ᐅ Continuing education for architects, fully qualified lawyers,...

Hello everyone,

I would like to hear the forum’s opinion.

I am 36 years old, have one child (6 years old), and although I am fairly well established professionally, I am very dissatisfied. I am a trained IT specialist and studied business informatics (bachelor’s degree) alongside a full-time job. My career steadily progressed. At its peak, I was an IT project manager responsible for an 8 million budget and 70 project team members spread across Europe and Russia. My then superior’s manager wanted to promote me into middle management. I work for a DAX 30 company. That didn’t happen back then, probably partly my fault. I think I also reached my personal limit at that level. That was about 1.5 years ago.

Currently, I have a job that allows me to build my house on the side, which hopefully will be finished at some point ;-) However, it is not satisfying at all, and I no longer really enjoy working in IT. I also expect to be offered a severance package in the next few years (standard procedure in large companies), so I will face the question of what to do next at the latest then. Since I like to take a proactive approach, I am not waiting that long.

IT is no longer an option for me, and I am now exploring long-term alternatives. After all, I plan to live for at least another 50 years, so in my opinion, it’s still worthwhile ;-)

As a child, I had two other career wishes: architect or fully qualified lawyer. Regarding architecture, I could imagine working as a technical expert or construction manager. As a construction manager, my project management skills would probably help, but I would likely have to be self-employed or work for another large corporation. Smaller firms tend to prefer, I think, master bricklayers or craftsmen with stronger hands-on skills. I have no reservations about self-employment but would need to clearly understand my added value and target market if I decide to go that route ;-)

As an architect, I would probably enjoy tasks related to obtaining building permits / planning permission, but I am not sure if I would be good at detailed design work yet ;-)

As a fully qualified lawyer, I would typically plan on working independently. I won’t elaborate on that here since this is not a legal forum.

I have not discussed this much with my personal circle besides my partner...

If you have alternative ideas or suggestions different from mine, feel free to share.

Regards

Would income then be irrelevant? All the mentioned jobs will probably pay less than what you currently earn. At the moment, you are likely making over 100k/year. Interesting thread.

You definitely need to go back to school for that. Large architecture firms also need IT specialists.

HilfeHilfe schrieb:

Would income then be irrelevant? All the jobs mentioned will probably pay less than you currently earn. You probably make over 100k per year now. Interesting thread.

My salary is currently in that range. If I start working as an employee to gain professional experience, the salary doesn’t matter to me. What’s important is to gain as much practical experience as possible. In the long term, however, I aim to work independently.

icandoit schrieb:

You definitely have to hit the books again. Large architecture firms also need IT specialists.

“Hitting the books” is clear :-)
Ideally, as a part-time job. I already did that up to my bachelor's degree...

Why don’t you enjoy IT anymore, and why exactly architecture or becoming a fully qualified lawyer? Just because it used to be a career goal in the past (also, like IT?) doesn’t mean it will be any more enjoyable in reality than the other.