IT BS thread

Most bigger companies require a 4 year degree though it doesn't have to be in IT. You could get a 2 year degree and then just load down with IT certs, but down the road a 2 year degree could possibly limit you in the higher echelons of IT.

 

Play with virtualization at home. If you go to school for IT or business they often will make full copies of all the Windows platforms available to you, server software included.

Get into technical support somewhere and start to get exposure. I've never really seen any good documents that open up servers to people... As far as networking? GNS3 is virtual networking.

 

Back when I was an undergrad, my college mentor had two degrees in psychology. When he left the University I was studying at, he ended up taking a job as CIO for a local school district where he worked till he retired. Having an IT degree helps but it's not a requirement. Hell... my computer science degree program was from back in the days of mainframes, minicomputers, and old school programming languages. Technology today is a whole lot different then it was back then.

In terms of what to study, that's really going to depend on what you want to do. If you want to work with servers then maybe work towards a MCSE. If you want to be somewhat more modern, study VMware. For networking, you can take an 800lb gorilla training program (ie., Cisco).

 

Disks today are faster, but you don't do a raid 5 if you're after speed because writing that parity bit will always make it slower than a standalone disk or something like raid 10. You do a raid 5 for data protection and the ability to lose a disk.

Of course, it comes down to how much money you want to spend because you lose half of your capacity with 10 and only lose one disk if capacity in 5.

 

I have a music degree and work in IT at a fortune 100 company. Most places want you to have a 4 year degree to advance into middle management, but it isn't really required to get your foot in the door on a help desk. IMHO, everyone should start out or spend some time in a support role.

 

thank you guys. I'll look into the virtualization programs you guys mentioned.

Is there an area in IT that is versatile?

 

Versatile? Technology is a case study in fluid dynamics! Things are constantly changing.

If I look back at my career, I stuck to one area of technology for a number of years and then re-invent myself... and moved into another IT field. In the early 1980's I was a code slinger for a couple of software companies. After about 6 or 7 years of writing code, I transitioned into system administration. From there I transitioned into the (then) new field of networking. From there I transitioned into IT Management. And more recently I moved away from the lunacy that is IT Management and moved into Systems Engineering.

For what little it's worth, I'd suggest trying a field that looks/sounds interesting to you. If, after a few years, you decide you want to do something else... re-invent yourself and try something else.

 

To compliment what @Martimus said, as he made some great points, I find being well versed in IT makes you better at anything IT. A few years of understanding software development will help you troubleshoot software better. Working with databases will help you understand their behavior better. Understanding the OSI Model will help you approach things differently and work through troubleshooting easier... The list goes on and on. I've met way too many "Oh I do this ___" types who haven't the slightest clue how the whole thing works together and it's mind numbing.

 

Yes I have it in RAID0. I also have 2 sets of backups.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOrkA_XJ4FU

 

gets me every time.

 

Not to be a Debbie downer, but working in IT isn't for everyone and can really suck. I spend most of my time cleaning up somebody else's shit. Things that people couldn't or wouldn't take time to do right the first time.

To answer your question, you can get by as a jack of all trades in smaller companies and get your hands on servers, desktops, storage, and networking. This is really where you figure out what you like to do and then go do it. Or at the very least you figure out what you don't want to do. The problem with smaller companies and being a jack of all trades is that you are a master of none and there isn't a lot of money in being average at a lot of things. You work like this a few years and then pick a focus and work to be the best at one thing. No one is an expert at everything.

 

Just found this thread! Finally!!

Been in IT for about 19yrs doing high level desktop support for a large corp. Yeah, seems like a long time, but I do like what I do and I get to do some specialization here and there. I have advanced in my career several times fold and boss keeps asking, what do I want do next. Hell - happy doing what I'm doing right now why fuck with it?
Currently writing some pshell scripts for a w7 to w10 deployment with new hdwe. Includes some C# as well, but I'm just really starting to learn that.

My team consists of just 7 techs for about 3k users, we handle just the desktop stuff, a liason to many, many IT areas along with more advanced troubleshooting other than the occasional how do I do this?
As a generel rule, if it takes more than an hour to fix it, Ghost it!!! Actually an ongoing joke around our office. Keyboard don't work, GHOST IT, that fixes all!! We used to use Symantec ghost, but now on Lite touch.
We don't allow non-corp computers, so we totally manage what's out there.

Anyway, great to see other IT people on here that like TACOs too!!!

Mark

 

I used to have that "ghost it" rule when worked on desktops. My family would try to get me to help them with computer things and I told them I was bad a troubleshooting desktops because of the"ghost it" rule.

 

Haha, my family hates it when I do it too. Sometimes they look at me and say wtf you doing now to mess it up? Needless, they are clueless cause I baby em too much.

 

Unfortunately now I have to troubleshoot because I work on servers. Sure I can deploy a new VM in about 15 minutes, but then the app has to be installed and configured, which normally requires vendor interaction and fees. App teams rarely know anything about their apps; they're normally just power users of the app that can interact with users.

 

+100 to this. My entire job is either fixing someone else's ineptitude or band-aiding poorly implemented systems or software. When users ask why rebooting is a fix I just shrug now. Telling them that the company went cheap and didn't spend enough to either hire competent help, or outsourced poorly, or bought a cheap software package doesn't do anything but possibly cause blow-back. IT departments are the bastards of most companies; under appreciated until things go horribly wrong and then you get bitched at anyways because they didn't give you the resources necessary to do the job right in the first place. Maybe 1 in 20 companies have good IT departments that interface and communicate with the business side of the company. The rest is a fucking shit show.

But maybe I'm just a little burnt out.

 

It's akin to being a janitor. Some days there's shit on the floor. Some days there's piss everywhere. And some days there's none of that, but you're still scrubbing toilets.

 

I hate the system I work with at my job. It's like someone stitched together some Unix program on top of Windows CE. And apparently someone also decided to combine two servers into one. So it gets overloaded easily.

 

I give my notice on Thursday. 50/50 chance they get pissed and just tell me to leave I think. It was just a summer job, though they didn't know that going in.