a few questions

i have a few questions and instead of posting 4 different posts in their respective threads, i just figured i would put them in here together in hopes that someone can help me out

i am an MIS major and I have about a year and a half left

1. are ALL MIS jobs dealing with programming? i always thought that MIS was geared more towards the business side of things and that CS was more on the programming side of things --- i know that some MIS jobs are programming jobs, but do you have to be a good programmer in order to land a good MIS job i guess is what i am really trying to ask. I like the idea of MIS, but I am not TOO fond of programming is the reason I ask - I do fairly well in my classes, but it is not something I would want to do

2. again dealing with MIS, at the moment, i do not have the first certification and i am ready to get started on that aspect of it - but i do not know where to start. i am uncertain as to what my job will be after college but i was wondering if anyone could give me some sort of direction on which way to go, maybe an order of which ones to take when and that sort of thing, if possible

3. what are some of the job offers i may expect after graduating from college? is there one particular area that is a "hot spot" for MIS graduates? I am in the Southeast so Tennessee, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas.... are my surrounding areas if that helps any

4. is it a good idea to go straight to graduate school or is a bachelor's degree (i will have a bachelors of Bus Admin in MIS) and certs enough? i have some years of experience doing things from repairing peoples computers and setting up simple LAN's (about 6 years total but it was from 00-06) i have been told to go on if i wanted to and then i have been told to work before going -- most of the universities around here would pretty much only offer a MBA if i went to grad school, but there is one university here that offers a masters in Business Information Systems --- and I believe Florida State has a masters specifically for MIS/BIS as well

what i am ultimately trying to do here is get some sort of an idea of my life after college --- i want to know what job options are actually available, not just the generic "career options with this degree" sheet i can get from the counselors office. any help is truly appreciated and if more information is needed, just let me know

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Comments

shednik

Hello and welcome to the forum! here's my take...

cmb wrote:

i am an MIS major and I have about a year and a half left

1. are ALL MIS jobs dealing with programming? i always thought that MIS was geared more towards the business side of things and that CS was more on the programming side of things --- i know that some MIS jobs are programming jobs, but do you have to be a good programmer in order to land a good MIS job i guess is what i am really trying to ask. I like the idea of MIS, but I am not TOO fond of programming is the reason I ask - I do fairly well in my classes, but it is not something I would want to do

I'm pursuing a BS in MIS/ISM as well should be complete in December, the way i see it is this, depending on what your school offers you can make it what you want....I was able to choose most of my classes...which i chose networking, linux, security, etc... I also had to take some programming took VB.net 1 & 2, Java, M(mumps), HTML, & ASP.net...to answer your question no you can pursue what you would like to do...a lot of people don't have a degree in IT but they work in it. Study what you would like on the side, my best recommendation is find an Internship...not sure if your school is partnered with Monstertrak.com but they always have postings from companies i had a chance to work for Carnegie Mellon University at one point from that site.

cmb wrote:

2. again dealing with MIS, at the moment, i do not have the first certification and i am ready to get started on that aspect of it - but i do not know where to start. i am uncertain as to what my job will be after college but i was wondering if anyone could give me some sort of direction on which way to go, maybe an order of which ones to take when and that sort of thing, if possible

Well depending on what you want to do I would start with something like A+ & Network+ they are certs that can give you a good foundation then you can decide from there whether to go Networking, Systems, or Security

cmb wrote:

3. what are some of the job offers i may expect after graduating from college? is there one particular area that is a "hot spot" for MIS graduates? I am in the Southeast so Tennessee, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas.... are my surrounding areas if that helps any

This all depends on your area...I'm not from there so I couldn't tell you for sure...but MIS is a solid degree with a few certs you can build your career.

cmb wrote:

4. is it a good idea to go straight to graduate school or is a bachelor's degree (i will have a bachelors of Bus Admin in MIS) and certs enough? i have some years of experience doing things from repairing peoples computers and setting up simple LAN's (about 6 years total but it was from 00-06) i have been told to go on if i wanted to and then i have been told to work before going -- most of the universities around here would pretty much only offer a MBA if i went to grad school, but there is one university here that offers a masters in Business Information Systems --- and I believe Florida State has a masters specifically for MIS/BIS as well

what i am ultimately trying to do here is get some sort of an idea of my life after college --- i want to know what job options are actually available, not just the generic "career options with this degree" sheet i can get from the counselors office. any help is truly appreciated and if more information is needed, just let me know

This is all up to you, my belief is it's better to have some experience before you go back for the masters. Although some schools have an integrated 5 year program where you can earn both in that time. That experience is good to have, but the way it sounds it wasn't working for a company...so i still would recommend tryign to find an internship, Hell I got 9 credits for a full time internship...hope this helped

cmb

at my univeristy, i cannot choose my classes - i can only choose some electives, which are resticted whch means they give me 9 classes and i choose at least 3 --- but some deal with networking and such

yes, my univeristy is partnered with monstertrak so i can look into that - thanks

the experience - after going back and reading it, it does sound like i just did it on my own and not with a company, that wasnt the case though, i worked for a company for 5 years pretty much just repairing customers basic computer problems and we had contracts with several businesses and we maintained their computers as well as setup basic local LAN's for them -- that other year i was a tech at Circuit City - and hated it, but it was another year of experience so.......

thanks for your response and advice