Double Major in Networking

[infidus]

Hi, I'm Nick and I have just visited a college adviser about my plans for college. I believe I would like to work with computers as a career, I have always been fascinated by computers but just recently have seen the real light in it all, I love to read about it and just absorb all of the information, and looking at actual computer servers and stuff makes me excited to get into doing it.

I am wondering about this because I am not much of a software guy right now, like I dont get the same excited feeling for software as I do looking at a computer and seeing what is up or just to admire it. Would this be the right field to get into, I would like to get a specialization major as an associate degree in both Network administration specialization as well as network security specialization.

 

[huron]

Nick,

Congratulations on finding something that you will enjoy doing for a career.

Security is becoming a very important field in the IT world. I don't believe you're going to see that going away any time soon.

If you like dealing with hardware, some IT jobs will still give you a taste of it while you work, but often you'll be doing helpdesk (to start) and may get some network or OS administration duties.

The unfortunate part is that most IT jobs that are going to pay you a decent salary and have room for growth will not be just working with computer and server hardware. Most of them will involve administering the network or enterprise software (be it Windows, or Linux, etc)

I'd tell you to start by taking some courses in the equivalent of Network+ or some sort of network foundation class. If you like how computers/servers/networks communicate with one another, networking may be a path for you. If you take a similar beginning course in server administration and like seeing how OSs can communicate and make everything happen, that may be a good choice too.

If you find out you like the whole system, that's good too. I've been that way for some time, but don't get a ton of time to work with Windows, as it is not a part of my job at this point. I find myself really enjoying the virtualization and networking things I have been learning. I've recently started some Linux learning and find it very interesting as well.

Hope that helps you get started. You know that in college you don't really have to pick your path right away. You can take a few classes and see which ones suit you the best and pursue it from there. Just try your best to take classes that can apply to most of your choices, so you don't just burn credits.

Hope that helps. Good luck. Welcome to an awesome field.