Question about job/career after college

NateC16

Hey guys sorry for the great wall of text!
Anyway, I had made a post before about certs and I really became interested and would definitely like to take some to further my “knowledge” of some things. I would love to be a systems admin, although I have little to no experience in being that. I’m finishing up my last year at college and I took a windows server class both semesters, sadly it was once a week, but I absolutely loved that class. My favorite out of web design, graphics design, programming etc…

I know this post is probably a worthless one, but this summer I was hoping to get some experience in an IT field, considering my last job was completely worthless (graphics design). I’m in an internship right now working in an IT crew in an engineering company. As I said I was hoping to get quite a bit of experience, I’ve gotten none. I literally do all the crap work. It’s basically a helpdesk thing, but they don’t even have me doing that, like I sit here most of the time doing nothing. I understand everyone is busy enough around the office but still…

I feel like I have a small base and have knowledge in this field and would love to put it to use. And as of right now my dreams of being a systems admin are slowly going down the drain. Although I’m not a huge fan of helpdesk and don’t want to specifically be sitting answering phones for the rest of my life, I can see myself doing it every once in a while. But the Servers and networks are what attract me most. But me doing basically nothing this summer really puts a damper on things and it seems like the goal I’m heading for in the end is becoming more and more un reachable..
I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or something, I mean this is basically just a rant/complain/probably a worthless post, but I just figured I’d ask.

P.S. Since it’s the summer time and I do have some free time on the weekend, is there any reading or something I could do to help get me information or get more “smarter” I guess, toward the subject that I like, such as specific books/websites? I was reading this one post, http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/62164-some-folks-need-reality-check.html, and it got me somewhat worried. Like I would love to be able to answer off the top of my head anything someone asks, but as of right now I could do super simple stuff. And the certs I want to get, hopefully won’t be a waste of money or anything. But anyway that’s a little useless bit of info.


TL;DR What’s the best way to get experience in a field you really enjoy (system admin/network admin) when you’re at an internship and not getting a thing out of it, and your knowledge of the subject, isn't that of a person who regularly works the job?

Pishof

If you have time while at the internship study for the 70-640 to get MCTS. Get the material in ebook form if you need to and study it during down time.

Setup a free vmware server at home and use microsoft dreamspark to obtain a full legal version of win2k8-R2 and use it to lab along with the study material.

The tests are discounted while you're a student and you'll learn a lot even if it's just hands-on stuff at home. Once you pass that test if you find yourself enjoying the material work toward the 70-642 and 70-646 as a goal to get the full MCITP:SA.

I think that'll provide you more worth than the paying for the comptia trifecta out of pocket if you have already studied enough in school to be past that basic foundation. I'd recommend Network+ as a good read but the test is expensive and you'll likely be better off doing CCNA if you want an entry level networking certification.

Pishof

On the job/internship side, if you can find a job in a small-med school corporation as an entry level position you'll be amazed at what you'll may have the opportunity to do.

On our state K-12 Tech list serv there are many positions being listed and those are just the ones technology directors decide to throw out. There are more being quietly placed on corporation job opening pages.

Search every school corporation job opening page within a tolerable commute distance. Emailing your resume and a short enthusiastic blub to a smaller corporations Technology($title) directly will get you a higher chance of an audience or stick your name in their mind when it comes to choosing candidates to interview.

I say smaller corporation because the less tech people they employ, the more you will have an opportunity to do. In my experience speaking to many directors, unlike private corporations budget money is typically tighter and instead of hiring outside tech contractors for everything the in-house team will be "forced" to be jack of all trades.

I do everything from pulling cable and showing an old teacher how to organize email by date to ordering and rack installing servers from scratch, then installing vmware esxi, setting up virtual machines, creating domain controllers and building print servers.

Plenty of opportunities for climbing a 12 ft ladder inside a ceiling like after running cat6 cable to install buliding-wide wireless APs and then updating the firmware and configuring every access point by hand because we can't afford a seperate wireless controller device. All in a day's work.

This summer is migrating netware to microsoft. Going from novell edirectory to MS Active Directory. From groupwise to exchange. It's a few months of hell but a ton of opportunity for learning.

The pay isn't great but it's hard to get the same exposure in a big corporation that you would in a small shop.