Tech Forum

Your son should consider the local community college, and look at other careers related to electronics. While engineers are often mentioned, technicians with with associate's degrees are now more in demand (USA TODAY).

Electronics is just one option - also consider other related fields such as  machine tool technology, industrial electronics, instrumentation repair, or machine maintenance. These programs include electronics along with motor control, programmable logic controllers, instrumentation, fluid power, sensors, pumps, valves, process control, and industrial robotics. These people are in demand and command high incomes.

For info on career options and certifications, check out the Electronics Technicians Association, International - [url=http://www.eta-i.org/]http://www.eta-i.org/[/url]

Your son needs basic skills in practical math and physics. With those, he can look at many technical-education programs, from vo-tech to an advanced degree. I recommend a visit to a nearby technical school and to an engineering department at a college or university. After your son sees what students and professors do, he should have a better idea of what preparation for a technical career entails. But don't force him into a technical field. No matter what your son wants to study, he'll need a life-long interest in learning and reading.

Technical careers can vary far and wide, and many of them do almost require a degree of some kind. If he/she is interested in engineering, then a degree will be extremely helpful. An easy way to figure out whether it's necessary is to take a look at local technical job listings. Unfortunately, the degree is often very arbitrary. It's required to get hired, but most of what you learned to get the degree is useless.

I recommend trying to test out of as many classes as possible. Look into CLEP testing through College Board, as well as specific college's Credit by Exam terms. If programming is more up his/her alley, then a degree is likely very necessary to get hired. However, unless he/she can learn very well from professors, I recommend "playing" with as much code outside of college as possible. Some of the top (non-web) languages in demand are: Java, Python, C/C++, C# and Perl.

One of the few tech jobs that does not require a degree is freelance or semi-freelance web design/development. You can learn all that you need to know through free and low cost resources. You can also get a degree in web design/development, and that might help you get hired by a design house.

The absolutely required technologies to know for web are: HTML, CSS, Javascript+JQuery and SQL. SQL doesn't get you anywhere without a server-side scripting language such as PHP or Ruby on Rails. I am admittedly biased toward freelancing web design, as that is what I do.

But web design has one of the biggest markets for selling yourself in, and a lot of money can be made. It's certainly not for everyone, though. It requires that you keep up with current technology, are good with selling to people, and are willing to put some hard (but fun!) work in. Have a look at this link for learning (web and non-networked) programming: antsmagazine.com/web-development/20-amazing-places-to-learn-code-from-scratch Ignore W3Schools and anyone who says they are a good resource. codecademy.com is where I first learned HTML and CSS (then did it again in college...).

It needs to be a field that he would like to do. Get to the book store and find stuff on getting a job. Also, find out what jobs are out there. I will tell you a mistake I made — leaving a job before I had another one. Some jobs want a high grade-point average and it may take four months or more to find one. You can get a book or two from Amazon online. Getting into a co-op job should be considered, before you get your degree. You may want to consider getting a job near home.