All That Time Your Kids Play Video Games Could Lead to Career

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Rutgers.

A new study by the Rutgers Education and Employment Research Center (EERC) reveals that gaming, modifying games (modding), and related hobbies can form a career pathway into the high-demand IT field, especially for adolescents and teens with supportive parents.

“Students don’t realize it at first, but playing video games and having related hobbies is often really helpful when choosing a career and even while job hunting,” said Eliza Peterson, a research analyst and lead author of the study. “For example, if they’re hosting a Minecraft server for their friends, they could parlay those skills and lessons into a Server Administration major, and later, maybe a career in that area of IT.”

As part of a larger study supported by the National Science Foundation, Rutgers researchers interviewed 43 students and alumni of the Ivy Tech Community College School of Information Technology in Indiana. The interviews, conducted over three years, revealed a common trajectory.

Most participants became interested in technology at a young age, often while bonding with their parents, and more than half of them (26 of 43) eventually developed a hobby such as gaming, modifying games, coding, programming, or building computers.

As teens, they did not expect that their passion for playing Minecraft or Fortnite could eventually lead to a job. But they eventually had a revelation – what the researchers call the “hobby-to-career reckoning” – and decided to study IT in their community college.

The Rutgers study adds to this growing body of work by highlighting a pathway from the thumb-cramping World of Warcraft into the lucrative world of IT work.

There are nearly 4.5 million computer and information technology professionals in the U.S., earning a median annual wage of $104,420, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s more than double the median annual wage for all occupations ($48,060).

More than 377,000 computer and IT job openings are expected each year, and overall employment is projected to grow “much faster” than the average for other occupations by 2032, including 25% growth for software developers and 32% for information security analysts.

Source: Rutgers
https://www.rutgers.edu/news/all-time-your-kids-play-video-games-could-lead-career-study-finds#main-content