What Careers Can Information Technology Degrees Lead You To

IT has quickly become the power that makes the world go round. Today, you cannot expect a business that does not have IT involvement in at least one of its processes and functions. Unfortunately, the inflow of technical skill in the market is much smaller than the demand. More and more companies are looking for IT professionals today, but there are not just enough to meet this increasing demand. It only makes sense for more students to take interest in this field and obtain their information technology degrees to fill up the gaps. Not to mention, high demand means a high salary for these individuals too.

However, one of the things you want to know is where your information technology degrees can lead you. Is there one particular career path that you have to follow? Or do you have other options as well? In short, you have many options ahead of you when you obtain an IT degree. Here are only some of the paths you can choose as an IT professional.

Career Paths Available for IT Degree Holders

Programming

Programming is one of the first things that come to mind when you think about IT. After completing their graduation and obtaining information technology degrees, many individuals move on to receive further certifications and learn many programming languages. Programming is about creating softwares out of nothing. You just know what the purpose of the program will be and what platform it will become a part of as a programmer. You then have to visualize everything and using your logical and mathematics skills, you have to come up with a program that makes the softwares work. Programmers can have some handsome yearly salary packages.

Professionals in this category are considered technical. They can always expand their knowledge of programming languages with on-going education and various certifications that are also available online.

Data Analytics and Data Science

This is a completely different field from programmers and software developers. There are no particular information technology degrees that are specifically designed to prepare data scientists and analysts but it is best that you at least complete your graduation with an IT degree. That will create the foundation on which you can build your career. Data analysts and scientists, as their names suggest, work with data in many different ways to help businesses find valuable information from it. They use various tools and techniques to help companies use data to their advantage.

In most cases, data mining and analytics can help companies understand their customers better, pinpoint flaws in the company’s current strategies, and create new marketing strategies for old and new customers.

Web Development and Designing

These individuals are highly in demand these days. Again, no particular information technology degrees can make you a web developer or designer. It is best that you consistently remain in computer science and information technology fields throughout your studies to become a successful web developer. You must know that just like a programmer, a web developer has to learn a lot of technical languages as well in order to design the websites. There are many languages that developers can use to create website and various website elements. More than the visuals, they are responsible for how a visitor feels when he/she navigates the website.

Networking

This is quite an underrated field that you won’t see a lot of people selecting. Computer science and information technology degrees set the foundation of this career path. However, you will have to obtain a lot of certifications to become a valuable networking professional. Some of the most important certifications in this field come from Cisco, the company that designs and develops the hardware and software technologies for enterprise level communication. As a networking professional, you are responsible for keeping up the network hat lifts the IT system on its shoulders.

You will be playing around with a lot of cables, switches, connectors, etc. It might even require some traveling when you have to go to different companies to fix their networks. When working for just one company, you have to ensure that its network is at its optimum performance to support fluid communication across internal departments and externally.

IT Consulting

You can’t define this job based on information technology degrees. Right from the name of this role you can tell that it is not clear what an IT consultant does. These are valuable individuals and they are the need of not just large enterprises but small businesses as well. They are considered knowledgeable and experienced individuals who understand how to help companies with their IT needs. Yes, you don’t have to have any specified IT needs to contact an IT consultant. These individuals can just about do anything that can help your company benefit from the latest information technologies.

For example, a small business might hire an IT consultant to know what its cheapest options are to automate various processes, secure the IT network, and digitalize various business processes. You don’t find any particular information technology degrees that can point you specifically in the direction of being an IT consultant. A lot of the work you do in this role is based on your personal experience as well. You can safely say that the success or failure of a business does rest on the shoulders of an IT consultant to some degree.

Final Thoughts

When you look for information technology degrees, you will notice that there is no particular degree to prepare you for a specific job in this field. You can complete your graduation in IT and computer technology subjects but to pick a particular direction, you have to complete certain certifications. The best thing about IT industry is that almost all the certifications are available online. Even with the information technology degrees, most universities now have their separate online campuses as well. They offer all the education and training material through an online portal. In addition to that, you can be a part of the live lectures while sitting at home too. With things so much easier than before, there is no reason why you should not be an IT professional.