Netting The Best Jobs Computer-Savvy Kids Cashing In Online
June 25, 2000, Jordan Jennings' high school buddies, the ones sacking groceries and building burgers this summer, keep trying to think of reasons he owes them money. They know Jennings could afford to make good on any chits they might call in. At age 17, Jennings is pulling down more than $15 an hour this summer as a Web-site designer. That's quite a contrast with the money that most of his peers make.
"They're pretty jealous,'' Jennings says with a chuckle. "They're working at Chick-Fil-A and the grocery stores. They tell me these horrible stories. They don't want to hear me tell my stories - how I have a lot of pages to turn out.'' While most teenagers toil in minimum-wage fields, a growing number of youngsters such as Jennings are getting lucrative part-time and summer jobs with their computer skills. It's a simple case of supply and demand: This year, U.S. industry will create 1.6 million new jobs in information technology, but there are only half that many qualified applicants, according to the Information Technology Association of America.
That's good news for anyone who knows his way around a hard drive - even if he can't drive a car yet. Teenagers are attractive for several reasons, employers say. They know computers because they've grow up with them. They're cheaper, sometimes, than older workers with longer salary histories. They're often in tune with the generation that Web companies want to click with. And they have energy to burn.
"The quest for knowledge, the avid quest for it, makes a difference in the entire environment. It pushes everyone to keep up, which is good,'' says Chris Laforet, the president of Netpath Inc., a Burlington Internet service provider that employs three teenagers. One is 18-year-old Andrew Dorsett of Gibsonville. Three years ago, when Netpath was new, Dorsett became a customer and started asking computer questions. Netpath officials were so impressed, they offered him a job in technical support, answering subscribers' questions, for a couple of hours on school nights and full time in the summers.
This summer, he's writing software and making almost $10 an hour, which helps to pay for his other hobby: photography. He's quick to point out that he has a life beyond the keyboard. He has a girlfriend, he's an Eagle Scout, and he swam for his high school's swimming team. He's just happy that he gets paid to do something he loves.
"The good thing is, it's fun. When you're sitting there playing with stuff, and you can figure out what's wrong, that's when you learn,'' says Dorsett, who just graduated from Eastern High School. He also took network engineering and electronics classes at Weaver Center, a part of Guilford County Schools. In April, Dorsett won a state competition for inter-networking, or hooking computers together so they can share information. On Monday, he will go to a national competition in Kansas City, Mo.
Dorsett, who's heading to Virginia Tech in the fall, admits that computer work can be tedious. He once spent four hours searching 10,000 lines of code for a mistake that prevented the program from working. It turned out that a null, or space between two characters, was missing. "You get frustrated, let me tell you,'' he says. "But it's one of those things where you're going to find it or you're not going to leave. You just go run around the building a couple of times and come back inside.
''Sometimes, as in Dorsett's case, computer whiz kids find their employers, but often it's the other way around. When Brian Enright, the president of National Training Network, a Greensboro business that develops teacher training materials, needed a programmer to write software, he went to Weaver Center. A teacher there told him about Thomas Parrish, a rising senior at Grimsley High School.
Now, for the next 10 weeks, the 17-year-old Parrish and another student will be working for Enright at the clip of $600 a week. Best of all to Parrish, he gets to work from home, keeping whatever hours he likes, usually 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. He works in a corner of his black-curtained bedroom, perched on a beat-up office chair. His computer rests on an old nightstand. A "Do Not Enter'' traffic sign hangs on the wall behind his computer. His girlfriend's school picture is taped to his monitor. Here, he writes the source code that will generate homework questions and answers for teachers using the program. They will never see the code, which appears as short lines of mixed words, letters, numbers and symbols.
Parrish, who says he makes average grades in school, explains what's on his screen in terms that would baffle most people. "This is actually an object,'' he says, tugging at his fledgling goatee. "The whole idea of an object is that it has its own data members and functions. The theory behind it is called encapsulation, which basically means the programmer using this object is not allowed to directly access its members.
'' Mmmm-hmmmm. And does his family understand this kind of talk?
"No,'' Parrish says quickly. "It's really hard to find people who know as much as I do. I can't get help. I have to help myself. That's one bad thing about doing this young, and not in college. I can't go to a professor and ask a question. It's very frustrating.'' The teachers at Weaver Center do the best they can to keep up.
Susan Morrissett, who teaches programming and network administration, says she and other teachers spend much of their summers in workshops, trying to learn the latest. Their students quickly download whatever they learn. The overwhelming majority of students are boys, which teachers attribute partly to adult expectations that steer girls away from sciences and partly to the fascination with mechanics that consumes some boys. A computer is like a car was to previous generations of young men, Morrissett says. "It's concrete and predictable. They can figure it out. Many 16-year-old boys have a hard time figuring out 16-year-old girls, but they can figure this out.''
She tells all of her students, male and female, not to underestimate that skill. "I tell my students who do Web-page design that there are people sitting on the board of Jefferson Pilot who can't do this. Don't sell yourself short by trying to get a job flipping hamburgers.'' Morrissett estimates that 10 percent of Weaver's information-technology students are working jobs that pay in the $10- to $20-an-hour range.
Although none of the counties surrounding Guilford has a school like Weaver Center, several schools have technology classes. Laforet, of Burlington's Interpath, has recruited some students from Alamance County high schools. But some cyber-smart students don't get their skills from school; they teach themselves. David Cowhig, a rising 10th-grader at Greensboro's private Caldwell Academy, started playing with computers when he was 8. His father brought home an old machine. Cowhig took it apart and put it back together.
Today, David Cowhig, who has taken only a keyboarding class at school, runs a computer business out of his home. He buys large lots of used computers, refurbishes them and sells them on the Web auction site eBay and from his own Web site: www.cowhig-company.com. At age 16, he pulls in about $3,000 a month, which he has used to buy a 1999 Chevy Suburban to haul his computers. He can't drive yet - he still has a learner's permit - so his parents take him to auctions. When he's in school, his mother takes credit card orders and greets the UPS truck on its daily stop. Cowhig doesn't pay her.
"He lets me drive his car,'' Cathy Cowhig says. "That's enough for me.'' Her son spends long hours with computers: as much as six hours on school nights and 14 hours a day in the summer. That concerns his mother, but she hesitates to pull him from something he loves. "He's a good kid, and if that's all he really does, is stay up late ... .'' Cowhig buys insurance and gas for his Suburban. He also pays for tuition for himself and his younger brother.
That's a far cry from the buying power his parents knew as teens. His father, Steve, spent his summers selling eggs, tossing papers, guarding pools and waiting tables. He never made more than $2 an hour. He's elated that his son is doing so much better. "Welcome to the information age,'' says Steve Cowhig, a nursing home administrator
The newfound money is heady stuff for teenagers who haven't been used to it. Last fall, Thomas Parrish worked at Sonic, frying burgers for minimum wage. That barely financed occasional dinners for him and his girlfriend. This year, his summer-job money will pay for part of a trip to Japan. If his income stays high, he could see himself driving a Porsche Boxster in college - if he goes. If he could make a lot more money, he'd be tempted to pass it up. "I've made a promise to myself: I won't skip college for less than $100,000,'' he says. "It's not worth it for $30,000.''
The lure of big money at a young age concerns Thomas' father, Michael Parrish, the distance-learning coordinator for Guilford County Schools. Michael Parrish says he and Thomas' mother are proud of their son. They have no problem with his making good money. "I'd love for him to make enough money to keep me in the style to which I would like to become accustomed,'' Michael Parrish says. But making good money at a young age carries temptations, he says. He has cautioned his son that he might regret skipping college. The technology scene, he says, changes quickly, and the demand for workers might not be as great in a few years. "When you have a void like that, there's going to be an incredible movement to fill that void,'' Michael Parrish says. "And then there will be a new void.''
For right now, teens like Thomas Parrish and Matt Jalazo enjoy the void that's before them. Jalazo, who attends Page High School and Weaver Center, started his own computer-repair and Web-site design business, partly because he ran into problems last year. "I was offered a very good job setting up the network at UNCG,'' he says. "But I couldn't take it because I was only 15.''
So now, Jalazo repairs computers for $25 an hour and builds Web sites for $50 an hour. He has used his earnings to buy a new Volkswagen Beetle, and he has started playing the stock market, dabbling mostly in - what else? - tech stocks. Dori Jalazo says she's not surprised at her son's business. Ever since she can remember, he has been mowing lawns, designing business cards, doing anything he could to make a buck.
Jordan Jennings was the same way, says his mother, Debbie. He's always been artistic, and he has always been looking for ways to make money. Designing Web pages, which he started doing at age 13, seemed natural. Last year, at age 15, Jennings landed a job with the News & Record's Depot largely because of his portfolio, which he submitted on a CD that he created himself. When his would-be bosses saw his designs, complete with moving elements, they hired him to teach others how to do that.
Soon, Jennings, who attends Western Guilford High School, was communicating with other companies. "Mom, can we go to New York next Monday?'' he asked his mother one day last summer. "I want to talk to somebody up there about a job.'' It wasn't to be. His mother said he was too young to move to New York, and the firm wouldn't let him work from home.
Early this year, Symetri Corp. of Greensboro made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He has bought a few nice things with the money: a 55-inch TV for his room and a couple of turntables, which he uses to play vinyl records of his band, The New Jazz. He's making payments on a 1995 Nissan Pathfinder. Then there's the food. That's how he deals with his buddies who keep coming up with debts. "I've covered pizza bills enough to offset any of their requests.''
