u/Good-Dirt-117

My job in IT Support is a poor fit, and I’ve been job hunting unsuccessfully for 2 years. I have a masters in English and I’m ready to look outside of IT, but I don’t know where to start. Can anyone who’s left IT share how they decided what field to go into?

I’ve only been in IT for 5years so not a ton of experience, and I’m not very flexible in where I can work because I have a house but I don’t have a car, so I feel limited to remote roles and roles within bus range of my home. Because of the master’s in English, I thought teaching could be a nice change, but I would need to go back to school and get a teaching license and I would be starting out at a $15000 pay cut. I considered psych technician at a state mental health facility because they offer to train you on the job, so I wouldn’t need to go to school and lose income for a year or two. That said, it sounds brutal and much more overwhelming than my current role.

I’ve taken onet profile tests and they don’t help a ton—they recommends roles that could be interesting, but anything in my current pay rage always require more school. I’m curious if anyone with an English degree, or other non-CS type degree has left IT and found a job that’s better and doesn’t pay too much lower? Any advice is appreciated.

I’ve been in IT support for about 5years, and I’ve been searching for a new role for the last two. In that time I’ve seen postings for Psychiatric Care Technician at a state mental health facility come up a few times, and I’ve wondered if that’s a job I should consider in this market. The posting advertises an employer paid cna training over 8weeks. This seems like a reasonable way to get to the health care field where there seems to be a lot more demand. I’m thinking that if I like the role could get the necessary degrees to pivot into psychiatric nursing.

From what I can tell, I should expect hours to vary (expected overtime, nights, weekends, and holidays). I get that this depends on where you work and the staff to patient ratios. The posting warns that you can’t use vacation time for 6 months after hire, which is pretty common for a lot of places, not just in healthcare. I also know that I should expect there to be emergencies. I don’t know how frequently emergencies happen or what kind of emergencies to expect, but I have a sense that there will be more emergencies (or at least more human emergencies) than in IT Support. I also expect that the sense of helping people might change, because I won’t be directly helping someone with their problem(s), but instead I would be doing maintenance work (rounds).

Can folks who are currently or have recently been in a psychiatric care technician position please share a little about your experience? I’d especially like to hear from career changers.

* What’s an average, boring day look like?
* what’s a really stressful day with a big emergency or a few look like?
* Do you have a pretty standard schedule that rotates or is your schedule always changing and only published biweekly/monthly?
* Do you have a hard time getting time off approved?
* How often do you deal with violent patients?
* Do you have sufficient training to deal with violent patients?
* Did you have energy for hobbies when you were not working?