Career paths in IT, not sure

[iConqueror]

I am starting my third year of the bachelors degree next month and I am still not sure exactly what path to take when I finish mid next year. Is this normal? or should I know by now what I want to do? I am very interested in programming but im not too sure if I am a fast enough learner for a programming career to be successful.

Any suggestions?

Cheers

[ChrisHunter]

Take it from one of the slowest learners in history, you CAN make a career out of it. You just have to want it enough and don't expect to be a top dev straight away. Plenty of vets in the industry will tell you they still don't know everything.

I would say start of on what ever you're best at and once you've got your foot in the door and are quite capable in that area, start learning new stuff.

As for knowing what you want to do yeah personally I'd say you should really have an idea by now but you've still got time to figure it out.

Does your course not sepecialise in a particular field? Mine had a web route, a desktop app route and a general IT, route which you could choose to follow after the first year. The first year was a taster of all 3 to help you decide.

Nothing is set in stone though. My friend and I went to collage and uni together, did the same desktop development route at uni but now he's a web dev with a bit of mobile apps and I stuck to desktop dev but I'm going to try to move into web too in the next 12 months.

Also remember Rome wasn't built in a day...

[clhamon]

I oddly enough figured out my specialty in IT fairly quickly. I took 2 Cisco classes and hated it. Then, I too 2 more Cisco classes and loved it.

I'm not a fast learner at all, and I know I'm not the youngest networker out there, but I have fun doing it. It helps to like your speciality and want to keep learning more about it after college.

I'd say go with programming since you have the interest. You don't have to be at the top of your field. That's what I tried to do at first, and I just kept getting frustrated.