• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
programming forums Java Mobile Certification Databases Caching Books Engineering Micro Controllers OS Languages Paradigms IDEs Build Tools Frameworks Application Servers Open Source This Site Careers Other Pie Elite all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
Marshals:
  • Campbell Ritchie
  • Jeanne Boyarsky
  • Ron McLeod
  • Paul Clapham
  • Liutauras Vilda
Sheriffs:
  • paul wheaton
  • Rob Spoor
  • Devaka Cooray
Saloon Keepers:
  • Stephan van Hulst
  • Tim Holloway
  • Carey Brown
  • Frits Walraven
  • Tim Moores
Bartenders:
  • Mikalai Zaikin

What good is my major?

 
Ranch Hand
Posts: 135
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Hi I am actually a Senior, and I am starting freak out a bit. My major is Information Technology, and I am looking what careers IT should be doing. I actually do not have a single clue. What good is my Major? What should I be learning or specializing in? For being a senior, I do not know anything except basic coding.

Anyone an IT major? Or perhaps some advice or outsource on what IT generally go for? Nerworking, DBA, Analyst, Web developer, ect.
 
Bartender
Posts: 3648
16
Android Mac OS X Firefox Browser Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Howdy

IT major hmm... Honestly employer will see you as a generalist "using" technology - able to do some sys admin, coding, analysis - a bit of everything.

Yet since there are so many areas of IT which area should you focus on? For me right now, I would choose any one of these: a) big data/ data analysis/ DBA/ business intelligence/ data warehouse, b) security (netowrking, system, web), c) SOA/ cloud computing and solutions (Java, .NET, programming stuff).

Now looking a bit deeper, doesn't what route you choose you should learn the basics of the following:
common commands of Linux/UNIX
TCP/IP networking
design and work with databases (eg create tables/views, normalization, SQL)
comfortable with at least one programming language and design patterns
security terminology (eg firewall, port forwarding, DMZ etc)
server and storage sizing (what hardware to use for such and such project)
 
william chaple
Ranch Hand
Posts: 135
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Thank you so much for the reply

So out of all those fields which one is the most in demand or I wouldn't have a problem finding a job in. I don't care about pay just finding a job. Also I like everything all around. But honestly I did not like Java coding.

I looked into HTML CSS and Java script. That seems interesting. But I also like networks repairing computers assembly

Also what is business intelligence
 
K. Tsang
Bartender
Posts: 3648
16
Android Mac OS X Firefox Browser Java
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Business intelligence (BI) simply put is the field that analyze data and put formatted/relevant information in reports or easy to understand tables for managers and like to forecast/predict business sales, growth etc. BI usually link with data warehouse (DW) which is effectively storing data for efficient retrieval.

If you have studied database then you may heard of online transactional processing (OLTP) and online analytical processing (OLAP). DW focus more on OLAP while relational database is OLTP.


Oh another hot field is mobile (android, iphone etc).
 
lowercase baba
Posts: 13089
67
Chrome Java Linux
  • Likes 3
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I think something a lot of people forget is that college isn't about teaching you how do do your job for the rest of your life. It's about teaching you how to learn. It's about teaching you how to figure stuff out, how to manage your time, and how to work with others.

My major was theatre. Since the, I have gone on to careers in retail, the airline industry, teaching, and for the past 14 year, in information systems. None of those are DIRECTLY related to my major, but every single second of college helped prepare me for each of them.
 
william chaple
Ranch Hand
Posts: 135
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
thanks guys great info.

Outr of all of these, which one would you say I wont have a problem finding a job in? or most in demand? I was thinking networking, but someone said there is not much jobs available. I am just scared I wont be able to find a job
 
Bartender
Posts: 1810
28
jQuery Netbeans IDE Eclipse IDE Firefox Browser MySQL Database Chrome Linux
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Which jobs are available will depend a lot on where you are and whether you are willing to relocate. I think the more important question is, which aspects of IT do you enjoy doing? What would you do for fun, even if you didn't get paid for it? It took me a long time to figure out that I enjoyed development a lot more than hardware support. I wish I had learned that many years ago.

And fred is exactly right. A college degree doesn't mean you are ready to do the job. It means you are ready to start learning how to do the job. Good employers know that.
 
Rancher
Posts: 2759
32
Eclipse IDE Spring Tomcat Server
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
There is an easy way to find out which technologies are in demand. Go to job search sites. Type in the technology that you are interested in, and it tells you how many companies are hiring for that technology, where those companies are, and how much they will pay. Repeat.. rinse

Remember that things are going to be completely differrent in 5 years, and what opportunities you get in 5-10-15 years cannot be predicted now. When I was in the last year of college, all I knew about myself is that I taught myself C++, and that I could code, and my fundamentals in computing were strong, and that I could learn any damn language on the job. I didn't target to get into networking, or backend programming or front end programming, or VB or Pascal or HTML or CSS. I just looked for a job. That's it. I looked for a job that gave me interesting problems to solve

If 17 years ago, you would have told me that you will have an opportunity building big data analytic applications on the cloud, I would have gone huh? because those technologies weren't invented yet. I didn't plan to be a big data analytics architect, but that's what I am. I've done a lot of things over the past 17 years, back end , front end, rear end, full frontal. Never have I thought "ooh should I learn this technology because it will help my career". I have learnt a technology because a) it was required to learn it to do the job I had or b) it was just interesting. I've taken jobs because they were interesting. I'm fine. Actually, my career is great

The point is, in this industry that adds a new technology every 2-3 years, there's no point in looking far ahead. You just can;t plan your career precisely. Focus on making yourself into a quick study. Learn how to learn faster. Look for interesting problems to solve and solve them. You'll be fine
 
You would be much easier to understand if you took that bucket off of your head. And that goes for the tiny ad too!
a bit of art, as a gift, that will fit in a stocking
https://gardener-gift.com
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic