Stereotyping IT types

From The Wall Street Journal: Journal Reports: Leadership

Forget the Stereotype: Profile of an IT Worker

Most of them don't have college degrees in computer science, technology, engineering or math

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Who are these employees who install new computers, keep the corporate network running and help other workers reset their passwords? Cultural stereotypes about nerds with pocket protectors aside, what do we know about the people who keep the bits flowing and the digital lights on?

For instance, the IT guy—and they're about three times more likely to be men than women—doesn't necessarily have a computer-science degree. About a third come to IT with degrees in business, social sciences or other nontechnical fields. More than 40% of computer support specialists and a third of computer systems administrators don't have a college degree at all.

For this profile, we mainly focused on two job categories as defined by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics: network and computer systems administrator, and computer support specialist. One way to think about these two groups is that systems administrators are charged with the upkeep of a company's back-office computer systems—servers, routers and the software to keep them working—and the support specialists are the face (or, increasingly, just the voice) of IT, who make sure other employees have the technology they need.

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As an aside: I know several people who work in IT. Not one of them has a degree of any sort. I have, in the past, known people with MS degrees in physics who worked for companies that had them in computer sales or in programming. Not something that I wished to find myself doing. I took the coward's way out by switching to engineering when I was half-way to the MS.

Comments

[Ingineer66]

Of the 3 IT guys that I have worked at our field engineering office only one had a degree in some thing related to computers. And he did not last long because he cried and said that we were mean to him. In reality we only wanted him to do his job and provide service that was about half as good as the guy who had just retired. One other guy that sometimes comes to our building is a total prima- donna. I do not know what his education is in but it sure wasn't customer service.

[Cop Car]

Ingineer--That's sad...just sad.

Re-thinking my statement about the IT folks I know - I should qualify that to say I was not thinking of family. Within our family, we've had a couple of IT folks, each of whom had a degree that was not in a "technical" field.

[M.E.]

Cop Car: Have you seen the movie "Gravity"?? If so, what did you think? Aside from those execrable 3-D glasses, which don't seem to do much for me, I thought it was boring. My companion said she was struck by the sounds/lack thereof/and the whole death in space idea. I dunno. I didn't hear much. Or feel much, either.

[Cop Car]

ME--Not yet. Please understand that the last time I attended a movie showing in a theater was when Sixth Sense came out. Hunky Husband insisted upon my going! He had seen it with his sister and her family. It was a complete bust, in my estimation.

HH tells me that Gravity is to be shown at Wichita's Omnisphere - on its BIG screen. The Omnisphere is slated to close its doors, forever, in January; so, they'd best show it soon! A friend tells me that I will be driven crazy by the scientific inaccuracies should I go. I'm thinking about it.

BTW: Our (only) local movie theater has Gravity showing on two of its screens - one in 2D, one in 3D.

[bogie]

The lead programmer for our quality software is a math major - wasn't plan A to enter the programming field.

I do a lot of basic IT and am now the database administrator - Business Admin degree. Also tend to be the go-to person for software ho-to's and have been called the MS Access guru by more than one company (which is funny because I really think of myself as a hack who just finds ways to get stuff done in a database).

The guy that has been lone IT support for 2 companies I've worked for was a Physical Ed graduate.

[Cop Car]

Bogie--You and Chew were the two "family" IT folks whom I had in mind. My late Younger Brother and I, each, had done a bit of coding (he more than me) as part of our engineering jobs; but, I would not consider either of us to be IT. Of course, he had the PhD that I never finished. *sigh* In fact, as your probably know, the US Navy (as his employer) paid for the last year of YB's MSEE and all of his PhD (Geophysics). YB may have taught some IT in his side-job at the college.