System Administrators - College or Career?

Chicks_Hate_Me asks: "I'm a Senior in High School right now and I'm graduating soon (hopefully!) and I was wondering what the hell I should do? My teachers are all telling me I should go to college, but they don't know much about computers so they automatically assume that I wan't to be a programmer or an engineer. I want to be neither, in fact, I want to become a System Administrator. Is college really the best option? Or should I concentrate on getting certification, experience, and taking a few junior college classes on the side? I've already gotten a few job consultancy offers in the area. What has the experience been for any of you out in the tech industry? For you that went to college, did it truly help? And for you that didn't go to college, has it been harder for you to find a job? Also, if you believe that I should go to college, what should I major in? But if you think I shouldn't, what certifications would hold valuable in the future, and what kind of job positions should I take now?" The never ending question. College is a valuable experience for most, but it's also expensive and time consuming. Might that time be better spent in the job market now rather than later (current conditions notwithstanding)?

Comments

Re:Go to college

[56ker]

I agree - especially with the current problem of lots of people going for the same tech jobs a degree is almost essential. That is unless you can use nepitism or some other underhand way to get a foothold in a company. As to tech support it's generally low-paid and only used as a springboard to better IT jobs. After a while you get tired of being asked by people to help change their passwords!

College is indispensable - look at Spielburg

[AnhZone]

Even if you do you want to stay in system administration for the rest of your life, a college degree is important or required for advancing your position. They may not make you a supervisor or head of the computing center without a degree despite your qualifications. Every year going back gets harder.

Having a college degree is important enough that even Steven Spielburg has put in nights and weekends just to complete his degree this spring, 33 years after dropping out.

AnhZone

Re:The voice of experience....

[King_TJ]

Great message.... and I, for one, appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences.

I'm probably in a similar situation myself in many ways. I went to a local community college for a few years (part-time, working towards an Associates degress) before getting completely burnt out on it and dropping out of the program.

I've been working in the computer industry ever since, starting out with PC technician and sales type jobs and working my way up to a decent job in I.T./systems administration today.

To this day, I still believe in many ways, college is a big ripoff. You pay out huge sums of money to get a random mix of good, bad and useless teaching, and when it's all said and done, the need to pay back that student loan is guaranteed but a good paying job isn't.

On the other hand, reality and perception are two completely different things, and as long as the "work world" believes in the perception that a college degree means a better employee - you're at a disadvantage without one.

I've always been stubborn, so I insist on plowing ahead without going back to school. (I'm still doing plenty of learning, but on my own as opposed to in a classroom.) Nonethless, do I recommend this to anyone else? No, not really - unless you're just as stubborn about school as I am. I spent a long time struggling to get by and trying like crazy to get a good career job. I was turned down by quite a few places I'd really like to have worked at - and I'm sure the lack of the degree was the primary reason. (I definitely had the skills they required, and could do the job well for them.)

This is the SAME situation I faced.

[phoenix_orb]

And here is what I did.

I joined the military for the smallest amount of time that I could (2 years 19 Weeks), although that may not be in your options. Because of that, (I did non-computer related things in the military) I gained people skills, leadership, and all of the other things the military teaches you. I also got a six pack stomach, and a nice chest, and ladies dig that. I work now as a sysadmin, and go to school part time. Make good money (35k), get paid even more to go to school through the GI Bill (around 3k per semester) And I am only 22!

If you live in Illinois, Florida, or Texas, I believe, You get to go to a public school free, but you still reap the GI Bill Benifits.

I did simple math before I joined. 2 years making dirt pay,but when you add in what you will recieve from schooling, it makes good sense

My easy Math

where I could find the time to hone my system skills on my own (I did combat related jobs in the Army) and I did some side consulting work while I was in. You can even take CLEP tests for Free as well as other major tests (retake the ACT, SAT, ASE)

Re:Learn how to Learn Your Trade in College

[duffbeer703]

Very few things in computer science have changed in the last couple of decades.

I can talk to candidates about their Discrete Structures or Systems Programming classes and relate pretty well.

System Admin != Computer Science or EE

go to college, a good one

[Permission Denied]

assume that I wan't to be a programmer or an engineer.

Good writing is critical. Go to college, and not a technical two-year college, but a traditional four-year university program. Don't be afraid to go to a college that has a "common core" requirement, or something similar. Reading Plato and Weber will not help you be a better systems administrator, but writing about Plato and Weber and having access to a real professor who can actually give you helpful information about how to improve your writing is an invaluable experience.

When employers talk about "interpersonal skills" or a "people person," they mean exactly two things:

1. You can communicate clearly and efficiently.
2. You're not an arrogant asshole.

If you have a full command of the English language, PHBs eat that up. I've found that there are three things that management can't get enough of:

1. Transaction-based systems. When you write your department's payroll/vacation time database, don't just keep track of the final sums - instead, make each paycheck a transaction; perhaps keep a running sum of the totals for efficiency.
2. Logging for accountability. Have your print server keep track of how many pages were sent to each printer by IP address. Then, when your printing budget runs out halfway through the year, you can say "Over 40% of pages printed came from HR!"
3. Keep them informed. Log every minute change you make, and talk to your boss even if he isn't tech-saavy. Your boss might not know how to use SQL, so figure out interesting statistics that you can glean from your database and put it together in a quarterly report. Your boss might not know perl, so throw together scripts to parse your web server logs and put that into a quarterly report; and, don't be insulted when your boss wants to buy a $40 program that parses your logs and puts together reports, which your boss likes better than analog or the other free log analyzers. This is not a sign that your management doesn't believe you possess the skills necessary to throw together a perl script; this is a sign that your management understands you have better things to do with your time, and $40 is a pittance compared to the time it will save.

Point (3) is where the writing comes in. It is absolutely critical, and a simple spellcheck/grammar check/automated thesaurus will not improve your communication.

In addition to communication skills, you'll need the right attitude to be a successful sysadmin. Basically, the way to achieve this attitude is to remember that you're not the reason the company is there: your role is a facilitator. You don't drive the business - you ensure the business runs smoothly. If your boss asks you to do some routine technical support, don't respond that that sort of thing is "below" you. If the CEO's secretary doesn't understand some setting in her email program, explain it to her, briefly and sans holier-than-thou attitude.

However, if you have ideas on how to improve efficiency, share them immediately. In fact, I would recommend that you occasionally visit other parts of your company to see if they need any help. I've noted this strange phenomenon: some departments may not have a real technical person working for them. They'll have the general technical support staff which is limited to ensuring PCs run smoothly. This department will then continue receiving new tasks to do routinely, and, since they don't have a technical person with them, won't figure out that certain jobs can be automated. I'm talking about things like printing out reports from the unix server to type the data into excel; cutting and pasting data from excel into an editor to reformat it for some database app; scanning through hundreds of text documents by eye, in combination with word's search features because they don't know how to use grep from the command line. Every large company has lots of trivial things like this that can be automated, and you should search for them, because non-technical people won't realize these tasks can be automated.

Re:Go to college

[4444444]

College is a time in my life I will never forget, it was so much fun.

That's exactly my point for a lot off people college is just a big party. After you spend some time in the work force you know what you need to get out of college and you put more effort into your education thereby getting more out of it.