Background: I'm attending a community college, I expect to graduate in a year with a degree in Information Systems, haven't decided what to do exactly, but I have an interest in networking and will be taking the ICND1 to get my CCNA from Cisco sometime soon hopefully. This however, is something I'm doing for an english assignment. I am trying to get a good idea of what your career entails in terms of knowledge, on the job stressors and benefits. I am however interested in what it takes and I should do in order to break into this field.
Who did you become interested in this job?
Out of my own curiosity, is it possible to break into this field without a 4 year degree?
How much of your free time is spent learning about new technologies?
Do you handle every aspect of networking?
How much programming do you do on the job?
Are there other skills, IT or otherwise, that have served you well in your job?
Do you often work in a team? What is the typical breakdown of duties and what role do you usually play?
What is a typical day on the job like?
Is your work project based? How are projects handled and what parts do you specifically handle?
How often do you have other people working under you?
Does knowledge of how a business works, e.g its business model, factor into your decisions? If so, how?
Is there an aspect of your job you don't like?
Do you have any recommendations to those in college or about to enter college to help them enter and succeed in the field?
Considering the vast amount of technology, in networking let alone IT, is it smart to simply specialize in a few areas, like linux server and other areas, or is it important to be well rounded? Do you have to master every available technology? Have I misunderstood what your job entails?
Do you usually serve as manager of your IT dept (if you're not the only one)? Aside from giving you projects, what role does management, either in IT other other top manager play in making decisions, in other words, how much freedom of design do you have?
What is a typical budget amount for your department? Has cost ever been a serious constraint for your department or in your decisions?
What is the size of the company you work for (if you freelance or jump around whats an average size)? Whats the difference in your job with a large and perhaps medium sized company (by market cap).
I never feel comfortable asking how much someone makes, but in your field is your income about average? Was your entry level salary typical for people entering the field?
Is there anything you would like to add that you feel I missed talking about, or perhaps I can focus on for a next interview with someone in your field?
I appreciate any and all time you spent on this.