Could you elaborate on IT audit?

 

prolly better for you to read this than listen to me:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IT_Audit

to sum up very briefly, IT auditors go into the IT dept of a company and examine various areas (database, applications, security) to determine their risk levels for... whatever. failure... loss of data... compromised security... that kind of thing. i'm by no means an expert, it was still a fairly new field when i graduated in 05...

 

^^ i.e. consulting.

Systems Analyst/Business Analyst/MIS is a decent career choice if you like systems. Systems are "machines" with many intermingled processes all working together to form a whole functioning unit. If you are fascinated by how things work then it could be a fascinating and rewarding career. Systems analysis is pretty much a software science for most things.

As a systems analyst you will spend the majority of your time writing and working on specifications, documenting processes, meeting with "actors" and presenting your work to "stakeholders" so mainly staring at a computer screen or in meetings all day.

Consulting can offer a wide range of job opportunities in a great number of projects which is good if you get bored quickly and like to work on something for a while and then move on but you will need to do a great deal of travelling potentially working in another city for weeks or months at a time.

Going in-house will offer a greater sense of work ownership and a more stable, traditional personal and work life but your work experience will be less varied. You will get to know your co-workers more since they won't be changing all the time and you won't be away from home as much if you like to stay grounded.

Those are choices you can make later and you aren't committed to just one. You can choose to consult early to get the variety and experience and then choose to settle down later when you have more personal commitments, potentially with one of your consulting clients.

 

I work IT(Help Desk) in the Air Force supporting around 20,000 users. Fortunately we don't deal with the customers directly, if we did, I would flip out and shoot someone. Occasionally we will get the user calling in directly to us, completely bypassing the Client Support Administrators. Those users are usually complete morons. It's not that bad when you have a liason between you and the morons, though if I had to deal with hundreds of these morons calling in asking stupid questions when all they have to do is plug in their monitor, I would shoot someone.

I would suggest getting a few certifications on top of the degree, if you do decide to go into this field of work. Some Certs I would recommend are Net+, Security+, A+, MCSA, and Server+(Or any CompTia Cert for that matter). I've known a few guys who got all got 80K+ jobs with JUST these certs and military exp. I'm working on my Net+ right now, then I'm going to start on Security+, both being required by all military members in this field.

And just to let you know, there is no way possible that any one person can know everything there is to know about the System Administrator, System Auditor, or really any IT field. So if you want to get into a field where things are constantly changing, and you are ALWAYS learning something knew, I HIGHLY recommend trying it out.

 

As a capacity/performance (mid-tier) analyst for a relatively large railroad I can say that it offers good job stability (if that can be said these days) and the pay is good. Most analysts I know make $65-75 per hour and work pretty much 'banker hours' and will additionally work sometimes after hours on an 'on call' basis. If this is something you're seriously considering I would suggest checking into ITIL certification and possibly specializing in something like the BMC or Quest products as they are used by most larger corporations and jobs are relatively easy to find even in this market. Good luck in your decision.

 

I graduated with a BS in IS (information systems) degree and have gone from working in the fashion industry (working with logistics and maintaining ERP) to software companies (consulting type of work to implement CRM and SCM [supply chain management] products) to now the ailing financial (back office and subscription based applications) industry. I started out in IT but now my position is considered to be on the business side.

Majoring in IS/CIS/MIS or whatever the school wants to call it, you get an understanding of basic programming/application development and business sense. You won't wind up in help-desk or program all day. You get to drive to which ever direction you wish. Think of it as "jack of all trades". I think that in itself is a good way to market oneself.

I would pick it up as a minor, if I were you.

 

thanks guys, i am going for it.