Career

[ghomes22]

Hi, I'm going to be going to school this coming spring and I'm on the fence a little here on which path to take. I love computers and networking, woring with routers, servers putting them together... ect. My choices are a CS (4yr BS) degree with little hands on work, or an IT Network Speclist degree (2yr A.A.S), with hands on, working in a cisco lab ect. I've been told before that CS person can do an IT persons job but not vice versa, I'm also seeing a lot of employers wanting CS degrees OR 2 yr with equivelent exp.

Is a 2yr degree good enough these days? Are CS degrees IN GENERAL more based around theory and programming as apposed to hands on? will a CS degree provide any networking insight? (i know it varys by school, I'm just asking in general)

Any1 with a CS or IT degree with any info or advice to offer would be amazing, thank you.

 

[bill001g]

Pretty much depends on the job you want to do. To a point not having a 4 year degree could limit your career advancement but it depends.

Although not completely true- The guys with a 2 yr degree are mostly doing support type work, they install systems and apply patches. The 4yr degree guys are more involved creating software, they actually write the patches and create new platforms.

It is almost impossible without formalized training to learn to design and write software so if that is your goal you should take the 4yr degree.

The main trade off is that there are many more jobs in the support area. In your example there are many companies that need someone to operate their routers, but if you want to actually create new features for the router you are going to have to work for cisco or another router vendor.


Still in the case of cisco or other network vendors they actually want a 4yr software engineering degree not a CS degree.

 

[ghomes22]

Best answer selected by ghomes22.