Ask Slashdot: CS Grads Taking IT Jobs?

An anonymous reader writes "I'm a soon-to-be Master's graduate from a public university majoring in computer science — with all that CS entails. Of course, it's come time to start job hunting, and while there are a few actual CS-type jobs around, I've noticed that a few IT jobs would be substantially more convenient for me personally. But this leads me to the question (assuming they would hire me, of course) — would having IT experience hurt my job prospects down the road? Would future employers see that and be less likely to hire me — or pigeon-hole me into IT?"

Comments

Re:CS vs IT != no sense at all

[catmistake]

You are making hardly any sense. CS is *the* degree you go for if you want to work in IT. The only "CS" jobs that exists are academic ones.

That's what some people think, but it is completely incorrect. There is NO degree for working in IT (ok, there's a few systems adminstration degrees at a few universities now... pretty cool). This attitide, I believe, is what caused the bottom to drop out of entry level IT positions about 10 years ago. In 2001, a crappy Windows administrator position could start at $65K/yr... by 2004 it was part-time $12/hr. You can't really do computer science without the foundations givin in academia. But anyone with a knack for trouble-shooting that likes working with computers can work in information technology, and with experience, get really very good at it, no degree (or social skills) necessary. A lot of what IT is is simply familiarity with the specific systems with which one is working. You don't learn that in CS, and what you learn in CS will only be useful in the abstract in such a specific environment.

There are indeed real computer science jobs out there, but they are integrated into other disciplines. Just a couple that come to mind... in the field of Bioinformatics, and in the field of Meteorology —weather modelling (and, well... any complex computer modelling, fluid dynamics, cosmology, aeronautics... even marketing analytics).

It seems that only real computer scientists know that computer science really has nothing at all to do with what we think of as modern computers. Its really mathematics. You'd be far more correct to think of computer scientists as specialized mathemeticians than as some glorified high-level computer repair techician. Actually, if you think of a computer scientist as a glorified computer repair techician, you are utterly and completely mistaken, and you are insulting both the bone fide computer scientist and the genuine computer technician. These 2 disciplines have nothing to do with each other.