Hybrid technician/trying to do too much?

Ok, this is a problem I know a lot of us have, myself included. I love this industry so much, that it's easy to fall into the trap of "trying to do everything", from infra to networking, to programming. That said, is anyone out there truly all over the place with certs and experience, and how would you say it's affected your career as opposed to if you'd specialized in one core area?

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jryantech

If I actually complete my planned track (I'm HUGE on organization)

I will have a good amount of certs from programming, operating systems, networking and databases by the time I'm 25(5 years from now)...

Also my A.A., A.S. and Bachelors degrees.

I'm interested in all of them but I can tell by my study habits lately that when my computer or IPhone beeps to study for programming I jump right to it.... Maybe that will change as I get more in depth with programming and more in depth with say networking.

I just want to keep my field as open as possible so I'm not stuck with something or studying to go to something else later on in life.

I obviously do not have a career yet so I can not tell you how its affecting me that way, but I can tell you it takes a lot of free time

Oh and did I mention I plan to be in $30,000-40,000 in student debt by the time I'm completely done with all this.

blargoe

Being that diverse I think is great starting out. A couple years of experience and being "a mile wide and an inch deep" got me a lot of interviews for what ended up being my first Jr. Admin position. Eventually, you'll have to leave behind some of the other stuff and become deeper in fewer areas.

oo_snoopy

Being diverse will better assist you in getting more jobs in more areas with average pay.

Being more specialized will better assist you in getting one of fewer jobs in less areas with greater pay.

Would you mind moving to get the job you want with higher pay?

vsmith3rd

Beyond my pursuit of Microsoft, *nix, Cisco and general security and virtualization, I really haven't given much thought to my career path in IT. I hope I'm not falling into that tap.