Just wondering what type of people come here. Are there any IT professionals here?
What are the typical ages of members?
I’m 25 and a sys admin for a Windows web host. At least that’s what is on my business card. I’m sure there’s a ton of people who work in IT here.
This may be more General Discussion than Tech Talk.
I’m 30, run my own IT business with my wife. We do sales, repairs, installations, cabling, etc.
I pretty much do it all. :wgrin:
24; got my B.S. in InfoSystems and an MBA in InfoSec.
Currently working on a Ph.D. in Info & Decision Systems w/ an emphasis on Medical Info Systems. Also working on certs like CCNA, GIAC and CISSP.
As for a job, I’m currently working as a SysAnalyst for a Cal State uni and I have a consulting firm w/ a friend (mostly small business networking and security/or general business consulting, but we wont turn down repairs and geek squad stuff) on the side for extra income.
my dad is an IT. and i am studying in my free time to become one(im only 16 so i cant take college classes yet) my dad started when he was like 33 or something around there
I was 16 when I started taking college classes because of a dual credit program that our school was based on. We basically get our high school diploma and our associates. What is ironic is that you get your college diploma one week before your high school diploma.
I have a mental picture of you making the wife crawl through insulation for a cable run. Don’t ask me why. :wgrin:
My wife likes to be bound with Cat5.
Na, seriously, I’m a mainframe operator (boring job, really) about to apply for this Security Admin position that just opened up at my company! That is my dream, to be security head of some big company. I’d basically take on the corporate management ulcers for them and know how to pwn their systems from every angle possible. :tup:
good luck 
Infosec is fun stuff 
Eventually i’d like to work into IT mgmt, since IT strategy is where most of my experience and education lies, though i’ve done my share of being in the trenches
I’m currently in college going for my Bachelors in Information Systems.
You really do not need to go to a top academic school to get into IT field. If you have a strong passion of dealing with computer and its share of problems (which most people do not), then you can be successful.
IT is a really broad field: Helpdesk, Information Systems, Computer Technician, Systems Engineer, Software Deployment Engineer (me), Database Administrator, and Network Administrator.
I am turning 25 soon and been in IT for just 3 years, I have a bachelors degree in computer science, but the university has not taught me most of what I deal with everyday.
If you are in the state of California and are looking for training material, I highly recommend Saisoft. It is a state funded program and it is free (since the state wants to be competitive since people are moving out by the numbers), all you need to do is ask your employer to go through tax logistics and show you make at least 25k a year.
LOL, not really, she does office duties and I handle the ‘hands on’ type stuff.
She also has to look after our 3 month old. Doing cabling might be a bit hard with a baby under the arm :wgrin:
24 here, IT Engineer for a software developer. Didn’t finish college but gained alot of experience in the field since I was 19, so 5yrs exp.
Education isnt really required in the IT field unless you start getting into management when the business education becomes more important. there are plenty of network techs and others with just certs and MAYBE an AA degree making good money. But if you want a good shot at management, youll need/want the education.
my school offers a system like this but they dont have any IT related classes. how unlucky for me :annoy:
I’m 22 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in IT. I’ve done lots of jobs in IT field like: field tech, help desk, Deployment/Takedown and systems engineer.
Most of my jobs are projects than can last from a month to year. Doing projects rather than staying with company is good way of getting a lot of jobs and references on your resume even if they are for a week. Certs are great to have but getting experience out on the field is key.
Finished my undergrad degree in computer science around 10 years ago, been stuck writing enterprise Java apps ever since.
LOL you really know how to make your resume sound good. I’m re-creating mine right now, so I’m all too familiar with it. Man, I want this job.
26 working as a database administrator - cisco networks admin (phones/wireles etc. anything cisco wise we have here i work on it.) - server admin. i moved away from doing workstation stuff here (though i did make a disk for our imaging team that basically is a universal NIC detection system to auto ghost machines. drag and drop new drivers and VENDOR ID for new machines coming in so it’s always up to date. nothing out there fit our needs so i had to do it from scratch or our universal XP disk that works across all our dell optiplex platforms. that one was hard to do)
only cert i have is my A+ (next one is SQL since i basically taught myself this on the job). like said above, certs and degrees look nice but experience is what you want. i’ve been hired for so many projects and jobs just on my experience alone - over people who have books filled with certs but no experience.
one trick i like to use to get a job / contract is to always ask them to give me something that's been giving them a hard time for a while. you know usually it's something stupid like a registry setting or something that's keeping a program from running or something their IT people can't fix. They give me like 2 days to see what i can do. I think i've only been rejected once in all the time i've used that technique, only because the other IT people thought i was too cocky - but i've been hired for lots of jobs simply using that technique.
next contract i have coming up is for InfoSec. I really like those
/endrant
Sounds like you are making good dough for what you do.