Any IT people here? Quick question.

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I am currently in a CIS program in college. Some business, some programing and lots of database classes. I have been enjoying my classes so far. anyways....

Every time I hear anything about the best/fastest growing jobs there are several IT jobs listed. Most of the rest are health care related. My issue is that I see nothing but people on different forums complaining about not having IT work. Same story over and over. I have certs and degrees and experience and no job.

So I need information from people who are good at their IT job. Is IT worth getting into? Idiots tend to yell the most so it is hard to know if IT is really bad or if the people screaming are just idiots.

It's all depend how good u r at what u do.
If u love it and really have deep interest in the many fields and the constant learning working in the IT requires u should have no problem in getting a job and an excellent pay checks.
IT is one of the fields where being obsessive and possessing little ago is actually working for u instead pf working against u as in so many other occupations.
I worked as a programmer and a DBA for many many years and never had any problem in getting a good job,
Even now when i'm very old (55) i get very tempting offers.
the infra structure is huge and is growing very fast and in constant need of ppl to feed it,
all u have to do is be very good at what u do

It doesn't just depend on how good you are - what technology is hot changes fairly regularly, and every organisation has its own ways of taking the temperature. Perhaps now we're firmly embedded in the twenty-first century and Turing-Church is a fact of life it will settle down. Perhaps the patent wars will eat all of our futures.

But, if you have the taste for it, and have enough friends and/or people skills to pull ongoing work out of the mix, stick at it. There are a lot of useful things that haven't been done yet, and the tools to do them with are gradually emerging from the mist. Get a degree or two, embed yourself in the academic world if you can. Or carve out a niche in some bank or insurance company. Immerse yourself deeply in visualisation techniques, perhaps.

What a coincidence; I also have a degree, experience, and no job.

The IT field is in heavy churn mode right now. My job went to South Africa, but they didn't pack my bags...

It's a good field to be in. It's kind of scattered right now; you can't master everything, so you have to specialize. A lot of the remote control things (server administration, mainframe administration, technical [non-hardware] support jobs have left the Western Hemisphere.

The big bucks are being trimmed away, though (like in every other field), because you're competing in a global economy. Big companies are the main users of offshoring, because, frankly, we can't compete on price. Smaller companies can't afford that as much, unless they go through contractors, so possibly you can find work at mid-sized companies, who still do things in-house.

That's my plan, at least. I've got a raft of job-search web sites (not like Monster, but more like what job x pays in what part of the country, things like that). If you want, I can shoot them your way.

I'd imagine that with the Obama focus right now, getting into the medical end of IT is a possible game plan. If they want to computerize all the records, that's bound to generate a job or two.

Well I am thinking of changing majors. I do enjoy learning about computers but I am worried. Outsourcing, constantly changing technologies, 300000 different technologies already... the list goes on an on and makes me wonder if its worth my time.

From my experience the US has moved away from a Work hard and do good work and you are set style of business. More of do crap work, as slow as possible and make it seem cheap and you are set. So while I know only a handful of people can/could learn as much as fast as I can, it doesn't seem to matter to companies anymore.

The idea of spending another 3 years in college to be stuck with loan payments and no jobs doesn't sound fun. Neither does having to worry all the time I am going to lose my job.

I know the economy is really bad right now so I can't use todays job market as an example. I just would really like to know if ever IT degree but CS really is in the top growing professions or if they are just outsourcing that fast.

I've been in IT for about 19 years.
I've never been out of work.

But...

I work very hard, very long hours and not for a huge amount of money.
I absolutely love computers, used to live and breathe them.

I read 300+ emails, newsgroups etc per day just to keep up.

I'm constantly tired - overworked and did I mention underpaid.

I'm in management but have had people brought in above me because I'm not the type of guy who will want to play golf with the CEO.

Unless you REALLY honestly love IT, don't waste your time trying to get qualified.

It's not a highly paid or highly respected profession anymore.
The boom days are over.

By underpaid do you mean paid less than the overpaid CEO who is worthless or do you mean like 10 an hour underpaid? Looking around the internet all jobs in IT seem to be 40K+ a year.


Another question I have is which area would you get into today if you had to start over. From what I can tell Web, database and security seem to be the place to be but don't really know. I have three options I find interesting at my college.

CIS, business for geeks, (programing, database and management stuff)

IT and security, almost all networking and network security classes

Database technology, almost all related to databases.

Web and CS are options as well but those seemed like the worst places for me to be. Web because I am not as creative as I think I am. CS because it appears that there demand is dropping fast, my school doesn't have a CE program.

I liked CIS because it can be used as a business like degree where the other degrees do not offer anything to help with the business side of things. But that comes at the cost of being less specialized. I think that may not be an issue because I can learn what I missed out on in my own time and the average person wouldn't know the difference.

The one other option I have been considering is going into the electrician program. It fits nicely with my other degree and would open up some more options for me. I worry about this one because it is a more "simple" line of work.

As for enjoying it.... I learned C++ basics on my own for the fun of it. Same for Photoshop and html. I think being able to learn something new all the time keeps a person from being bored. I like long hours to some extent because I don't sleep well if I don't work myself into the ground. All I want is a few hours a night to spend with my family and weekends would be nice. I think more than anything I want job security, my computer and electronic tech degree just doesn't offer any at this point. Decent pay would be nice as well. Around average wage is fine with me.

Well, I'm in Australia and I'm in a pretty good job and I've got nearly 20 years of experience and lots of responsibilities - so I'm worth a heck more than 40K. My direct boss though, who isn't the CEO but is one down from him, gets double my salary.



Personally I prefer taking the IT Support and Management role because you get to play with lots of different hardware and software. I've always tended to get into places which are too small to outsource but large enough to have a lot of stuff to play with. (eg: Companies with 20+ people but not 300+). It also pays if you do some development as well as support. Even better, if you can get into a niche area, my main niche is Lotus Domino but anything other than Microsoft/Google is good.

I think this is more of an issue of bad management. There is always people making way to much money when they don't deserve it.

For example(an extreme one) I am currently taking an entry level accounting class. In 4 weeks we have covered almost everything that has been considered a major cause of the banking mess in the US. In other words CEOs and the people under them are making millions and they would fail a basic accounting class.

And this isn't like opinion either. After several of the topics the book gives a paragraph of warning not to abuse "this" because if you do it will cause you to go bankrupt. And every time it happens to be the exact thing those companies did.

Also the average wage of Australia is a bit higher than the US, 20k higher. US is around 40k, Australia is around 60k. The difference is only about 10k actually because of difference in dollar values. Basically I was saying I wanted to make more than average and all the jobs I see are more than average.

Depends on where you get to work. There are no garantees that you will get to work with "the best and the brightest", you are more likely to get stuck with "the best talkers and technically illiterate".

It is possible to get a job in IT somewhat fast, it is just that the social requirements are outweighing actual technical skills like IP-networking and programming (which explains a lot about IT business), and for an aspie/autie, holding hands and singing "kumbaya" with customers - just plainly suck.

Yeah, but its the managers who are making the money, and they like people around them who help them feel good about it. You don't often get points for pointing out that they're throwing money away.

Unless you're a consultant on four figures a day who's been hired to tell them that - and if you're in that bracket, you have a pretty good grasp on how to blame the technologists rather than the people who are paying your bills.

Like Gavin said, if your heart's not in it, you're probably not going to like it. I've been in the business thirty years, and my direct boss is quite a few layers down from the CEO. But then, I've never specialised...

i've made very good money out of RT programming and knows this field is in constant need of skilled pro's and is also very hard to outsource,
visualizations and simulations and embedded are all going to be very hot as puters are going to be embedded just every where.
Databases,networks and web development and maintenance are moving out of the pro's domain as with the tools of today almost everyone can do it with very little training,
so if u pay and dedicate your time for learning u better learn the hard stuff.

What about the people and customer service side of things? I totally can't handle pressure or criticism and I don't want to get yelled at because someone's computer isn't working when I didn't do it.

Other than that IT doesn't sound so bad. I could get into being a techie.

well, before they gave me the boot, I was pulling in about 53k/yr, but I was already making 'too much money'. I missed out on bonuses, employee of the month, etc., because I made 'too much money'. HR in the contracting company wanting me (and a few others) to be terminated because we made 'too much money'. the new contracting company originally offered me 45, but again, they came back and decided that was 'too much money'. I'm looking at about 30-35, and glad to get it because I'm also 'too old and overqualified'. But enough about me...

Right now, what I used to do (deskside support) is now seen as a 'burndensome expense'. If it doesn't follow the 'two foot rule' (your two feet need to be in a specific place to do the job), then they're trying to outsource or offshore.

Where I worked, they couldn't offshore fast enough, so they started bring them here to work. Oracle DBAs, programmers of everything, Web developers, everything.

Long story short, there's probably jobs in it still. Try to find something they'll need when you graduate, not right now. . I wasted 2 years getting a BA in Business Admin, because when I was a sophmore, that was a hot field. by the time I graduated, they had more than they could use. That goes for about any field. Talk with a guidance counselor, look online, join some websites (I dunno, slashdot, maybe, 'linked in', a good investment). Do internships if you can get them, anything to beef up the resume. Good luck

What is RT programming? I may just be to tired but right now I have no idea what that is.


That's why I am asking questions pakled. Trying to figure out what is really the next big place to be. All survey/government stuff says Network/security, database admin and CE or the places to be if you're looking into IT. They say lots of job growth over the next few years while the people in the field say there is no jobs.

I spent some time on different job sites and I think part of the problem maybe that IT isn't only in the big cities with the big companies anymore. There is good paying IT jobs all over the country and that would require the majority of people to move to take a job. From my experience people will do just about anything to not move from the town they live in.

There is always the possibility that I am way off on this so.....

Realtime, I think: the processor is directly controlling machinery and has to respond in real time. So you need to be sure that it can.

Like the PDP-8 I met once, that ran a bloody great bandsaw in a mill - it would scan the log, offer up a selection of cutting patterns for the operator to choose from and then apply the one that was picked. When it crashed, it would shut down the saw...