What's it take to be in IT?

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That's what I'm looking for! Exactly. Not necessarily the money but something that'll let me work like that especially after hours, weekends and being so wrapped up in it that you don't know what time it is and your day flies by.

The money's nice too!

There are probably no startups that will insist that you *not* work after hours. But with regard to the day flying by and being wrapped up in the work and all that, that comes from liking the work, not from doing the work.

Someone who really loves doing network engineering (IP networking, traffic engineering, network topology design and implementation) will have a blast doing it anywhere under almost any conditions. One fella I know went over to Iraq during Tanks In The Sandy Desert II and was fooling with Cisco equipment while rockets occasionally flew over his head.

Someone who's doing it as "just a job" will be miserable everywhere he does it, even at Google. Another fella I know is in this position now.

I'm guessing you're not still in high school, but in general a guidance or career counselor may be able to assist you in considering where you want to be career-wise, and how to plan things to get you there.

You may consider retargeting your interest on what kind of work you want to do in terms of what field. Chase the work, not the lifestyle.

You may also want to consider learning about UN*X OS's such as SysV, BSD, and Linux. Along with this, you will probably want to learn BASH, C, and Perl scripting, as well as the basics of the clusterf**k called sendmail. To set up/config Routers and such you well need to know Telnet.

Thanks for the clarification, kahlua. It really HAS been a while for me. I was getting out ten years ago, and at that point the old guard still pre-dated the IT degree plans, myself among them. I'm very very glad to see IT being taken seriously by universities and by the industry as a whole. This is great to hear.

If you're looking for intense work that requires complete dedication and longish hours, you're in the right industry

I interview the techs for my company. I lead a team of on site engineers and developers for a fairly well known telecommunications company. I will post what I look for in potential hires tomorrow. I'm too tired to post everything now.

Can u
Drink espresso
Can u back up a server
Can u talk down to people who earn 3x what you do?

(if u remember the IT guy skit from saturday night live, that was my old roommate, well not really but i swear they based it on him, and J is paid quite well for a man with no college and no certifications, much better than i am with both)

Going off-topic now...

Sendmail?

Augh! Hell no! Leave that dinosaur buried!

There are better MTAs to deal with. Exim if you want a modernized sendmail (not really true; those who get the jest get the jest, don't worry about it otherwise), qmail for a seriously bad-ass fast MTA that is remarkably fragile if customized, and Postfix or Courier for MTAs that sit in between being qmail and being sendmail.

(for those who have a wish to discuss this further, I welcome the opportunity, but it may be nicer to other folks to do so in another thread, or privately)

Excellent! Thanks!

I work as a service technician for an electronics retailer. Most everyone who brings a computer in for repair claims to "work in IT." When we hear that, it makes us cringe.

Saying that you want to work in IT is like saying you want to work in the medical field. There are so many specialities that exist that you need to really figure out what you have a passion for and go for something in that field. I am mainly a hardware guy, with a healthy dose of Linux and networking knowledge on the side. Give me a computer, give me a few details as to what the problem is, and I can fix it.

On the other hand, I'm not a programmer. I can't write code, or design a website. But I still consider myself an "IT Professional." There are many kinds of IT jobs, and they run the gamut from being a help-desk jockey to a network admin to the guys that layout the cable runs in a new building. My father in law is a project manager for Lockheed, working with large datacenters. Another friend is a developer for a local software company. Yet another is a Project manager working for HP, as a network engineer.

What do you love? Chances are that there is a speciality that would mesh well with your interests and passion. In the meantime, study, keep up with new technology, and if you can get strong certifications, do so. Even better, find a job that will pay for the certs, and help you to prepare for them.

What do you mean by "the IT field"? The first place to start would be surveying all the different areas of specialization under this very large umbrella and figuring out what you're interested in. You could do everything from hardware support to website administration to software development to research, and each of those has a million sub-fields. Back in the day, a single person could sort of do everything, or at least know a little about everything, but there's so much now that you have to specialize.

I always say that working with computers is like old advice about acting - if there is ANYTHING else you'd rather be doing, go do it and leave the computer field alone.

If you don't have any better ideas, I always say specialize in something vertical that is in high demand but few people know anything about, like Pike/Roxen, ColdFusion, or multi-value databases. There are niches in the industry where you always see job ads where companies want qualified workers who know the obscure technology, but few people want to specialize in a dead-end technology. Get involved with a niche like this and work for a small company which will depend on you. They'll never rewrite their obscure stuff, and you'll always have a job keeping it running. Could be a perfect fit for autistic types, because if you'll save the company from having to rewrite everything, they'll put up with you.

a new title has presented itself: Computer and Information Systems Manager. Whether I have what it takes to be a "manager' remains to be seen but even a member of a team would be sufficient.

Whether it's in IT or not, the title "manager" carries with it a promise of dealing with interpersonal problems. Depending on the size of the team, it can be a daily, hourly, or non-stop condition. Always keep in mind that management is a skill set in its own right, and doesn't simply appear because a person is good at the job that's being managed.

Yup, I was promoted to an IT management position at one point. Never... ever... again... Not for me, anyway. But I talk to people who clearly have the managerial skill set, and they THRIVE on it. They wake up in the morning jazzed to go into work. More power to 'em.

Not trying to bust your bubble or anything. I don't know you, so you could be ideal manager material. I'm just trying to make sure you don't walk into it and get blind-sided the way I did. I'm not manager material. But I learned that the hard way.

yeah, wouldn't want to be a manager. Not that A-type. A member of a team would be good though.

WOW, you got some biased, incomplete, etc... advice!

#1 it is a MYTH that you have t be GREAT in math! It HELPS to be DECENT though.

You CAN realize your dream, but it limits options. Still, more and more, it is getting to that point.

They CAN make a LOT. It starts at probably over $30,000, and goes up. Depending on WHAT you do, where you work, etc....

You DON'T need a formal education. It isn't worth much. You DON'T need certification. It isn't worth much. You don't even really need a history. Any of those MIGHT help though. Knowledge and proof of that is best.

And IT ranges all the way from running wires through, and hooking things up with HIGH tolerances, little skill needed, and free time, to programming simulation type games with low tolerances, high skill, and little free time. My job is kind of in between. I make 6 figures. I have to say though that I travel a lot, live on my own, and may have to work long days and weekends.

Believe it or not, wanting to be part of a team is a plus at a lot of places. I did a one man shop for a while. Ok, a couple of whiles since I did several jobs like that. It's kinda fun, being captain and crew of a one man ship. But there's no one to bounce ideas off of.

Working as part of a team, you do get the chance to bounce ideas off of each other. When you're really stuck, coffee breaks can become intense fifteen minute training sessions with multiple teachers. It's a rush.

Depending on the size of the shop you wind up in, there's a way to find out if management track is right for you. The last place I did IT work for was large enough we had a manager as well as a team lead. The team lead was one of us. I think he got a bump in pay, but no real bump in authority except we all agreed to listen to him. He went to more meetings than us, and called a lot of our priorities. By then I knew I didn't like management, so I was more than happy to let my team lead take on the additional responsibility.

And I'll also chime in on 2ukenkerl's point that you don't have to be an ace at math to be in IT. It does help, but it's not strictly necessary. One aspect of IT that hasn't been mentioned yet and should be is technical writing and documentation. I hope I'm not ruffling too many feathers here, but most software developers can't write their own documentation. They're too close to the subject material to be able to write a manual for someone who's seeing it for the first time. A good technical writer is worth their weight in gold. At that last place I worked we had a guy who wanted to transition from tech writing into UNIX systems administration. He did get to learn the systems end of things, but he got dumped on a fair bit because he was so good at describing things. Before he started, our docs were pretty bad. After? Oh heck yeah! No math background. He was a writer. And we loved having him on the team.

Yeah, sadly working in a team is often desired, even though it slows things down a LOT, etc... I am actually writing a book on that garbage. And YEAH, programmers are not known for being the best writers. I can write well and am often asked to SUMMARIZE my information. But yeah, most "tech specs" and "functional specs" are far from good.

BTW functional specs are written by "subject matter experts", and may express what they want/need well, and MIGHT express what resources are avalable, but little else. Tech Specs try to illustrate the details on how the functional details should be done.

BTW the more you know, the better your chances. Frankly, one customer put me in a room with virtually junk. I put it together, hooked it up to the network, and added bill processing on my program and printed out their bills. it was probably beter than leaving the room, and asking them to set things up first.

Just yesterday, I mused with a guy of how 20 years ago NOBODY would have imagined that you could have a nice career based ONLY on scheduling. That is what HE does. He agreed! What a programmer USED to do is now split into DOZENS of tasks! if you can do it all, even just decently, you can do well.