Advice Please:

I am currently studying a BTEC NATIONAL DIPLOMA FOR IT PRACTITIONERS (SYSTEM SUPPORT) as well as a LINUX+ course..

Now I do really enjoy my course, I love the hardware side of computing. But I am worried about what line of study is best to follow for good money. From the meagre understanding I havem is that the money in this side of IT is in network design, from what I can gather you have to be designing very big networks (I.E 10,000 + terminals) to actually make decent money. I do study visual basic, next year we will be starting pascal + c++.

Do I need to study programming more? What is the best thing for me to do to earn lots of money??

Also, there are tons of people out there who are extremely clever, I feel at times, how can I compete with their knowledge and get the job with more money..

P.S I'm not shallow, I just want lots of kids! :)

Learn Business,

That is what you get paid for as a senior manager or director............ techo qualifications have a shelf life less that a desktop;)

If you are going into the IT business then learning some programming would be advised. C / C++ are very good programming languages, and the starting concepts of them are (in my opinion) very easy to learn. Remember that quite a lot of programmes nowadays will be written in C or C++.

Yes, you should at least dabble in programming, and try to pick a modern language to do it in. Just remember that it will be obsolete fairly quickly, and there is such a thing as OUTSOURCING :shocked: so there will never be any money in programming in this country;)

Learn the principles and design concepts rather than the detail, would be my advice.

Systems analysis, business analysis, database design, systems architecture and so on are skills based on general principles. They are worth learning because they involve more senior jobs and the skills are not "perishable"

:D

Thanks guys.. Good feedback. Definitely appreciated, has given me a bit more knowledge to help me think about what I would like to do.

Helps if you can maybe get a degree from a college whos CIS program conists of a core of Business classess, and electives are Computer classess.

For example, my college CIS course consists of me taking all of the Business Administration Cores ( Organizational management, Operations management, Macro and Micro economics, Business Policy, Business stats, Accounting I, and II, Finance, Ethics etc etc) and my electives are computer classess (Programming I, II, Networking I, II, Database Design, Systems Analysis and design etc etc).


This type of program gives you a lot of diversity...you can be the little man at the computer or you can be the CIO of a company. In IT, Diversification of job skills is vital to survive. I applied for a job at a Cable/Internet/phone provider here where I live. The job is "Network Operations support Specialist" however not only are the qualifications Cisco routers, Linux/Windows servers, TCP/IP protocols, but also Cisco Call manager, VOIP protocols, and varios telco equipment.


The more you know about different things the better off you are.