[QUOTE=Belrix]
Well, in my opinion, “What should you do” is RUN! RUN AWAY! GO NOW!
…umm…
…sorry, I think my work day is reflecting in my mood.
The first thing you should do is keep your expectations low. The glory days of IT are gone, the big bucks for low experience. The “Draw Tippy! Meet Girls!” advertisements were a product of the dot-com stupidity and went away when that bubble burst.
IT, to me, breaks down to several generic groups.
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Coders. Folks that write code to make software. Medium-sized bucks, often long hours when the deadline approaches. The meat-and-potatoes of the IT workers.
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Testers: Folks that test the software that Coders write. Less of an education needed, smaller bucks, kinda the low-end of the totem pole in my opinion. Long hours when deadlines approach.
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System Admins. Folks that run the machines, allocate the storage, do the backups, etc for all the coders and testers. Medium sized bux. Usually on-call around the clock in some form or another.
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Application admins. Generally this is database administrators (DBA’s) of one flavor or another. Medium to large bucks depending on experience and your application you’re running.
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Architects. People that meet with vendors, test software/hardware combinations, and generally say to the company “Here is how we’ll accomplish this job.” Entry is through the jobs above, no low-experience starters here. Medium to Large bux.
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User support. The bottom of the heap, in my opinion. May of the above started here. You’re either desktop support, application support. You’ll wear your headset from start to end of your day. Still, it’s an entry point for a lot of IT jobs. Beats the heck out of “Would you like fries with that.”
Starting in a university setting is usually very good for learning a broad range of tasks in a single place. Corporate settings tend to stifle, leaning to the “shrink-wrap” solutions. Universities, though, are notorious poor-payers so turn-over might be your friend on finding openings. They’re, again, notorious for seat-of-the-pants computing so it’s easy to pick up bad habits at them.
I’d stay away from the mom-and-pop PC shops if you can. They’ll pay the bills but learning PC’s, in my opinion, is too limiting an experience to transition to a full career.
Working as an “operator”, the 24-hour round-the-clock monitor for a large computer center is a good start. Three of our current 8 admins are promotions from our operator positions. Initial knowledge is expected to be low (and the pay reflects it) and shift work may be easier to work into your school schedule.
Well - it’s a bit of info. I hope it helps.
[/QUOTE]
May I add?
Business Analysts - may be a good job to look into - its defining user requirements and translating tech speak between users and technology - a great job for someone with low tech skills and an interest in IT.
Project Management - less business interface generally, more “making sure the testers know the code is coming there way.” Another “low tech skills” job for someone who doesn’t have a technical degree.
However, neither will be part time - in fact, it wouldn’t be uncommon in either to pull at 40+ hour week with regularity.