Need good advice about a BIS Degree!!!

Izzo0825

I am currently a truck driver with 12 years of experience and graduated in December 2010 with an Associate degree in Business Management. I am now considering making a change from Business Management or Administration to obtaining a Bachelors in Business Information Systems. What type of jobs could I get with a degree in BIS with no experience? How is a BIS degree looked at by employers? What would be some good certifications to obtain? I have always loved the computer field but never listened to my mother about going to school for the IT field when I graduated high school in 1992...wish I would have now. ANY and ALL information and advice would extremely be helpful for this 37 year old working student, married, and with kids making a career change. I am to start my BIS classes the 25th of this month. Thanks in advance people.

hiddenknight821

Sorry if I had to go off a little bit, but I believe the BIS (Business Information System) degree program you are referring to are widely known as Management Information System. This is the program I believe you intended to get into. You should do a little more research under this name to see if you get better results and ideas what you want to do next. With your background and experience, you can start at an intermediate level quickly before you realize it when you apply for entry-level jobs. Hopes that help.

Izzo0825

I have been on the same page as you on the BIS and MIS degrees. I have noticed that some schools are calling the program BIS and some are calling it MIS. I am wondering if these degrees are good for someone with no experience or with someone how has been working in the business field making a transition into IT? What type of entry level or intermediate level jobs and what salary ranges are obtainable with these degrees?

hiddenknight821

Izzo0825 wrote: »

What type of entry level or intermediate level jobs and what salary ranges are obtainable with these degrees?

I will let other chime in on that since my experience in IT is so limited right now, and I wish I have a lot to share with you. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with Business or Managerial aspect of IT.

krjay

Based on your name I'm guessing you're from east lansing? I'm currently residing down the street at your big brothers house in Ann Arbor, but I'll give you my advice anyway .

I just graduated a few months ago with my bachelors in MIS. I feel like the jobs I was offered I could have easily obtained without the degree. Maybe I would have never gotten called for the interviews I did without it on my resume but I'll never know. The fact is I'm still in a very early stage of my IT career and have a lot to learn. Even with my limited IT knowledge, I'd say 95% of it was learned outside the university environment. I think the most important thing I learned obtaining my degree is the ability to critically think and figure out how to solve any problem. That might not sound like it's very important, but you'd be surprised how many people when faced with something that's out of their comfort zone freeze, or quickly get overwhelmed.

Anyway, I think my MIS degree may have helped me get in the door, and might help me to a management position a little bit faster than I would get there without one. But the practical hands on IT experience was just not there during my pursuit of the MIS degree

Izzo0825

I am actually from Louisville, Ky bad thanks for the info. If you do nit mind me asking but what job title are you holding now and did you have any experience in IT before you went to school or did you get outside of school when you were enrolled? Basically I am asking were you in IT before your degree? If not how long did it take you to find employment after you graduated?

UniqueAgEnT

I also graduated in December with Bachelors in MIS. I had 2 paid internships during school summers/during school. I agree that there isn't a ton of hands on experience in most MIS programs. However, I did have to take a lot of business classes (econ/finance/mgmt/bus. writing) in addition to the technical courses, which can be useful in certain scenarios. I think that the undergraduate degree is important, but experience is also going to be a deciding factor in finding a job.

Some of my friends were not able to find jobs for many months after graduation, and some still haven't. I think it just depends on your skillset, experience, and school combination. Having a higher GPA, work related experience, and certifications should allow you to have multiple job offers. I had about 7 job offers prior to graduation with at least half of them being helpdesk/it support roles, but I chose the other path and went into database administration.

Izzo0825

Well with me having no experience in IT it is not sounding to good for me. And I have heard that helpdesk only pays about $30,000 a year so that means that I will have to take a big pay cut. I am so confused now considering that I want to get out of trucking and that I have changed my major from Business Management to BIS after getting my Associate in Business Management.

madhattr23

Just wanted to add Software QA/Testing as another possibility after you finish your degree. I finished my MIS degree about 5 years ago was checking out desktop support jobs and just happened across a software testing job. Went to the interview and 5 years later I'm the Software Test Manager at my current company.

I think it's a nice fit for people with an MIS degree since you have to be technical and take the customer's needs into consideration when evaluating a product. There is also a lot of growth potential since most people use it as a stepping stone to move onto development or other IT work. So, if you stick around and continue to develop your technical skills you can move up rather quickly.

UniqueAgEnT

madhattr23 wrote: »

Just wanted to add Software QA/Testing as another possibility after you finish your degree. I finished my MIS degree about 5 years ago was checking out desktop support jobs and just happened across a software testing job. Went to the interview and 5 years later I'm the Software Test Manager at my current company.

I think it's a nice fit for people with an MIS degree since you have to be technical and take the customer's needs into consideration when evaluating a product. There is also a lot of growth potential since most people use it as a stepping stone to move onto development or other IT work. So, if you stick around and continue to develop your technical skills you can move up rather quickly.

Software/QA can be a solid role too. Most people have a hard time getting that right out of college.

What did it pay then, and what do you make now if you don't mind sharing. Also, what location?

Thanks!

Izzo0825

Did you have any experience in IT or management at all before you obtained your degree in MIS? I'm also curious as to what Software QA pays and what the management side of it pays.

krjay

Izzo0825 wrote: »

I am actually from Louisville, Ky bad thanks for the info. If you do nit mind me asking but what job title are you holding now and did you have any experience in IT before you went to school or did you get outside of school when you were enrolled? Basically I am asking were you in IT before your degree? If not how long did it take you to find employment after you graduated?

My title now is System Admin. When I was a junior at the university I had no IT experience at all and decided I needed to get some. I actually called a lot of small businesses in the area, all of which had a small IT department. Some of them actually just one 'IT guy'. I offered to intern for free basically in exchange for experience and quite a few businesses were willing to take me on. It kind of made sense. Understaffed IT departments willing to pawn off some work to anyone really. Luckily the business has really taken off since I came aboard. not a day goes by I don't learn something new which is great. At this point in time I really like that I get to do a little bit of everything IT related, where in bigger corporations there's more specialized people in each role it seems.

Izzo0825

Well me doing a internship may be out of the question considering I am married with kids and work about 70 hours a week while going to school. This is frustrating!!!!

Nafeesa

madhattr23 wrote: »

Just wanted to add Software QA/Testing as another possibility after you finish your degree. I finished my MIS degree about 5 years ago was checking out desktop support jobs and just happened across a software testing job. Went to the interview and 5 years later I'm the Software Test Manager at my current company.

I think it's a nice fit for people with an MIS degree since you have to be technical and take the customer's needs into consideration when evaluating a product. There is also a lot of growth potential since most people use it as a stepping stone to move onto development or other IT work. So, if you stick around and continue to develop your technical skills you can move up rather quickly.

Hi, I have applied to do a Bsc Business information systems degree, and i was wondering if anyone here can help me find out if it is a good degree, what kind of jobs it leads to ? is it good for someone who is not good at programming, because i was confused between computer science and BIS so i went for the BIS but still having doubts, and i have no one to talk to who can help me .... is there a lot of job opportunities in BIS ?

krjay

Izzo0825 wrote: »

Well me doing a internship may be out of the question considering I am married with kids and work about 70 hours a week while going to school. This is frustrating!!!!

I'm pretty sure everyone in IT put in their time in a low paying, unappreciated position to gain experience and move up (I am right now). No company is going to hand over the keys to their entire system to someone with no experience. I imagine making a late career change is tough. Hell I just graduated and I'd find it tough to change careers right now if I wanted to for some reason.. If you think obtaining a degree in BIS will automatically land you a 100k+/year job you're mistaken.

madhattr23

Izzo0825 wrote: »

Did you have any experience in IT or management at all before you obtained your degree in MIS? I'm also curious as to what Software QA pays and what the management side of it pays.

I will admit I've been fortunate with how things have turned out so far in my career. I dropped out of college for awhile and joined the Air Force Reserve as a mechanic and then went back to school. I'm mention the military experience because I think it did give me an advantage. Otherwise the only IT work experience I had was from a part time job I had on campus.

I started out at 30k for a pretty big software consulting firm. Then moved on to a smaller company that employed less than 200 people for three years where I was around 50k. Left and returned a year later when a management position opened. Now I'm in the mid 70's in Mississippi. I have a friend in the same field that had about a year of management experience and landed the same role at another company in the 80-90k range.

Izzo0825

Wow your doing pretty good for yourself then. I don't expect to make what your making right after obtaining my degree. I just do not want to go from the 40's to making 30,000 a year and I am 37 now and would have my Bachelors in BIS by 39. Not bad 5 years in and making mid $70's. How much experience before you got your first job?

madhattr23

Izzo0825 wrote: »

Wow your doing pretty good for yourself then. I don't expect to make what your making right after obtaining my degree. I just do not want to go from the 40's to making 30,000 a year and I am 37 now and would have my Bachelors in BIS by 39. Not bad 5 years in and making mid $70's. How much experience before you got your first job?

Besides my military experience in the reserves, which didn't directly apply, I had only worked part time jobs up to getting my first testing job. The only thing close to an IT job I had was working part time for the schools multimedia equipment department for 3 years. That consisted of setting up classroom smart podiums and keeping the little bit of computer equipment we had updated.

After getting my first testing job everything else was supply and demand. I figured out pretty quickly most testers were good at manual testing but very few were familiar with automation. I spent a lot of time learning that and it has really paid off. If anyone is interested check out Selenium IDE and Selenium Server.

If you have the time to study for get some certs between semesters I would get a few to compliment what you've been studying or what you are interested in. I think with your previous work experience, degree and a few certs you will definitely distinguish yourself from other graduates. Once you get the job and figure out what everyone hates or has trouble understanding you can capitalize on that to secure a better position.