How to figure out what your career specialty should be

[admin]

Making the decision to pursue a computer career is a great choice. I can vouch for that personally -it's the most important career decision I have ever made. Having said that, I know from experience that it can be hard to decide which computer job to pursue! Many of you are attending or thinking of attending a tech school such as ITT Tech or ECPI, and once you get started you may be overwhelmed at the number of fields you can enter from there.

Should you specialize in Microsoft networking software, or email programs, or Novell, or Cisco, or Linux, or network security, or voice over IP, or….? The list goes on and on. I faced a similar decision when I attended a computer school. I took some programming classes, and while they helped me understand computer logic, it just wasn't what I wanted to do for a living. Then I took a networking class and I just knew that's what I wanted to do.
Here's the key - don't select a field just because it's considered "hot". There was a particular technology that was hot when I attended school, and you could make a million dollars a week, etc. I took a class in that technology and it just didn't grab me, so I moved to a networking class and the rest is history. I'm not saying every day on any job is going to be fun, but I will say that if you gotta work, you might as well enjoy it. When attending a computer school, take a wide variety of classes and find out what you really enjoy doing. Once you figure that out, let nothing stand in your way, get as much hands-on training as you can, and you're well on your way to a satisfying information technology career. Besides, when you do what you love, the money always follows.