To those in IT, a question...

[Kozmos]

I'm coming into my second year at uni and I have to make some kind of a specialization choice. Between Organization IT, Business IT and Graphic Design. I really have no idea what to chose. What I can make out of it is that organization has more programming which I guess I am okay with, business has a lot more database handling (something I fear would bore me to death) and graphic design which I did not particularly like a lot, because I hated typography with a passion due to a crazy assistant who is a dominatrix lesbian goddess of chocolate but I can see how it could be interesting in the end. Any stories, experiences or recommendations?

 

[Cheetah]

Not really a very comprehensive description of your choices. Do you have any links showing the classes you'll end up taking by choosing the different options?

Personally I didn't want to specialise in databases either, as I also found it boring. Not that it matters, as I was hired for C# and Java skills, and was then sent on a course to learn about data ware houses on my first day.

Graphics is a lot of math usually, so if you find pure math somewhat boring or difficult, that might not be the best choice.

Programming is programming. I'm not sure what to say about that option, except that Organizational IT sounds like a strange title for a technical/development/programming-heavy line.

So yeah, do you have some more info on the different lines?

 

[Kozmos]

Well I will have databases (table calculators) and programming (object-oriented prog.) in both Business and Organization, and what I can see from the courses they overlap for most part until the final years when Organization really goes off into setting up whole offices and the system/network administration part while Business focuses on multimedia marketing, communications and web programming. Graphic designs is the one that really stands out with GPLs, techniques, digital photography, multimedia processing and products etc.

I'm leaning towards Organization for now, with second choice being graphical design.

 

[IglooDame]

I'm not sure I could help you as far as courses to take - when I was in college there wasn't an IT-specific curriculum at all - I think there was one programming course, covering BASIC and Pascal.

But that said, I'd generally define IT specialties in big companies more or less as you have - programming, database, network, and server. At smaller companies (such as my last few employers) the first two and the last two tend to merge, and there are places where one person does all four, though I've rarely seen that person able to do it all well.

I'd suggest looking at your hobbies or preferences. What kind of PC/Mac/whatever are you running now? Do you reinstall the OS from time to time or dual-boot it? Do you mess with your firewall settings? Are you passingly familiar with TCP/IP addressing? Do you easily crack the system open to add RAM, swap/add hard drives, or replace video cards? Or do you largely just leave it be and try to adjust the GUI, giving yourself one-click buttons to pull up websites and other app sort of stuff? How many add-ons does your browser have, and what are they generally related to? Have you done any scripting or programming previously? Do you want to look at source code?

Blue points to network/systems, "DarkSlateGray" (looks dark green to me) points to programming. I have no questions for database work... Maybe, you like finagling with spreadsheets?

 

[Kozmos]

I'd suggest looking at your hobbies or preferences. What kind of PC/Mac/whatever are you running now? Do you reinstall the OS from time to time or dual-boot it? Do you mess with your firewall settings? Are you passingly familiar with TCP/IP addressing? Do you easily crack the system open to add RAM, swap/add hard drives, or replace video cards? Or do you largely just leave it be and try to adjust the GUI, giving yourself one-click buttons to pull up websites and other app sort of stuff? How many add-ons does your browser have, and what are they generally related to? Have you done any scripting or programming previously? Do you want to look at source code?

Blue points to network/systems, "DarkSlateGray" (looks dark green to me) points to programming. I have no questions for database work... Maybe, you like finagling with spreadsheets?

Well I've dabbled in all that at some point due to the kind of high school I went (technically oriented). The one I really lack experience in is graphic design. Not sure how I would fare in that. I received good grades in it and if the assistants weren't crazy I would probably somewhat enjoy it. Spreadsheets are fine, but not really stimulating work, probably the only class I've slept through for the most part and got good grades anyway. I don't know, maybe I'll get into organization, be one of those open source douches or a government server slave.

 

[IglooDame]

Well I've dabbled in all that at some point due to the kind of high school I went (technically oriented). The one I really lack experience in is graphic design. Not sure how I would fare in that. I received good grades in it and if the assistants weren't crazy I would probably somewhat enjoy it. Spreadsheets are fine, but not really stimulating work, probably the only class I've slept through for the most part and got good grades anyway. I don't know, maybe I'll get into organization, be one of those open source douches or a government server slave.

You know, not all graphic design people are crazy (or so I'm told) - I only know one, and she's the polar opposite of chocolate lesbian dominatrix. And there are more options in the "organization" (network/server) side than that. 90% of my experience is in Microsoft and Cisco products, and I'm definitely not a government server slave.

Can you intern somewhere where you can experience the day-to-day of all three (non-DB) specialties?

 

[Kozmos]

You know, not all graphic design people are crazy (or so I'm told) - I only know one, and she's the polar opposite of chocolate lesbian dominatrix. And there are more options in the "organization" (network/server) side than that. 90% of my experience is in Microsoft and Cisco products, and I'm definitely not a government server slave.

Can you intern somewhere where you can experience the day-to-day of all three (non-DB) specialties?

No, no, even the professor is a drunk, once he slashed my grade the assistant gave me by 40% simply because he got sober. Brilliant man, always on the tech news since he keeps inventing various anti-forgery techniques for documents and money but a notorious drinker. Kinda like the physics guy but the physics guy invites you to drink with him at least

Only in the last year I believe, but by then the choice is already made. By government server slave I meant that I will probably be shoved into some subsection of the various ministries or agencies and be a one-man IT department. And the way things are structured here now is that the workers can't even change a password or basically do anything without the IT guy say so. It makes sense somewhat so illiterates dont mess up something but here it is taken to extreme.

 

[DaveShack]

A lot depends on your goals. Are you aiming to choose primarily something you like, or something that has a good career path? For the former, a good indicator is which things are the most fun. For the latter, aim to acquire the skills that are in the most demand in the location you want to work. It varies a lot depending on location and industry.

 

[Tahuti]

If I were in your situation, and I would have completely no idea where to go, I would go for Business IT anyhow. Somehow seems to be the best allround package.