Planning a career for an IT Specialists
 

Well, stepped into High school, and taking summer school to get some courses outa my way for a foreign language. We planned out what courses we need to take in order to follow the path to what we want to be, I guess you could say. I took that test that output options of jobs I could be, I am a business man....lol. But anyway I looked into a Network specialists (network administrator, IT guy...) Learned quite a bit out of that occupation. Seems like a pretty interesting job, considering how I love working with Networking and stuff in my house, toying around in Linux and Windows OS's, and installing hardware and messing around with my beloved machine. Found that when this job is in demand, the average pay can be to $4000-$6,500 a month, with exception of a few pro careers flying around from $10,000- $17,000 a month.

My question is this:
Any IT people that do this for a career can give me a few hints, pointers (classes to take to help me out) and such?

Anyone know if Network administrators and IT jobs in general are in demand (or specifically, in California)

If anyone could lay me down some more info, it would help me out a lot. I do Have a basic understanding of Unix's OS's, I run Linux at home on all kinds of different distro's and gui's (hacked my playstation to run an old Fedora core with KDE 1.x :D) I'm really comfortable in windows, can edit stuff from registry's, toy around in it and such.

Would having an understanding of these open source operating systems maybe help me when applying for a career in this catagory?

Thanks for taking the time of reading this, and helping me if possible :D

all I can say is learn as much as you can. IT is kinda like darts right now..lotta misses with the job market, lot of people getting laid off, jobs being outsourced and the jobs that are available everyone and their mother is applying for, and those already in I.T are sitting still whereas before they had options to talk to other companies. But I believe if you love something and you devote alot of passion towards it then there will be work to be done. Go to college AND get certified too. Double whammy. Most people frown on certs. But certs and a degree and experience can do wonders for your resume. I have a friend in Vegas who is getting things done and always in demand. He started in I.T 5 years ago. Now he's starting business' and constantly on trips talking to companies.

IT is a hard industry to work in these days... expierence is often required now for anything.. Degree's for entry level stuff,

I could not imagine just getting a 4 year degree or a masters degree to turn around and make 10 bucks to work on a help desk that requires a degree. I have 5 years experience no degree and I currently am making more (it is contract work... it could end tomorrow) than triple what someone with a degree will start out at. But I can not get a full-time job anywhere without a degree.

All I am saying is be prepared for setbacks in the IT industry if you do not have a degree, and if you get a degree.. make sure you gain some expeirence while earning that degree.

BTW, I just started working on a BSIT, It may take me 3-4 years to complete but it will be more than worth the hassle.

Good luck,

Oh deffinetly, Master's degree all the way in this field. I do pretty well in school too, above a 4.0 Grade Point Average. But yea, I'm still only a freshmen, hopefully I'll keep up my ways.