Who works in IT?

byb3

Little_John wrote:

@byb3
Sorry to say but your degree means jack. sorry it doesnt but all it says is that you are prepaired to sit in lectures, make notes and learn them for 2,3 or 4 years and employees suposedly like that. It being in a very specific subject of mathematics, what sort of job were you looking to get with such a degree?

Your knowledge of PC's is great but a company I worked for a few years ago used people from the job centre to build and fix pc's they didnt have a clue but after a few weeks could build basic pc's to a neat and resonable standard that were sold by dabs.com. their wage was about £10k I am sure you wont be happy earning 10 a year for a while? I didnt think so.

Your knolwedge of VB would help slightly if you wanted to go in to programing but very few programing houses us VB but it would be a good stepping point for you if you decided to go that route.
Networking isnt just plugging pc's it to a hub or switch setting the IP addreses and giving them interent access and sharing resources. people want servers, that can do everything, security web logging the possibilities are endless and you could sit an MCSE course and learn the basics but you need to customise everything for every customer so you need the hands on experiance earning very little as a gopher for someone else. the money at the top isnt brilliant if you are an employee it is only good if your the employer or self employed which can be scary if things go wrong as the buck stops with you.

Good luck

Thanks for the honest advice. I've realised after a few years at university that degrees are not what they once were, however I have always thought that the core subjects such as Maths gave you a lot of options to fall back on if your original aspirations died. In hindsight the reason I chose Mathematics was because I was good at it, enjoyed it and it seemed the next logical step in education at the time.

I'm unsure about what steps to take next. I wouldn't want to start somewhere after university that I could simply have done after leaving school. Like you say 10k is a poor wage by any graduates standards. I think i'll be banging on the career department door in the next week to check out the options available to me.

Cheers, Adam

wolfman

No, no, no. A degree in Mathematics is a huge bonus, especially a Masters. If you do well there are plenty of placements that will be willing to take you and train you up, even if you lack certain knowledge. Your average small/medium company maybe not so much. But companies like McLaren (exactly where a friend of mine went), Microsoft, HP, Shell, IBM etc... are usually keen. You can jump straight in at 25-30k easily with many of these, although the selection process may take some time.

When I left uni, loads of people switched from what they did as a degree, to something completely different.

What a degree shows, is your ability to learn. Combine that will the social experiences you gain from uni, and the fact that you have a Masters in Mathematics and I don't think you should have too many problems.

With a degree in Mathematics, I'd consider looking at programming. Given the degree, I'm guessing you have the right mind set for it. Best thing would be to pick a language and learn it during your spare time. Make examples, build up a portfolio etc...

Stephen_Webber

I work in a small Telecoms software house doing customer support. Nearly all our software developers are qualified in Mathematics.

Cheers,
Stephen

byb3

wolfman wrote:

No, no, no. A degree in Mathematics is a huge bonus, especially a Masters. If you do well there are plenty of placements that will be willing to take you and train you up, even if you lack certain knowledge. Your average small/medium company maybe not so much. But companies like McLaren (exactly where a friend of mine went), Microsoft, HP, Shell, IBM etc... are usually keen. You can jump straight in at 25-30k easily with many of these, although the selection process may take some time.

When I left uni, loads of people switched from what they did as a degree, to something completely different.

What a degree shows, is your ability to learn. Combine that will the social experiences you gain from uni, and the fact that you have a Masters in Mathematics and I don't think you should have too many problems.

With a degree in Mathematics, I'd consider looking at programming. Given the degree, I'm guessing you have the right mind set for it. Best thing would be to pick a language and learn it during your spare time. Make examples, build up a portfolio etc...

Cheers for that mate, you've brightened my day up!

I'm actually doing a Masters in mathematics, in my 3rd year now. Currently borderering a 2:1, 2:2.

hendersonb

I work in computer support, we deal with SMBs all over the West of Scotland, dealing primerily with windows servers (Small Business Server in particular). I left college (HNC Computing) to work for a small Electronic Recycling firm at the time as their in-house tech support. However I was offered the job i'm in now because while I was at college I was sent here on work experience. He liked the fact that I was intrested in computing and would learn about it at every opportunity.

I've since done the CISCO CCNA course, still to sit the exam yet but i'll get around to it.

To be honest I'm starting to get bored with support / dealing with users (can be very stressful although it does have a few good points). I think i'll probably go down the networking route and head in the IPv6 direction.Hopefully get a couple of years of lucrative money while everyone else is trying to update their skills.

Only the other week was I thinking about my career and where I want to be in 10 years time etc. It certainly isn't in a support role and even the thought of networking / infrastucture is not over appealing. I guess with working with computers day in day out and the stress with dealing with clients and SLAs all the fun has been taken out of it. I hate getting up in the mornings for work now. I remember when I was fresh out of college I looked forward going to work for the challenges that lay ahead, it was good to learn something new.

scheming_gypsy

The best thing about users is that they'll believe anything. I sent an email out to our team managers not too long ago telling them that i'd created a vb.bat script for them that'll update their read only file by importing data from my master file by searching out updates in the master file and inputting them into their copy.
Not one person questioned it and they were all impressed..

what did i actually do? i created a batch file that copies my master file over their read only file.

nickmack

wolfman wrote:

No, no, no. A degree in Mathematics is a huge bonus, especially a Masters.

Believe it or not there are some companies who won't even entertain you without a degree. Others will only let you get to a certain grade then you either have to get a degree or you're stuck.

I worked for one early in my career and alot of people found it very 'snobbish'. People got the job purely based on a piece of paper and the best person with experience was not even allowed to apply.

One of the reasons I decided to go to Uni, oh and the drinking...

nickmack

scheming_gypsy wrote:

The best thing about users is that they'll believe anything.

Hardly suprising though, *you* are the IT expert, why shouldn't they believe you? They rely on you to advise them on IT issues. Admittedly some users can appear to be quite stupid. Although if you questioned everything you'd been told at work, you wouldn't last long in many places.

Think of something you know very little about, an known expert gives you some fairly straightforward instructions or advice. Do you question them? Unlikely.

scheming_gypsy

i'm not the IT 'expert' i'm the git who winds them up about everything. They should know i'm taking the !!!!!! out of them i've done it there for 6 years.

thewizard

I am 13, although I am in year 8 (yes I know young) I am taking my GCSE's in ICT. But I was wondering what is the best area of IT to get into (ie. most enjoyable and higher paid jobs) as I can pretty much do anything on a computer at an advanced level for my age. But some of the gibberish you are talking here is making my head spin, can someone please translate this into a more undertsnadable language. As whatever job is higher paid, enjoyable and allows you to gain alot of experience I will look into and attempt to get into that area.