I think you will need to provide a little more information before anyone can really make a decent recommendation to you.
1. What exactly is your degree for?
Majoring in Business, minoring in Computer Tech
2. Do you have any technology certifications?
Working on first getting A+ Certified and then possibly a few microsoft ones along with Cisco
3. Do you have any experience working in an IT position?
Besides free labor fixing everyone's stuff...no
If you live in the US, then you don't need a Bachelor's degree to be a computer tech. You can do that with a couple hundred bucks and a couple weeks from any community college.
If you get your BS in Computer Science or a degree in Managment Information Systems, Computer Information Systems, or w/e they call it at your school (all the same thing. Computer Science/Business Degree), you have alot more options and the Computer Tech is going to be the guy who replaces your computer when it breaks, so you can actually do real work. Most of these jobs start at around $45k/yr to $65k/yr depending on where you find a job at. They move up quite a bit higher. The computer techs make about $15/hr.
I think you will need to provide a little more information before anyone can really make a decent recommendation to you.
1. What exactly is your degree for?
Majoring in Business, minoring in Computer Tech
2. Do you have any technology certifications?
Working on first getting A+ Certified and then possibly a few microsoft ones along with Cisco
3. Do you have any experience working in an IT position?
Besides free labor fixing everyone's stuff...no
If you live in the US, then you don't need a Bachelor's degree to be a computer tech. You can do that with a couple hundred bucks and a couple weeks from any community college.
If you get your BS in Computer Science or a degree in Managment Information Systems, Computer Information Systems, or w/e they call it at your school (all the same thing. Computer Science/Business Degree), you have alot more options and the Computer Tech is going to be the guy who replaces your computer when it breaks, so you can actually do real work. Most of these jobs start at around $45k/yr to $65k/yr depending on where you find a job at. They move up quite a bit higher. The computer techs make about $15/hr.
I thought this was sorta sad and funny at the same time. Either way, it is true. The resident "programmer" at my company makes alotta cash, but cant change a power supply in his own computer lol.
It's kind of odd, it had me thinking back to one of my jobs. I worked in the web group as their sys admin. I was also the liaison over to the marketing department, since I could translate between the marketing people and the programmers - lol. One of the guys over in marketing had a BS CS degree. Over in our helpdesk, we had some folks without degrees - but there was one with a BA Biology, MBA, BA MIS, BA Gen Bus, etc. The closest their came to an IT degree over in the help desk was the MIS (non-technical IT degree) - yet over in marketing, they had a guy with the CS degree...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
If you get your BS in Computer Science or a degree in Managment Information Systems, Computer Information Systems, or w/e they call it at your school (all the same thing. Computer Science/Business Degree), you have alot more options and the Computer Tech is going to be the guy who replaces your computer when it breaks, so you can actually do real work. Most of these jobs start at around $45k/yr to $65k/yr depending on where you find a job at. They move up quite a bit higher. The computer techs make about $15/hr.
I honestly do not care to much about the pay, 15/hr would be great for me...at least to start off with. I just want to do something I love and I love working on pc's. The higher paying jobs such as programming just seem like hell on earth to me.
I am a IT Manager at a marketing company and I'm 27 (just got promoted last month!). Part of my work life has been hard work, but also some luck. My best advice I can give you is to get a bachelors degree in anything (preferably something you enjoy learning about) and get as much hands on experience in technology related fields as possible. IMO certifcations don't mean much as you learn way more on the job and some certifcations can actually hurt you as employers may think you are overqualified for the job and not bother interviewing you (totally depends on your industry though).
I have a BA in psychology... started out as electrical engineer, but found the major to be dull/boring to me, so I switched to psychology cause I thought it was pretty interesting. Work-wise I got all the experience I could in technology as I enjoyed doing that and helping others (mostly just help-desk jobs for my college for workstudy and another outside company for a summer).
If I am hiring and like two candidates and they meet all my wishes in an employee, but one is certified in this and that but doesn't have much real world experience and the other has no ceritfications and has x years of tech related experience, pretty much no question I would take the person with experience over the certifications any day (again totally depends on the industry you want to go in to though).
In this day and age when economy sucks, you are going to have a lot of competition, especially education-wise. Find a way to stand out in the field. My Psychology degree has worked wonders for me to get in the door, especially with help-desk jobs when I was starting out.
The good news is there are a ton of technology jobs out there and our industry hasn't been hurt nearly as much as so many others. Just be eager and willing to start at the bottom and work your way up. Help desk jobs aren't necessarily fun, but they are a great starting point and you can learn a lot of great skills on the job. If you can genuinely be a nice person to others doing help desk and you try to learn as much as you can on the job, you will be surprised at how quickly you climb that ladder
P.S. I still have no ceritifcations :P and no plans on attempting to get any. But again, that depends on the industry you want to go in.
Funny. I was at first planning on getting my degree in psychology, but instead decided that learning more about computer science would help me more. I should be landing a tech job for Best Buy here quite soon and hopefully that will help out while I'm in school. My plan at this point is to get that job and work my way up a bit while getting my degree and possibly some certifications. They told me that I could get on at the Geek Squad. They would train me and pay for my certifications if I wanted to get them...sounds like a sweet deal to me. Doing that and getting experience while getting my degree seems like the best route to me. What do you think?
Funny. I was at first planning on getting my degree in psychology, but instead decided that learning more about computer science would help me more. I should be landing a tech job for Best Buy here quite soon and hopefully that will help out while I'm in school. My plan at this point is to get that job and work my way up a bit while getting my degree and possibly some certifications. They told me that I could get on at the Geek Squad. They would train me and pay for my certifications if I wanted to get them...sounds like a sweet deal to me. Doing that and getting experience while getting my degree seems like the best route to me. What do you think?
Computer science isnt really anything youll be doing in any sort of tech job like that.
Funny. I was at first planning on getting my degree in psychology, but instead decided that learning more about computer science would help me more. I should be landing a tech job for Best Buy here quite soon and hopefully that will help out while I'm in school. My plan at this point is to get that job and work my way up a bit while getting my degree and possibly some certifications. They told me that I could get on at the Geek Squad. They would train me and pay for my certifications if I wanted to get them...sounds like a sweet deal to me. Doing that and getting experience while getting my degree seems like the best route to me. What do you think?
I think that is an awesome way to go personally! You are getting the best of both worlds if they pay for your certifications while you work and gain experience and your degree. I'd think you would have a ton of flexibilty if you ever wanted to leave to another job later as well.
Funny. I was at first planning on getting my degree in psychology, but instead decided that learning more about computer science would help me more. I should be landing a tech job for Best Buy here quite soon and hopefully that will help out while I'm in school. My plan at this point is to get that job and work my way up a bit while getting my degree and possibly some certifications. They told me that I could get on at the Geek Squad. They would train me and pay for my certifications if I wanted to get them...sounds like a sweet deal to me. Doing that and getting experience while getting my degree seems like the best route to me. What do you think?
Computer science isnt really anything youll be doing in any sort of tech job like that.
It can help to learn what misteaks not to make. Like having a spell checker in your product that doesn't speel check.
"I used to think the worst thing in life was to be all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone." Robin Williams
Originally posted by Nunez1212 Ok, so if Computer Science will not help with tech then what would? Maybe computer networking? Or possbily information systems??
Closest thing to "tech" would be Information Technology - it covers the basics of just about everything related to computers: a lil programming, a lil networking, a lil database, a lil hardware, etc. Depending on the curriculum and school, Information Systems may be closely related or the same thing (although generally tends to lean a bit more on software where as IT leans a bit more on hardware). Jobs from these degrees run a wide range, and depend on either experience/post-grad/certifications to specialize. Typical jobs out of college would be help desk, IT networking, remote server administration, computer maintenance, etc.
The next step up would be Computer Engineering - that's very indepth and can go as far as semiconductor design. But it's as "tech" as you can get... generally you won't do much with just a CE degree without a post-grad degree to go into it, but they get hired like crazy for big bucks when they are done if they are any good at it for things like chip design, VLIW layout, power analysis, etc. for companies like Intel, nVidia, AMD, Texas Instruments, etc.
Computer Science is more or less just programming: it's very math oriented and deals a lot with optimization tricks, almost no hardware past assembly/machine language and register use (which barely deals with hardware). This degree usually leads to a coding job. Unfortunately, a lot of this type of work is outsourced very cheaply, but there are still a lot of big name companies hiring in the West (Microsoft, Google, DoD, among others)
And Electrical Engineering isn't a bad way to go either. That is a very generic major, it covers a little bit of computers and low voltage circuits, but also gets into motors, generators, electrical distribution, and even 3-phase power. Like IT, EE relies on experience/post-grad/certifications to specialize, as it's a very broad field. Common jobs from EE range from electrical engineer, power plant operation, industrial PC and automation design, CAD work, and power system safety analysis.
It's not uncommon for people with CE and EE undergrad degrees to cross-pollinate and go for the same programs at the post-grad level.
Yes, I was going for Computer Science and got out of it about a year ago because I realized it was highly math involved...and programming intensely like that was not for me. I said "computer science" as a general term and did not know it only referred to that section of the field. I would say that Business/Information Systems is about what I'm wanting to go for. Even though chip desin does sound very interesting to me...it's not interesting enough that I would want to put that much effort into understanding it.
Comments
If you live in the US, then you don't need a Bachelor's degree to be a computer tech. You can do that with a couple hundred bucks and a couple weeks from any community college.
If you get your BS in Computer Science or a degree in Managment Information Systems, Computer Information Systems, or w/e they call it at your school (all the same thing. Computer Science/Business Degree), you have alot more options and the Computer Tech is going to be the guy who replaces your computer when it breaks, so you can actually do real work. Most of these jobs start at around $45k/yr to $65k/yr depending on where you find a job at. They move up quite a bit higher. The computer techs make about $15/hr.
I thought this was sorta sad and funny at the same time. Either way, it is true. The resident "programmer" at my company makes alotta cash, but cant change a power supply in his own computer lol.
It's kind of odd, it had me thinking back to one of my jobs. I worked in the web group as their sys admin. I was also the liaison over to the marketing department, since I could translate between the marketing people and the programmers - lol. One of the guys over in marketing had a BS CS degree. Over in our helpdesk, we had some folks without degrees - but there was one with a BA Biology, MBA, BA MIS, BA Gen Bus, etc. The closest their came to an IT degree over in the help desk was the MIS (non-technical IT degree) - yet over in marketing, they had a guy with the CS degree...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I honestly do not care to much about the pay, 15/hr would be great for me...at least to start off with. I just want to do something I love and I love working on pc's. The higher paying jobs such as programming just seem like hell on earth to me.
I am a IT Manager at a marketing company and I'm 27 (just got promoted last month!). Part of my work life has been hard work, but also some luck. My best advice I can give you is to get a bachelors degree in anything (preferably something you enjoy learning about) and get as much hands on experience in technology related fields as possible. IMO certifcations don't mean much as you learn way more on the job and some certifcations can actually hurt you as employers may think you are overqualified for the job and not bother interviewing you (totally depends on your industry though).
I have a BA in psychology... started out as electrical engineer, but found the major to be dull/boring to me, so I switched to psychology cause I thought it was pretty interesting. Work-wise I got all the experience I could in technology as I enjoyed doing that and helping others (mostly just help-desk jobs for my college for workstudy and another outside company for a summer).
If I am hiring and like two candidates and they meet all my wishes in an employee, but one is certified in this and that but doesn't have much real world experience and the other has no ceritfications and has x years of tech related experience, pretty much no question I would take the person with experience over the certifications any day (again totally depends on the industry you want to go in to though).
In this day and age when economy sucks, you are going to have a lot of competition, especially education-wise. Find a way to stand out in the field. My Psychology degree has worked wonders for me to get in the door, especially with help-desk jobs when I was starting out.
The good news is there are a ton of technology jobs out there and our industry hasn't been hurt nearly as much as so many others. Just be eager and willing to start at the bottom and work your way up. Help desk jobs aren't necessarily fun, but they are a great starting point and you can learn a lot of great skills on the job. If you can genuinely be a nice person to others doing help desk and you try to learn as much as you can on the job, you will be surprised at how quickly you climb that ladder
P.S. I still have no ceritifcations :P and no plans on attempting to get any. But again, that depends on the industry you want to go in.
Funny. I was at first planning on getting my degree in psychology, but instead decided that learning more about computer science would help me more. I should be landing a tech job for Best Buy here quite soon and hopefully that will help out while I'm in school. My plan at this point is to get that job and work my way up a bit while getting my degree and possibly some certifications. They told me that I could get on at the Geek Squad. They would train me and pay for my certifications if I wanted to get them...sounds like a sweet deal to me. Doing that and getting experience while getting my degree seems like the best route to me. What do you think?
Computer science isnt really anything youll be doing in any sort of tech job like that.
I think that is an awesome way to go personally! You are getting the best of both worlds if they pay for your certifications while you work and gain experience and your degree. I'd think you would have a ton of flexibilty if you ever wanted to leave to another job later as well.
It can help to learn what misteaks not to make. Like having a spell checker in your product that doesn't speel check.
Ok, so if Computer Science will not help with tech then what would? Maybe computer networking? Or possbily information systems??
Computer Engineering, Information Technology, and Networking. Computer Science deals with experimenting with code.
Closest thing to "tech" would be Information Technology - it covers the basics of just about everything related to computers: a lil programming, a lil networking, a lil database, a lil hardware, etc. Depending on the curriculum and school, Information Systems may be closely related or the same thing (although generally tends to lean a bit more on software where as IT leans a bit more on hardware). Jobs from these degrees run a wide range, and depend on either experience/post-grad/certifications to specialize. Typical jobs out of college would be help desk, IT networking, remote server administration, computer maintenance, etc.
The next step up would be Computer Engineering - that's very indepth and can go as far as semiconductor design. But it's as "tech" as you can get... generally you won't do much with just a CE degree without a post-grad degree to go into it, but they get hired like crazy for big bucks when they are done if they are any good at it for things like chip design, VLIW layout, power analysis, etc. for companies like Intel, nVidia, AMD, Texas Instruments, etc.
Computer Science is more or less just programming: it's very math oriented and deals a lot with optimization tricks, almost no hardware past assembly/machine language and register use (which barely deals with hardware). This degree usually leads to a coding job. Unfortunately, a lot of this type of work is outsourced very cheaply, but there are still a lot of big name companies hiring in the West (Microsoft, Google, DoD, among others)
And Electrical Engineering isn't a bad way to go either. That is a very generic major, it covers a little bit of computers and low voltage circuits, but also gets into motors, generators, electrical distribution, and even 3-phase power. Like IT, EE relies on experience/post-grad/certifications to specialize, as it's a very broad field. Common jobs from EE range from electrical engineer, power plant operation, industrial PC and automation design, CAD work, and power system safety analysis.
It's not uncommon for people with CE and EE undergrad degrees to cross-pollinate and go for the same programs at the post-grad level.
Yes, I was going for Computer Science and got out of it about a year ago because I realized it was highly math involved...and programming intensely like that was not for me. I said "computer science" as a general term and did not know it only referred to that section of the field. I would say that Business/Information Systems is about what I'm wanting to go for. Even though chip desin does sound very interesting to me...it's not interesting enough that I would want to put that much effort into understanding it.