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Does a degree in IT do any good?

M

mt3580

Member
i'm about to finish at cal state school with a Business Administration degree focus in IT. From my summer part time jobs to intern jobs i get a feeling that IT will get me no where.

*Both intern job and part time job was involved somewhat with IT stuff.

What do you guys think?
BTW, i would love to hear some success story from fellow IT guys~
 
At the moment no it isn't very useful unfortunately. Better than nothing and a degree is a degree but the IT slant itself will not be very useful.
 
I don't put much stock in MIS/IS/IT-type degrees. Maybe I'm just a snob b/c I have a CS degree. I once remarked that this degree exists solely to make the school of business look more "hip" and "with it" but at the end of the day you don't have enough expereince to be in management where you would be most useful, but your education is too topical for work in the "trenches."
 
i dont even have an it degree, i major in economics and political science (39 credit each in my university) and business minor (22 credits) and most of the class cross so it was actually less classes.. I make about 200k a year, last year was 141k. Better get some experience in.. This is my 4th year out of school. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: forcesho
i dont even have an it degree, i major in economics and political science (39 credit each in my university) and business minor (22 credits) and most of the class cross so it was actually less classes.. I make about 200k a year, last year was 141k. Better get some experience in.. This is my 4th year out of school. 🙂
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So what do you do, exactly? Hope its not selling drugs to minors.

Edit: Sounds like you're in Sales.
 
Originally posted by: cheapbidder01
Originally posted by: forcesho
i dont even have an it degree, i major in economics and political science (39 credit each in my university) and business minor (22 credits) and most of the class cross so it was actually less classes.. I make about 200k a year, last year was 141k. Better get some experience in.. This is my 4th year out of school. 🙂
Click to expand...

So what do you do, exactly? Hope its not selling drugs to minors.

Edit: Sounds like you're in Sales.
Click to expand...

no im in IT, like everyone here, good with pc and junk
 
IT was hot about 3 years ago, when i graduated w/ it. got a job when i was just looking for an internship. then my co went backrupt and threw me out to the streets. so there's a lesson in there somewhere. ^^ now i'm just working for my parents.. shoudl really try to look tho ^^

btw, you are ok to be a CS snob, there were buch that couldnt' hack it that dropped into IT at my school. ^^ i actually have a friend that switched from CS to IT, then graduated and found no job, so he's in grad school doing CS ^^

my IT degree was under telecom, rather than business, but i guess not too universities offer a telecom prog.
 
Originally posted by: Jzero
I don't put much stock in MIS/IS/IT-type degrees. Maybe I'm just a snob b/c I have a CS degree.
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I don't know about being a snob and all; but when I was going to school most of the poeple in the CS programs were those who couldn't get into EE/CS (elec. engineering and CS). I wasn't in either majore so I could care less about which major is "better", but I remember that the regular CS people took "easy" math and stuff while the EECS majors took all the same math/physics/chem and crap that other engineers took.
 
It probably isn't as good as trying to get one with a CS/CE degree, but its better than the people applying with liberal arts degrees or no degrees at all.
 
I'm working on an IT degree and starting to get a little scared now. I don't want to have to change majors again, I just want to be done with school 🙁
 
Originally posted by: rpc64
I'm working on an IT degree and starting to get a little scared now. I don't want to have to change majors again, I just want to be done with school 🙁
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thats pretty much what I did, I finish school in 4 years, I needed an extra year to finish IT but this was in 98/99 so things were a lot different back then.. IT isn't bad.. but market is a lot worse then before
 
Honestly, it is better to find something else as a major and just have IT/computer experience as a "bonus" to a new career. But full-on IT stuff now is so not looking good. If I could do it all over again that is what I would do...drop computers as a major.
 
So far the comments i read isn't so positive. But i'm almost done with it and if i change my major now then i would have to prolong my time in school. Mainly, i am focusing on web design and database but from my understanding people who does web work does not get paid very much.
 
So you guys think IT is just a useless major? As of right now, that is my major. Does anyone have any links or stats on why IT is not a field to get into now or is that your personal opinions?
 
I'm a management major and concentrated in IT, not that it matters. I prefer the business side of things to looking at code all day. Personally, i dont think i would go towards the IT concentration if i had to redo things. I dont need a degree to prove my worth in IT since i currently have more than 3 years of experience in it. If i had to do it over again i'd concentrate in Finance.
 
So if I were to change my major from IT what's a good thing to switch to? What do you guys think about CIS compared to IT? I could change to that pretty easily.
 
I think overall all of us were the same...we didn't want to be stuck coding all day thus that is why CS was not a goal and a few years back MIS/CIS/IT stuff was totally hot. But now yeah it is really bad like REALLY bad for people with little "real world experience". For example I have been doing win2k/unix sys admin stuff for 2 universities as a student worker for 4 sum years now...I get paid more than an average worker cuz I'm in IT/systems but real companies seriously don't count it as real experience. Yeah my MIS major went into some SQL database stuff but getting hired as as a database person is hard if you are entry level.

mt350: If you like web design and are good with photoshop, director, flash etc. then maybe u should change to this major called visual communiactions or something like that. My old roomie did that and he has a pretty good job doing web front end stuff.

cashman: I don't have any statistics but here...this is an experiment that you can do...go to a career fair at your school and see how many people are actually looking for IT people...there are close to none. The closest to tech that you will get are companies looking for hardcore programmers and engineers...nobody wants a half business half computers guy. And that is a fact...I have seen the market when it was booming and I have seen it now...there is a very drastic difference. Another thing that you might want to consider is that all IT jobs that do open up are getting flooded with people who have way more experience than you do like 5-10 years more. And you know it is bad when some software engineer who worked 8 years for sun micro is applying for a Computer Analyst Level I position within a university.

That is what I have seen. I am actually going to move back to AZ to see what happens but I'll probably end up moving boxes at UPS or something. If I could do it over again I would do accounting instead of MIS....and if not something in the college of business, probably psychology/sociology....at least it would have been more fun.
 
wake up call to the people in this thread: when you graduate, chances are the job you get will have nothing to do with your degree. hence, getting an IT degree does not mean your life is over just because the market is dry.
 
Hope you have a huge network so that you can get in somewhere. The job market is rough, unfortunately. Just about any degree is worthless right now.
 
I am getting the MIS degree. I don't feel hopeless at all. If I cannot find a decent job, then I will work on my MBA. I am one of the few students who has good work experience. I did helpdesk, field tech, and desktop support for many years. I also had supervisory experience and worked directly with the client as an advocate on my last job. And I have run my own computer consulting business. So if I cannot get a job with all of that, then there aren't any jobs!

Worst case is I have to open up a donut shop or decide to run my own real estate business, which would actually be more satisfying to me than to work for someone else. Whatever happens, it's all good 🙂
 
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