Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have a few question for ADULTS ONLY.

What did you take in school / college / university, what job do you have today, and what do you wish you had known back then?

I'm considering a computer related field, but I'm willing to consider other sciences, but I saw all the different directions and now are just trying to get a good starting point.

I only want to hear the answers from the adults. Thank you.

Lucan

P.S. Thanks Goalie for the advice on this.

And... keep zipperman out of this topic please.

Not sure you really wanted to ask all this. For ease of reading I'll toss it in a quote box.
Then

Bachelors of Science in Geology and Geophysics with an emphasis in Groundwater and Environmental Geochemistry.

Masters of Science in Engineering Management.

Currently an Associate Research Engineer for University of Missouri-Rolla. I've worked here for 3 years now, and have progressed as far as I can in the pay scale with a Masters degree. So now I'm faced with a decision of finding another job or proceeding with schooling and getting a PhD in Geology.

What do I wish I had known... I wish I had taken a Co-op or Internship partway through school, to help get my foot in the door with a company, plus it would have been that all so important real world expierence.

I also would have cheated more in my comp sci classes (if you notice on that first quote I got a D in CS 53 and a C in CS77 or whatever the 2nd one I took was - first was C++ and second was FORTRAN).

Edit: Resume found here
That should give you an idea of the type of work I've been doing over the past 3 years.

Wow, what a loaded topic....where to start.

I can definitively say this right off the bat "Spend more time studying than partying!!!" I made some stupid choices and could have gotten a lot better grades than I did. I do not intend to brag, but I did not have to spend much time studying for tests, as I took good notes in class and the information typically stayed with me. However my GPA when I finished was 2.8, and if I would have taken more time to study I could have been around 3.5 and had a lot more career opportunities. That is one thing I wish I could go back and change.

Sometimes it's not a bad idea to go into a college and not know what type of field you want to be in. I went to school with SNGX and it is a heavy Engineering school. You were able to take almost 1.5 years of classes in different categories (yet still applied to the hours needed to graduate) and get a feel for what type of career you were interested in. I had a few friends who came in as 'Undecided' and went from there. Sometimes at a young age you are unsure of what you would like to do.

Lastly, remember that your degree (diploma) typically gets you in the door with a company. They know you are smart and can graduate from college, then they typically train you on how they want you to do things.

If I can think of anything else I'll add it. Sorry, but I'm sure this sounds like rambling (and it indeed was), but I am trying to do this in a hurry before my son gets cranky.

Did you want the semester wise breakup ? That would take too much space.

School : ICSE (eqivalent to Sr. Cambridge)
College : B.Tech. & MS Mechanical
College : MS Mathematics

Work descr : CAD systems analyst

Don't have any regrets. All my education has been useful.

Would do the same, if I was given another chance.

School: I went to a special school where I could graduate earlier, I got out of 12th grade at 15 years old
College: University of Dallas in Computer Arts ( I do animations and texture art )
Work: Animator

I answered as simple as possible, I don't want to do with SGNX did and post 500000000 topics on it

I don't think he typed that all out himself....He mentioned something about email....copy....paste!

It was a degree audit report for both of my degrees.

1. I have an associates in Electrical & Mechanical technology. I have a bachelor's in Business Marketing and I am working on a master's in Human Resource management.
2. I am a career soldier and I am about to change career paths from enlisted (17 years) to officer. I will do at least 10 to 13 more years. I will be transferring from a combat field (Air Defense) to Quartermaster which is more in line with my degrees and work experiences.

3. I strongly discourage entering the computer science field. It is super saturated with employees and there is virtually NO job security. All of my peers from high school and college in the computer science and information management fields have been in, out, or between jobs in the last 20+ years since high school. This obviously is very stressful and even more so for those who are planning or have a family.

That is what I heard from other people in my area.

Hope this helps...

I always knew I wanted to study something related to Information Systems, but knowing exactly what was the harder part.

Before I graduated from high school I started TechSpot although it was meant to be a small personal project (kind of like blogs today). Two years later, I already had a job but still wanted to get a degree obviously.

So I divided IT degrees in these four categories:

• Hardware engineering
• Software engineering
• Management Information Systems
• Digital Arts

I already had some background on programming but because of TechSpot and my personal preferences I decided MIS was my thing.
I believe this kind of breakdown within IT related careers will help you.

I went to college in Ecuador for a couple of years until I transferred to the US where I am today (University of Florida at Gainesville). I already graduated with a Bachelor in Decision and Information Sciences (basically MIS), and a minor in Entrepreneurship. Now I'm a semester away from graduating from a Master also in MIS.

Back to your original question...Let me use some bullets just so I don't go rambling all over:

• Considering my IT breakdown will likely help you to narrow your search for a good school and degree
• Always, ALWAYS look at the classes for each school you want to apply, sometimes degree names can vary and be deceiving
• GPAs are not very important for your education but they might be when you go out looking for a job. As some other member mentioned, the worst you can do is regret years later that you didn't put all your efforts into it when you could have done so much better.
• College is not only about the education but also about the experience IMO. That's why studying abroad was important for me. You get to know people, cultures, and so on.
• I would say that during the first two years of your career you can spend less time worrying about the future and just enjoy the ride. In the later years however, it should be all about your career path, where you want to be... great schools often offer students the opportunity of meeting potential future employers, my point is in the later years it's not only about the education but about the extracurricular activities related to your career path that can make the difference.
• In my specific case TechSpot takes away pretty much all of my "extracurricular" time, but I have managed to do both for many years now and I have complemented what I've learned doing either. You could just as well find something you love to do in the later years of your degree, or find a company that will employ you during the summer where you can get lots of industry insights and experience..

I think that's all that comes to mind for now

Hrm.. after comprehensive and upper secondary school I had a compulsory military service (NCO in Army Signal Forces), then tried studying information technology for about a year in a polytechnics school.

It didn't motivate me, so I switched to studying English translation and interpretation in a university (I had computing in translation as a minor subject).

I took a break from that as well after three years (I had my reasons), and decided to look for a job or training for one.

So, now I'm a web developer / programmer / system administrator in a small company.