Getting the jack-of-all-trades degree

Question

Not literally of course. I'm an upcoming senior in high school and I've spent my years since 8th grade designing & developing websites, administrating forums, setting up LAMP stacks, working on a few open source projects, and the daily debugging. I feel like I've touched on many different aspects of technological industry—inclined towards the web—but my choice of schooling is limited.

Neither of my family members have been to college in the US, so I couldn't ask them for help. I wouldn't trust school counselors with techie recommendations. From what I've found, some possible degrees would be Computer Science, IT, Database Administration, Networking, etc. Many of the subjects described, however, seem too specialized for my interest. If I were to become a "jack-of-all-trades", which degree(s) are important? (Inclined towards the web and servers administration)

Answer 1

In my opinion, degrees are getting less and less important in the computing & programming fields. With the exponential speed at which technology evolves, schools are having harder and harder times to keep up. One resource that has no trouble sticking with the times, is undoubtedly the internet. There's so much knowledge being added each day, that it's seeming like the internet is doing to schools what Wikipedia is doing to encyclopedias.

I've always been a strong advocate of "Never let school get in the way of your education", and from your experiences, it seems like you follow the same. With Open Source being as popular as it is today, many companies are disregarding resumes in favour of contributions to FOSS projects.

All that being said, I'd say stick with a technical degree. Universities will overload you with knowledge, of which most of it is outdated. Take something that will get you in and out as fast as possible, so at least you can say you have a degree, but more importantly you can have lots of time on the side to learn what YOU want. IT might be the best way to go...imho

Answer 2

"IT" is the degree denomination that best fits your expressed desire to focus on server administration (but, do check on serverfault.com: that's where the sysadms hang out!-). In many US colleges you don't have to declare your major at once, so you can try a somewhat more eclectic mix of courses to make sure that, when you do declare, you pick the right one.

As for, what courses are offered, I guess it depends on where you go study! Picking, more or less at random, Missouri Tech (a college I did not previously know about), I see they claim

courses in areas such as systems analysis, Web applications, several programming languages, and graphical user interface design

and that

Graduates of this program will qualify for employment as entry-level computer software applications engineers, computer and information systems managers, computer systems analysts, network systems professionals and computer systems software engineers.

which seems reasonable to me. The required courses are a bit too graphical for my tastes (but then, I am one cranky dinosaur preferring terminal windows and vim to fancy IDEs;-), but don't seem overly specialized:

CAD213  Graphic Design Fundamentals         3.0
CAD233  Web Design                          3.0
CAD433  Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality   3.0
CSE303  Systems Analysis I  3.0
CSE353  Systems Analysis II 3.0
CSI243  Information Security    3.0
CSI304  Database Systems    4.0
CSI403  Data Warehousing    3.0
CSP343  Design Patterns         3.0

plus your pick of 3 out of 5 courses which include

CSN253  Network Administration Security 3.0
CSP423  Advanced Visual Basic           3.0
CSP433  Advanced Visual C++         3.0
CSP443  Advanced Java   3.0
CSP473  Advanced C# 3.0

I notice and bemoan the lack of coverage of fundamental algorithms and data structures, but then, if I understand correctly, this BSIT is intended as a followup to a 2-years Associate degree course in IT which may (I hope;-) hide some such fundamentals in its course... (gaining an Associate degree midway through your Bachelor is not a bad idea -- it gives you more options, after all!-)

Answer 3

There are at least a few different ways to tackle this to my mind:

Computer Science - This is theoretical root of a lot of stuff. What is a computer, how do algorithms work, what is software, hardware, etc. are all aspects of this that if you want the theory this may be where to go to get at it. This can cover a number of different topics as my 6 3rd year CS courses were: Data Structures & Algorithms, Concurrent Programmings, Digital Design and Architecture, Operating Systems, Theoretical Computer Science and Numerical Analysis. Each had its own special part to play in the overall topic that is Computer Science.

Information Technology/Systems - This is more within certain roles though it may be useful if you want something with a bit more of a business bend or practical aspect to it. Managing projects or building systems may be things covered here that aren't necessarily part of the previous group. Can be useful if you know you want want to work in IT rather than say product development or research. This is the one I'd question the most as I'm not sure to what extent this is a classic university discipline versus a college discipline where colleges may be more job-specific in a sense,e.g. you go to college to be a Dental Assistant or Veterinarian Technician but you go to university for a couple of degrees to be a Dentist or Veterinarian.

Engineering - This is a separate category only because some places will make this a B.A. Sc. degree rather than a B.Sc. degree and it may appeal more to have that practical application rather than the theory when it comes to some of this. Electrical, software and computer engineering are all different specialities in here that may or may not appeal to you but is something to consider here as well as possibly Systems Design Engineering that could also work to some extent.

FWIW, my degree is a Double Honor's Bachelor of Mathematics with majors in Computer Science and Combinatorics & Optimization with a Pure Math Minor from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada that I completed in 1997. I have worked in IT for a decade but do have some experience working within a product development role for a company once in case you want to ask some follow-up question. Just as a final note, I've worked in Canada and the U.S. and am pretty sure some of what I do isn't likely to get offshored anytime soon. Outsourced is different and in a way I welcome that as there will be technology companies that will be hired to bring in various capabilities for other companies so that most companies hire Acme IT to bring IT services which aren't always going to be remotely available to my mind.

Answer 4

You seem to be keen on working with the hardware facet of computers. There is a wide range of computer degrees which are exhaustive, and can leave you puzzled and clueless. However, you need to evaluate these degrees on a number of factors. Depending on your interests and proficiency I would recommend computer science degree programs as a suitable fit for you. A CS degree entails varied courses pertaining to network and system administration, programming, database management and more, which is why I suggest CS would be an apt choice for you.