Maybe if you are just doing networking, but a CS is valuable if you are going to get into software development etc.
Ill admit I'm little jealous of IT guys
- Thread starter DrX
- Start date
Maybe if you are just doing networking, but a CS is valuable if you are going to get into software development etc.
↓R↑LYB
I trained Sheng Long and Shonuff
Not IMO. I started out as a programmer doing Java then switched to networking. I took about 4 or 5 programming classes and learned more in 3 months about OOP teaching myself vbscript than I ever did being taught at a University.
They teach you a lot of unnecessary shyt in these courses and the majority of it doesn't translate into what's required by employers. Is Hadoop even being taught at universities yet? I checked Penn State briefly and couldn't find a single course on it.
The problem is most the people who create the programs (as well as the teachers) aren't IT folks, they're professors. So they literally teach from the book (when the book itself doesn't teach you what you need to know to be successful).
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As I am in IT as a Sys Admin, jeezus it is stressful working for an enterprise-level entity. No Google bs, when a network is down, or the primary company app is on the fritz, they aren't calling the main help line, they are calling you directly, anytime. College, boot camp, etc. will not prepare you for IT unless you do IT, just like watching boxing doesn't allow you the ability to scrap with Cotto.
I don't think it's fun or easy trying to convince managers to spend 30k for a new generator for their unshielded data center which will cost them a minimum 100k a day in revenue once lightning hit kills their 15 year old router.
It isn't fun managing an environment where previous admins quit or were fired due to poor design or cheap business cacs skimping out on cost in care of quality.
It isn't fun when your Jr. Sys admins deploy an update that breaks critical bus apps that worked in the sandbox weeks before. Guess who has to fix it Sunday night?
It goes:
IT Director
Systems
Help Desk/Desktop
Call Center
Guess who is the glue? Sys admins, so we in IT are always putting out first, developing/patching, or maintaining systems....
Success breeds envy...Medical IT is the wave of our immediate future as private docs and hospitals are updating and installing technology centers to squeeze the max amount of money from customer, err patients ahem. Sorry to convert their paper records to EMR (electronic medical records). Can you IT haters figure out what could cause EMR to crash sporadically in one office, but not the other? Or why hundreds users at various patient center lose SQL DB connection, but still have network connection?
I don't think it's fun or easy trying to convince managers to spend 30k for a new generator for their unshielded data center which will cost them a minimum 100k a day in revenue once lightning hit kills their 15 year old router.
It isn't fun managing an environment where previous admins quit or were fired due to poor design or cheap business cacs skimping out on cost in care of quality.
It isn't fun when your Jr. Sys admins deploy an update that breaks critical bus apps that worked in the sandbox weeks before. Guess who has to fix it Sunday night?
It goes:
IT Director
Systems
Help Desk/Desktop
Call Center
Guess who is the glue? Sys admins, so we in IT are always putting out first, developing/patching, or maintaining systems....
Success breeds envy...Medical IT is the wave of our immediate future as private docs and hospitals are updating and installing technology centers to squeeze the max amount of money from customer, err patients ahem. Sorry to convert their paper records to EMR (electronic medical records). Can you IT haters figure out what could cause EMR to crash sporadically in one office, but not the other? Or why hundreds users at various patient center lose SQL DB connection, but still have network connection?
There is a reason why most employers require a bachelors degree.
Reginald Noble
Banned
on this shyt.
Reginald Noble
Banned
Ran out of reps today but good to see a nikka that is immersed in the industry with a good understanding of the politics and environment not just the technical knowledge.
I usually have much respect for IT because I know how easy it is for errors and breaks to happen in any application for any reason because I work with QAing stuff that is executed via APIs that have to communicate nicely with each other a lot. My job is a lot easier because there are routine issues that occur but many IT problems have a million and one possible causes.
↓R↑LYB
I trained Sheng Long and Shonuff
Not in IT. 95% of jobs I see say degree or relevant experience. I only have a HS diploma and I've never not got a job because of not having a degree. In the IT thread I started posting job descriptions paying up to $95/hr and none of them required a degree.
Experience>certs>degree
I concur, my degree in CS was helpful, but my XP plays a lot in my career. College was a fantastic cultural experience, but looking at it now, the programming methods help with scripting, everything else was learned in the field. I always tell folks that technology changes all the time unlike other fields where there is somewhat of consistent curriculum( trades, nursing, law, business). IT changes would be akin to a lawyer finding out the next year his degree is from medieval times in terms of relevancy. Or an engineer finding out we don't use electricity, but AppleJacks to run the power grid.
These cacs don't expect us to be in the field, so they are always surprised at my interview with the track record I have with my age...
IT needs more Black folk in it...
Yeah, that's exactly how shyt is.
I'm lucky enough to work in a place where there are a couple older/more experienced sys admins (and a senior sysadmin) that I can go to for help when shyt gets too real.
We don't have too many issues with updates because we're pretty insistent about testing updates on a VM before deploying them, only issue with that is that we tend to get far behind on them. Our main issues tend to have more to do with us being expected to support shytty 3rd-party apps that are straight outta 1997 and don't work that well in the first place.
Yeah, that's exactly how shyt is.
I'm lucky enough to work in a place where there are a couple older/more experienced sys admins (and a senior sysadmin) that I can go to for help when shyt gets too real.
We don't have too many issues with updates because we're pretty insistent about testing updates on a VM before deploying them, only issue with that is that we tend to get far behind on them. Our main issues tend to have more to do with us being expected to support shytty 3rd-party apps that are straight outta 1997 and don't work that well in the first place.
When I was a contractor for an insurance firm, I ran a total services upgrade from W2K3 to W2K8, upgraded their citrix, XP to 7, added more citrix farms instead of 2, etc.
So the VP says....you know what, I don't want QB2010, they can stick with QuickBooks 98...
Me: But we billed this upgrade to 80k...the newer version costs 80 bucks and you can share it across numerous locations.
VP: I know, but it is the principle.
Me:
. So we billed them 300 for installing a VM for QB 98...
The Natural
Rookie
No they don't, most require a degree OR comparable experience...
I only have some college (didn't finish) and no certs and banking right now.
Experience > Everything
An employer wants a guy who can actually fix the problem when things are down over some guy with a bunch of paper certs with no real world experience.
Too many people in here giving "advice" that don't know what they are talking about.
Disgustya Stallone
Man Who Owns 2 Microwaves
You should be, I made over 260k last year
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I've been in IT for the past 13 years. I've worked at some of the top consulting firms. Deloitte, IBM etc.
I can tell you if you are going to work for a top tier firm like that, you most likely need a degree.
But like also said, if you are just going to be a code monkey or a network guy, you can probably get in without a degree and make good money.
But it's harder to get on somewhere without a degree.
Disgustya Stallone
Man Who Owns 2 Microwaves
wrong