Discussion Guidance furthering IT education and career fields

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rebelpatriot

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Feb 22, 2013
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I am currently taking courses at SNHU for my associate's in IT. I want to go far my bachelor's immediately after but I'm unsure of the career field I would want to go into. I love doing hands on work. Love building and messing around with PC and electronic hardware. I have dabbled in coding and found it interesting but not something I would want to continue doing.
Two questions.
What degrees are out there that deal with network or pc hardware?
And
What career fields are out there that deal with handling network or PC hardware?
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Degrees and certifications are good.

However, what gets you a job is your ability to convince a potential employer that you can do the job.

Be reliable, honest, pro-active, willing to step up and go the extra distance. Show up for work on time, not be too much of a hassle for your manager and co-workers.

Develop your people skills: be able to work with senior staff, customers, co-workers.

Be able to write, speak, communicate at all levels. Take a few business classes, management classes. Courses that will help you move into more responsible and managerial level positions.

And you will need to pay your dues: Likely to start out on the "Help desk" or at some menial level likely below your skill set, education, and experience.

The way to start is to read employment ads. Learn what skills are being sought along with education and experience levels.

Employers generally keep job descriptions somewhat broad in order to provide flexibility in hiring decisions. There are always trade-offs.

You may be hired for one thing but end up doing something else - happens. E.g., a contract falls through but the employer likes you as a potential employee and offers another position. Coding vs the original network tech.

Likely you can take classes that focus on the hardware side of things. But keep an eye of software: Powershell and Python skills are likely to be very handy.

Try to get as much "hands on" work as possible doing whatever you can. Maybe an internship of some sort.

The degree/career field per se is only part of a bigger picture.

Robotics, AI, Cybersecurity: many on-going changes these days and you will need to be flexible with respect to the future.

Especially to climb the proverbial ladder and not be left behind.
 
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