I majored in the wrong thing, I want to work with computers...now what?

Question

Hi everyone. Well, to make a long story short, I am majoring in business when my true passion lies with computers and everything about them. It is much too late to switch as I am halfway through my junior year- it'd be much more efficient just to finish up. I have a diploma in computer science and several years of experience as a technician. My dream is to become a system administrator for a company or school. If I were to get my A+ certifications plus this useless, unrelated Bachelor's degree and my experience- do you think I could ever land that dream job without a degree in computer science or something? Thanks!

Answer 1

I agree with the first poster, your business degree is not useless. Maybe shoot for a master's degree in a computer related field or an MBA with a CS specification.

Answer 2

The best thing is to finish the business degree that take a graduate degree in something like Technology Management at a school like Marshall. They you will end up as the head of an IT department. You will be managing a bunch of computer people and actually have far more potential for doing well than the people with just a bachelor's in computer science. You will be the system administrator's boss.

Answer 3

The thing about system administration is that usually you need a BS in CS or equivalent experience to land those jobs, but the CS curriculum doesn't really teach everything you need to do system administration. A CS curriculum will teach you data structures, algorithms, OS fundamentals, architecture and computation theory. This may be needed if you start writing scripts in Perl that get advanced, but otherwise it's a lot of info that's nice to have but you probably won't use. You'll need to teach yourself a lot about system administration by reading books and tinkering with your computers at home.



My advice is to finish your degree and then get some certifications. An A+ certification doesn't mean much because it's not advanced enough. You want more serious certifications like MSCE, CCNP, and RHCE. Since you don't have the BS in CS or sys admin experience, you'll need other ways to show employers that you can do the job.



You may be able to land a job in sys admin work after getting your BS and an A+ cert, but unless you have a friend who can help you out with that, it won't be easy. Consider yourself very lucky if you can get a jr sys admin position by sending your resume through the front door with your background.

Answer 4

A degree in Business is not "useless". Rather, it will nicely complement a career as a System Administrator. I am not familiar with all the paths that would lead to Systems, but I'm sure there are many ways to go about it.



Maybe you could find someone in the job you want and ask for some more input.