourself so that you can do some quality freelance work, but if you want steady income you will not be able to exist on web design alone. Its actually a pretty weird degree and its not as specialized as you would think.

Game Design is not a degree, although that is actually my official major at this moment. Be careful in what the school is teaching you though, essentially I'm learning C++ and various languages alongside taking some classes in modeling and animaton. All of these courses could be taken at another school or under a different major title, however this school offered guarenteed co ops for the 3rd,4th and 5th year with very high job placement in entertainment industry. Make sure your school will do that for you and please make sure you know what a so called "game design" degree entails. Some people entered the program thinking they would come up with game ideas lol. Now I have never modeled or programmed until I came here but have learned a lot and look forward to moving on to a different concentration while still maintaining participation in those types of classes.

Speaking from where i am web design i wouldnt do its a fickle industry, if its a big companies web page and your updating it constantly and getting paid for that, yes its good just making pages no, ive also done web design as well, it was to waste time basically, i hate making web pages.

Graphic design if you have clients since you said you can work from home, if your running your own business yes theres good money in it, best to check how many established companies there are in your area, because theres alot of graphic artists out there, if you can get a job with a company thats got lots of client then go for it, otherwise, its years study and its not helpful as a skill standing behind a counter. I also studied graphic and fine arts, only got a few jobs, because the market was sown up by a few well established businesses.

PC repair, there will always be jobs for people who can repair pc's, but if your going to learn pc repair learn about software as well, i know alot of technicians that can spot hardware faults and svck at detecting software faults, and sometimes dont know the difference between a hardware and software fault.

Game design, i wouldnt touch theres alot of people out there scrabbling for what little positions that are already available, and small comapnies are opening and closing just as quick.

Also when people say take the job your most happy with, well you maybe happy with it, but there has to be work out there for people with that skill, you might be happy with your choice but if youve wasted years studying and theres no work in that area, then its back to study. I know ive spent way to many years, being so called retrained, its the buzz word here, retraining. Ive retrained for so many things, ive forgotten most of them, there should be a job called proffesional student, id be rich by now.

PC repair and maintenance is worthless. Consumer devices are easily replacable, corporate computers require you to have years of experience in business environment to understand corporate use, in which case you can simply get entry certificates like MCITP and CCNA instead of wasting time and money on a course. You may be valuable asset to a company in the States, but here in Asia it's lower pay than a plummer and nobody respects you.

If your sole purpse is getting a prospective job, I would highly suggest getting deep in networking. Understand all those ecommerce enhancing solutions gets you a long way.