[General Questions and Answers] Malicomatt:
Hi everyone.

My name is Matthew and I was wondering if I could get some advice from professionals in the IT field. I want to go into the IT field, specifically mobile technology, and I was hoping for some sage advice from real experts like you guys.

First, I want to start off with a quick background for me so you know why I'm asking these questions. One thing I was interested in, in addition to tech, was the Japanese language when I was growing up (no I'm not an anime nerd, I just like the culture and language). Because of that interest I pursued the Japanese language at college trying my best to learn it. Long story short, I went to Japan, learned the language, and came back and got my bachelors in Linguistics thinking that I would be a translator/teacher in the long run. After graduating I went back to Japan, taught English and did some translation on the side. I enjoyed it somewhat but not a whole lot. My free time was always taken up by tinkering with mobile devices and computers and listening to tech shows such as TwiT, TwiG, etc. Then I would go to work, teach English and come home again and repeat. This lasted for about a year. I got a job offer in another city in Japan but could see the writing on the wall. Tech has been getting better and better and it won't be long before computers can teach languages much better than I can, and computers can translate much better than I can (look at google translate, while not perfect, it knows words that I have never heard of, and syntax and semantics get better every day) Because of this, I decided to return to America because my father wanted to start a business and really needed my help. He didn't know how to do any of the tech, governmental, and business side of the business and I did. It has been almost a year and we are now a successful business that I have automated so I can run things from afar to help him. I told him I would give him a year and it's about time for me to move on and start my next chapter.

Now I'm 28, feel like I have traveled the world and did my young live there live here thing while still getting a college degree, and I'm ready to jump into my REAL career. I have always heard that people who find a career in their hobby are happiest, and that's what I want to do. Obviously I love tech because that was my go to thing in my relax time, especially mobile.

That being said, where do you think I should start? I REALLY don't want to go back to college as I feel that another degree would be a waste of time and money (took SOOOO many classes in college that I do not remember to this day and feel like it was a total waste, and I honestly don't think college is useful anymore as far as the stuff you learn relative to the time and money spent). I am currently studying online with the videos Professor Messer has put on youtube and professormesser.com to get my A+, Networking+, and Security+ certifications. Very informative videos that reminds me of good college classes that I used to take where I felt like I was actually learning. Most of this content I already know so this shouldn't take too much time. After that I was thinking of going for a few more certs from CompTIA as well but not sure which ones yet. I figured I would at least keep those 3 major ones up to date.

I'm great with people and actually like working with them and wouldn't mind doing a troubleshooting job such as at a cell phone store (like I said, I really enjoy mobile tech the most but desktops and laptops are still very interesting to me). I am also great at sales because of my people skills but boy do I hate it. The pressure is too much and I end up getting angry if someone beats me in sales because of luck. I really don't want to deal with that.

Do you, my esteemed professionals in the field with experience I can really benefit from, have any more advice as far as where else I should go or what I should do to increase my tech career?

Thank you very much for your time and I hope to hear from you guys soon!