Should I move from a coporate enviroment to a school enviroment

thomas130

Hi guys at the moment I work on the helpdesk for a water company we have around 6 different domains and support around 1500 users on many different sites. At the moment I am studying for my degree with a diploma, ccna and mcse which I will complete within the next 2 years. I have gained my HNC earlier this year.

My job duties at the moment involve first line support where I do the following things, fault finding and resolving issues, user creation, security access on groups and creating them, Mail setup on exchange and pop3 and allow this to sync to their phones plus other thing like printers etc. My main big job role at the moment is building machines where I have basically created myself ghost images so I can save a load of time deploying machines usually I just deploy the machines to the directors and the less important ones I get other people to do.

My main problem is that I know within this company I will never progress it's kind of the environment where the people who have been there for 10 -15 years will never leave and this means I will never moved up. So hopefully early next year when I have completed my MCSE and CCNA and with my HNC I’m thinking about trying to get a job in a school. The reason for this is because I will want to put my MCSE and CISCO Skills to good use. While the helpdesk is alright I want to do more technical things however I will never get the chance.

So from your opinion should I stay in a corporate environment or should I move to a school so I can get involve in everything to get a more rounded experience. Basically when I have completed my degree I want to have a decent job with decent pay however I know a degree and certs are not enough and you need experience with it. However would I look better to a future employer to stay in corporate environment or with more experience in more things working in a school.

the_Grinch

It really depends on the district. I worked in two different districts of two very different sizes. Generally, people don't leave school IT departments very often so the chances to move up are slim. What also comes into play with size is who does what. In one district I was one of 4 people. We had the Systems Admin/Network Admin and then the rest of us were techs. In another district each school (minus the elementary schools) had a Systems Admin and there was one Network Admin.

Now having been in government IT and corporate IT (not long on the corporate side) I liked government better. Where I am now IT is considered a burden so much so they only spend money on it when they have to and they go cheap on it. At the school districts I was at if it was needed we got it. The budget was there and while they would take some from IT, we always made do. Plus you can't beat the time off that you get. All the holidays and the one district I was at shutdown on Fridays during the summer, but still paid us for the whole week. Good luck!

Kasor

I agreed it is really depends on the district. Corporate and school IT are very different in general...

msethk

I gotta agree with the Grinch up above. Most people in an IT department with schools anyways are there to stay for a while so your chances of progressing up quickly are probably not as likely as you think. I work for a large school district and there are 5 of us. The Admin's have all been there atleast 10 years or more and the rest are considered Technicians. I love working for a school system, and you can't beat the benefits that come with it. I get lots of time off As far as looking good to an employer I wouldn't think it would matter either way, corporate or school system. As long as you have the experience and truely understand what you are working with then you are going to look attractive to them. I hold a BS degree and several certs, but in my opinion nothing compares next to having that experience. Whatever you do, just take your time working up the ladder and soak in all the knowledge you can on your way up. Good luck!

NinjaBoy

I take it that you're in the UK as you've got your HNC in Computing. I currently work in a large secondary school (I started there as a Senior IT Tech, now I'm the IT manager), which has aapprox 1400 users and after this summer 650 client machines. We also support 2 other schools half a day a week and in talks with another organisation to take over their IT Support.

While my skill set has greatly improved, it's not all "milk & honey". There are good points and bad points working in a school, however that's not much difference than in other industries (just the types of differences that are different).

Unless you get on a term time contract, normal holiday entitlement is 20 days per year, increasing to 25 after 5 years, however you may be able to negotiate after a while for more. Salary is normally approx £5k to £10k less than alot of the counterparts in other industries (well for the IT managers post it is). There are alot of other bad points, but it's not all gloom and doom.

You do get to play with nice technology and stay up to date (due to educational prices and discounts). For example we've just upgraded to Windows 2008 r2 and will be moving on to Exchange 2010 when it comes out. We've just virtualised most of our servers (all except our DC's).

...However would I look better to a future employer to stay in corporate environment or with more experience in more things working in a school?...

Back a good few years ago, I would have said you would look alot better if you stayed in the corporate/private sector. However alot (not all) schools have taken an agressive stance now taking up IT due to Digital Britain, the 2010 directives, etc... So it's on par now, however in my experience (there's a group of us IT managers that hang out every now and again) we have better equipment than alot of private businesses

-Ken