Hobo

I'm just wondering - how did you start in the Networking field? Ex: Graduated from college with a Bachelors degree in something, get some certificates, go work at an entry level job for a few years, leave that job & start at your current one. I have a huge problem finding jobs that want my skills & the skills I will posses with a Bachelors degree. I'm going to check out some of that "stuff" that you suggested. That's going to be a huge help. Thanks

Wow, thanks for the detailed reply. I'm in Pensacola, Fl, and I'm surprised as well at the amount of people going into the IT-related field. A person would think as fast as technology is changing, there would be more people interested in the field. Unfortunately, it hurts me a lot. There are only 5 concentrations, and really it's 4 because only 1 class is offered for that concentration. The other 3 are: Distributed Systems Architecture, AI, and Control Systems & Programming (the 1 class concentration). We can't do that concentration - or we wouldn't be able to finish our degree (2 courses required to finish each concentration. I see you live in South Florida, do you know of any schools (in the SE states) that could expand my knowledge in Networking (after I'm done with my degree), or that offer certification classes?

I have 3 semesters plus the current semester I'm enrolled in, until I earn my Bachelors degree in CS. I'm allowed 2 concentration fields - I chose Systems Security, and Database. I really enjoy programming in C, and the only other language I have used thus far is Java - which wasn't very interesting IMO. I also did some programming with MARS(MIPS) which is Assembly Line programming - I was quite fascinated with it as well. I have recently looked into joining a CoOp (paid internship, 1 year of work is mandatory), and almost everything requires a person to know C++/C#, along with a bunch of other 'crap' (i know it's not crap, but i don't know what it is). I found a site that has some awesome tutorials for C++, and I'm going to start on them in 2 weeks (I have 4 test in the following 2 weeks, along with about 6 projects). I talked to a few others in the CS field, and most of them are wanting to go into "Networking". I have no idea what this consists of, because I won't be taking my Sys/Net I class for another 2 semesters, followed by Sys/Net II in 3 semesters. I'm just wondering: How am I going to figure out what "field" of CS I should go into? Any suggestions? What languages are "need to know" before I look for work in 1 year (if I don't sign on with a CoOp company)? Are there companies that actually use C to program with, or is it more of a "starter" language? I just don't understand where my wife(also going for CS) and I are going to be able to find jobs if we're not learning anything in job descriptions for our field. We go to the University of West Florida (if anyone is wondering). We just looked up some info, and apparently Network System and Data Communications Analyst is growing by 53%. Anybody have any knowledge of what people in that field do? I'm going to do some research right now, just wondering if anybody here has that for a job. Sorry for such a long post, I'm just a bit worried that I will have spent $40k on a degree that gets me a job making minimum wage.