8mo ago

It is with great pleasure to inform you that today I graduate with my Master of Science in Information Technology!

I’ve done IT. I’ve finally mastered IT (couldn’t resist 😁).

I’ve been in school (part time) since 2019 working my way to this day. Now that it’s here, I’m both super excited and a little anxious. Now what do I do? 🤣

Anyway, thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!

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Oh good, I've been having issues with my YouTube and need someone to take a look at it
Opens Apple Music
- When you are done with that, I can't login either.
  Shows windows desktop
  
  "Internet doesn't work"
  No info about location
  No info about which rolling stock
  No info who filed the ticket so I could ask
  No info about when
  No description at all beyond the title.
  ...yup, that happened when I was dealing with internet on trains a few eons ago. After finally figuring out who filed the ticket by the phone number and cross-referencing that with a bunch of working schedules, we figured out which carriage. After jumping through a bunch of hoops to make my way on board, everything was working fine.

What does a masters in IT get you? The moral dilemma of end users deciding to open a ticket or walk up to help desk? A deep dive into the public clouds?
Jokes aside, as a sysadmin, I'm genuinely curious
- Probably jumpstarting your career, after a few years it doesn't really matter anymore, but in those first years in a field you'll probably get a bit further.
  
  At my job I can’t move up without a masters.
  
  Seems a bit in depth for a starting point. An associate's or bachelor's seems more fitting. Master's is for deeper dives into areas of expertise, from what I understand.
- Mine got me a job at Microsoft and a 30% pay bump. Even now it gets me additional push when moving jobs. It's a lot of experience and knowledge that builds your skills beyond the technical so that you can communicate with non-technical people (e.g. sales, management, accounting, etc.).

Congrats! 🎉

Congratulations!

What do you do with a masters in IT? I’m assuming teaching?
- I’m going to use it to move up in my job: management most likely.

What program did you do and where?
- It’s the MS in IT, with a concentration on Human Computer Interaction, at UNC Charlotte.
  
  The Human Computer Interaction concentration sounds so interesting. I took a couple courses on UX when I was in school and it was really cool to study.

Way to go! Congratulations!

You're welcome. I did the same too recently (just not as a tech).

But did you master C++?
- Master? Nah. I know enough to be dangerous. But I’m still weak on pointers (pun intended).

Congratulations!

Congratulations !

First of all: Congrats! Were the exams hard?
Any specific plans ahead?
And now that you've spent that amount of time studying, how do you feel about those of us who somehow made it in the field without a degree? (I wish I had a degree, but I never found the the time)
If you could choose any (realistic) IT-related job, what would it be?
But most importantly: What is your favorite dinosaur?
- Hmm. Not once have I had to take an exam. I did a lot of projects; both group and individual. My last project was to read a research paper, and do a 25 minute presentation on what the paper was about. That kind of stuff.
  I plan on spending time with my kids, working on my house, and enjoying not being in school for a while.
  I’ve been in IT in various capacities for over 20 years now. I’ve been a web developer for the past 17 years. I actually work at the university, so I got to take the courses at no charge. So if you’re interested in getting one yourself, you should look into working for a university. It’s a seriously good gig.
  Realistically, if I had to choose a different career path in IT, I’d choose mobile development. I’ve been doing the web for so long, I think I’ve finally run out of passion for it. That’s part of the reason for the degree; gives me a chance for upward mobility.
  Triceratops. Those guys were badass with their horns.
  So what is it you do in IT?
  
  Triceratops is a good choice. I've always thought of them as rhinos with even more of the cool bits.
  Once upon a time I was planning on getting a degree, but i kept postponing it, and I now find myself in a position where I don't really have the time anymore. Sure, retroactively speaking it would've probably made it easier to get here to begin with, but now that I'm here I don't really need it. Besides, I fear that if I had gone the "normal" road, I would have ended up with a "normal" job, and I would've become disillusioned by the field as a whole.
  And my abnormal career is being a field service tech for offshore petroleum surveys. While most of my job is done from home, I show up on the other side of the world now and then for maintenance and mobilization.
  I mostly deal with HPC clusters and their networks. It pretty much boils down to large linux servers pooling their resources (mainly ridiculous amounts of storage) together via high speed network, as well as routing these servers together via VPN so a cluster on one ship can talk to a similar cluster on a different ship. The principles at play are fairly simple, they're just scaled up. A LOT.

Congrats, part time must have been hard. Now you can be proud of you and work on that Swift stuff and many other languages because I believe it’s good to have a basic knowledge of what exists out there. Have fun.
- That’s a good point. I stopped doing it for a while now so I could focus on school and other aspects of life. Might be a good time to take it up again. Got any interesting ideas for an app? 😁

Not a grammar-heavy degree, huh?
- Nope. 😏
- Leave my grandma out of this!!

31 comments