CIS major specialization

[redxalien]

i've taken a interest in CIS and i want to major in it at the college i am currently enrolled at . however, they offer three areas of specialization which i am not sure which one i want to go into . they are 1. information systems(isc), 2. information technology(ite), and 3. e-commerce . i am not sure what the difference between the three are . but i wanted to know if someone could provide me with any suggestions/recommendations into which field is better to go into ?

[RickW]

Information Systems:

This is going to be about management, policies, procedures, infrastructure, and a lot of administration stuff. You'll probably cover some basic programming and database, as well as networking concepts. May touch on security concepts as well. Target job will be Project Manager, or SAN Specialist.

Information Technology:

This is going to be a lot more technical - it's going to be about setting up routers and switches, voice systems / voip, linux, some programming, running ethernet, etc. This has a lot of cross referencing with IS. Target job will be Cisco Engineer or Unix Specialist.

E-Commerce:

This is going to be a lot of programming, database, web and graphic design, marketing, and sales stuff. Target job will be Java/.Net Developer, or Data Warehousing.

Every college seems to do it a little different, and those target jobs are just minimal examples. What interests you the most about IT?

[redxalien]

the description you gave about IT seems more interesting to me the most while some of the others are a little bit . the only thing i am afraid of is that everyone keeps telling me about outsourcing . so i am a bit cautious of which specialization i want to go into . because i dont want to go into IT now and regret it later and that i shouldve went into IS or E-commerce instead . what do you think ?

[RickW]

Anything that has to be hands-on is less likely to be outsourced. It is one thing to send a programming project overseas - but you can manage an infrastructure from across the world, and you can't install wan and voice hardware from across the world. So for you IS and IT are still pretty good candidates.

Although E-Commerce could potentially land your jobs like Google, because many systems are going towards Application Service Providers, online sales, etc. So what I would say is don't be afraid because of outsourcing, and just make sure you're the best at what you're do and not just looking for an easy job to do.