Recent years have seen a downward trend in the career opportunities and jobs available for individuals experienced in information technology services. Increased outsourcing of information technology services and jobs overseas has discouraged students from entering into the computer sciences field. Students who have graduated with computer science degrees find well-paying jobs, only to be rewarded with a pink slip a few years later. However, new technologies and services demand a level of knowledge that can’t be met through outsourcing.

Certain fields within information technology services remain hot ticket commodities in the U.S. job market. These jobs concentrate in providing businesses with the necessary support infrastructures to successfully manipulate the new technology, checks to make sure compliance with existing policies and governmental regulations are met, and general data maintenance. Information technology service positions that will see continued growth are discussed below.

The demand for Information Technology Auditors is on the rise. The Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco have solidified the need for experts knowledgeable in the language of technology and laws such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Information technology auditors enforce corporate compliance with such laws by evaluating existing systems and recommend technology upgrades that will help a company meet compliance.

Most companies need to maintain departments dedicated to technology support in order to resolve issues that may arise while doing day-to-day business. This falls under the domain of the Business Systems Analyst. Business Systems Analysts remain one of the fastest growing occupations according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook. Business systems analysts are concerned with supporting an organization’s information technology needs by streamlining business tasks and providing network support services to make sure companies are operational 24/7.

Computer scientists and database administrators also enjoy continued growth in the U.S. business market. Computer scientists find ways to maximize the use of technology in order to increase the efficiency of business processes. Database administrators manage information and data. Database administrators find efficient methods of organizing and storing for organizations. Data is the backbone of organizations, and businesses will always need efficient ways of dealing with large quantities of data as part of meeting the bottom line.

Most information technology service positions require formal education and on-the-job training. While an Associate’s Degree may be suitable for entry-level positions in support and basic applications development, most companies will look towards individuals with a Bachelor’s to Doctoral degree for the more prestigious positions. Most will also require certification within the field of specialty.

While information technology services will always face the up-and-down rollercoaster of the technology world, remember that businesses will always need basic information technology infrastructure in order to meet the bottom line.

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Health Care Information Technology covers the wide spectrum of health care data and administrative management. Technologists work with pain and disease coding, evaluate electronic record systems, plan transitions to an electronic formats from paper-based systems, and deal with compliance issues. Administrators involved in health care information technology provides support for all hospital functions and infrastructure, maintain communications with members of the community, ensure that health care objectives are satisfied, and oversees patient care, research, education and training, and clinical processes. A successful health care information technician has computer skills, schedules appointments, has familiarity with HIPAA laws, and understands billing, insurance and payment options. Individuals with health care information technology training serve in administrative, clinical, information technology, and technical, and data management and data analyst capacities.

Most training programs offer an Associate’s Degree in Health Information Technology, although Bachelor’s and graduate degrees are offered in fields such as bioinformatics and computer science. An Associate’s Degree prepares an individual for entry-level employment in the health care industry. A sampling of Associate Degree programs in Health Care Information Technology is listed below. Most degree programs require classes in medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, physical science, legal issues, and database management issues.

Colorado Technical University Online

Colorado Technical University offers an Associate of Science degree in Health Information Technology. The program covers healthcare coding and billing, security, data applications and windows operating systems.

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The First Computers!

The first Computers were integrated circuits on a single chip. Around the year 1980, the first computers were available which were priced suitably. In 1977, the first computer by Apple, Apple II was launched and soon after IBM came out with their PC in 1981. in the late 80’s the revolutionary Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) came into the scene. This program allowed the users to look at their screens with windows; also the clickable commands and color appeared. In 1983 Windows was introduced in the market and simultaneously the first Apple Macintosh was launched in 1984.

With the rapid development of computers, in 1965, Gordon Moore gave a law. He predicted that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every 18 months. Gordan Moore is the co-founder of the world’s leading computer chip manufacturer, Intel. His rule was true for chips for about thirty years. In the current scenario, the speed of the chips has declined to some extent but the density of data involved in computer functions has followed Moore’s law.

Software Programs that take a lot of Computer Memory are introduced

To keep up with this exploding industry, there was a simultaneous introduction of chips that were faster and could handle software programs using a lot of memory and hard drives that were constantly upgrading its capacity. About a decade and half ago, computers with 24 MB of RAM was adequate for general use. Today, the most common users need computers with more than a gigabyte – a forty-fold increase! Similar trends have been visible in standard computer data-memory capacity.

From stand alones to Networks

The world of IT on the same time has moved from working on stand-alone computers to networks of computers. Transfer of information and data has contributed immensely to the world of business. Networking has helped in providing access to common databases, resulting in the database becoming the main source of business records for a number of organizations. Software utilizing these databases has become a highly profitable industry. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software drives business activities for many big organizations which are occupied in product sales across the global markets

Information Technology Introduces Us to a Friend We’ll Never Forget

Information technology has also brought us the Internet. The web has become a primary communications device via email. It has become a full color, multimedia advertising platform for millions of small businesses. It has become a sales tool for increasing numbers of retailers, large and small. This, in turn, has led to an IT industry with software that handles online transactions, tracks shipping, and distributes orders within the business itself. Information technology has made it possible to make purchases online, and online sales have risen billions of dollars each year over the last five years – doubling in some of those years.

In a related field, information technology has made it possible to pay our bills and do our banking online. The Internet is on its way to replacing Main Street as the primary commercial avenue in this country. It’s an industry that will continue to grow larger and add access into new areas of our society for some time to come.

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Computers

With the advancement and diversification of the functions of computers, (they perform almost every kind of function apart from entertainment), the career options in this filed has immensely increased. As an expert of Java code, you may program in any of the operating systems (Microsoft, UNIX, Linux, apple etc.)

System design and programming and electronics technology concentrates on the various machines and the chips (the primary engines). The main aim each and every company in the field of manufacturing computers is to manufacture such a machine which is faster and at the same time smaller or portable. Apart from the major manufacturing companies, there are hundreds others who manufacture products for the various computer systems, all of these companies are also a vital part of the computer science industry.

Another fast growing part of this industry is the industry of video cards. With the increasing popularity of computer games, this has become the latest booming industry. People involved in the designing of these video cards should also know the electronic functions of the very computers on which it will be used. This is also the case with computer sound cards, printers, scanners and other peripheral devices.

Another important field of the Computer industry is computer networking. This field has acquired the position of a separate industry in the current context. Not only the business related documents of every kind, but also the financial information is constantly exchanged throughout the world. This requires networks within an organization and also between organizations in short for the whole world. Network engineering is such an academic and career option; it consists of designing of these complex networks and also the designing of the paraphernalia for the efficient functioning of the networks. The speed of the network router (modem) is as crucial to business efficiency as the speed of the computer. This designing of the paraphernalia for the computers is one area which may never see a slump, as there is always a place for better and improved equipments.

Designing and installation of office networks has also turned out to be a massively developing business at the retail level. Small businesses with a handful of employees have also appreciated the worth of networking. These small enterprises are also a great source of income as they have the need of repair, expansion.

As this field is more or less related to the exchange of information, the security of such information has a very high priority here.

Another important field of the networked computer science world is Cyber-security. The need to protect the information from hackers is a thing of high priority. The hackers continuously develop new ways and methods to hijack information, therefore the need for constant upgrading the software. The whole software market is also very much involved in the preservation of security and builds a secure environment.

The options listed above are only a few of the areas of specialization. The computer industry knows no bounds for the right person with the right aptitude. There are new avenues also which come up as the industry progresses.

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Coffee houses are a necessity in order to be fully awake by 9am and browsing at the local electronics store is considered a lunch break. Pens leak in your shirt pocket, but you hold more of a concern for saving the pen than salvaging the shirt. Your “friends” are often people you have never actually met in “real” life. Who has time? You are sitting at your computer! Again.

You instant message the people 5 feet away from you, and you check your MySpace every day. But even more so, you are usually responsible for helping your semi-real friends with THEIR space on the web because you are internet savvy. You become people’s world wide web whore.

You think YOUR job is stressful? Try being responsible for a network of 30 plus computers and then when the connection crashes, you are the only one who can fix it. Suddenly the office break room being out of coffee doesn’t seem like your biggest problem.

Chances are you will work for a dot com, and that means that the chances are even more likely that your job security is about as stable as a city resting on a major fault line. It is a wobbly world of lay offs, promotions, and constant demands for better and more advanced education & experience.

My husband loves what he does, but part of me is so fascinated as to why. How can someone be in such a stressful environment and yet still completely thrive and strive to succeed? You IT folk absolutely fascinate me. I have to google the most basic of terminology when something goes awry with my computer, and people who work in IT are the ones that WRITE the content for google?

IT workers, I salute you. You are the soldiers of the information super highway. The phenoms of networking and tech support. There is a quality about you that separates you from the rest of the world and yet at the same time you are the ones that keep the world going as we know it.

I still don’t understand the Dilbert cartoons very often. The humor is way over my head. But I am grateful for the chances I’ve gotten to be married to a member of your secret computer controlled society. I love how the world is different. And how through IT you help us to have a chance to communicate and work together.

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For purposes of illustration, we’ll explore a single school’s curriculum. One large public university offers bachelor’s degrees in computer science that focus on subdivided areas.

Computer science degrees are offered through the school’s department of engineering. One degree is in electrical and computer engineering. Each student must select one of four options as an area of specialty: those are electronics; communications networks and systems; computer systems; and general course of study. The electronics option explores integrated circuits, their manufacture and design and other macro and micro areas of electronics. The networking major is self explanatory. Computer systems is about the design of computers, operating, database and programming systems. General Studies allows the student who is uncertain about a career choice to obtain an overview with some study in each area of the engineering aspects.

There is a bachelor’s degree in computer science for students interested in all areas of the field. These include algorithms, artificial intelligence, computer graphics and database engineering. There is also a bachelor of arts degree with the same major requirements but different core courses that focus on such areas of study as the theory of computation; programming languages and algorithm construction.

This university also has a master’s and a PhD program in computer science. There are two options in the master’s program: one is designed for students who intend to complete their education with this degree and enter the industry. The other is for those who will be proceeding to the doctoral program. Options in the PhD program include a focus on communication, computation and statistics; there is also a specialization in nanotechnology.

Online choices tend to have titles that are a little more pragmatic. University of Phoenix Online has no degrees in computer science per se: they do, however, offer a number of related bachelor’s degrees. These include degrees in business specializing in e-business or information systems and a bachelor’s in information technology. They offer an MBA in technology management and a master’s in information systems.

Capella University has bachelor’s degrees in information technology; network technology; project management; and graphics and multimedia. Their master’s programs include network architecture, information security; information technology; and system design and programming. All of these are areas of computer science, designed to make the graduate employable in the chosen field of study.

Computer science programs at traditional universities tend to include a broader base of education and take longer to complete. The online computer science programs are designed to provide thorough knowledge of a specific area of expertise, can be taken by people holding down full time jobs and usually can be completed in a shorter period than a degree from a traditional school.

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No longer can education afford to be part of an old guard mentality. Education, like any other type of business, must scurry to keep up with the ever changing demands of technology in addition to the ever changing demands of the educational world. Education must present itself as cutting edge in order to draw and keep its “client base” – the student. It is a trend playing out across the entire educational spectrum due to the onslaught of foreign competition, and the changing marketplace of our industries and the economic demands of the entire economy.

Information Technology education is a vast and expanding field that can take off in any number of unexpected directions, for it still is essentially in it’s infancy. However many precedents the educational environment can cite, one can expect volumes more to follow. The field is so new in many ways, new being a very relative term, that unless one is currently involved on a day-to-day basis, it would be hard to surmise where this path might lead.

Today’s industry giants are sometimes tomorrow’s industry has-beens. Regardless, Information Technology’s playing field is expansive and rigorous, and full of opportunities. Yes, the competition is stiff; but, the pay-offs for those with tenacity and who use their inventive minds potentially unlimited. However demanding the field, one cannot help but find the challenge invigorating, the possibilities exponentially impressive, and the rewards more than gratifying.

Besides, who wouldn’t want to be given the opportunity to work with some of the best minds in the country; to explore unchartered territory; to devise new and unique systems for specific and worthwhile causes; and to push oneself to the maximum of one’s creative ability? Who wouldn’t want to be given the opportunity to create the Next Big Thing? Because this field is relatively in it’s infancy, it mitigates the risk of devoting one’s self to something others might perceive as being too generalized, too limited. On a very positive note: it’s not a story necessarily filled with David and Goliath characters as in some businesses; it’s simply an opportunity to explore the world at large in a very specific manner and to allow one’s self to process one’s passions for the good of often very legitimate and worthwhile educational institutions. Yet, at the same time, this field is so much a part of the popular lexicon, it is so much a part of the rags- to-riches stories our country is based on, that one can’t help but sense the potential for great opportunities. With prospects like that, how could one possibly not quench one’s enthusiasm?

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If hardware is your specialty, degrees and technology training in networking, network management, network design and information management are available through a number of online schools. Many people today who have grown up around computers are entering into beginner positions handling IT maintenance. By taking computer technology courses through distance learning programs, these people are presented with an opportunity to earn the education and skills to move up within their profession and/or company.

And then there is the area of video games, a multi-billion dollar business that is continually growing in size and complexity. There are career options in this industry for animators, graphic artists, software programmers and code writers. There are also online training programs and degrees available in all these fields. Game development is a business that functions similar to movie production. Each game under development has a producer; a lead graphics designer; an expert in special effects; senior software director; software writers for various scenes; etc. Online schools have provided students with educational opportunities in video game development much more quickly than traditional schools. The state of the art video game training is more likely be found in distance learning programs than on college campuses.

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For the more traditional engineering fields, you can take engineering courses in the areas of civil or electrical engineering, both of which will give you excellent opportunities to get started in these fields. You can obtain associates degrees online from engineering schools that provide the introductory material for these professions and will also allow you to earn a bachelors while taking on an entry level job in the engineering industry. For working professionals who wish to further their formal education, there are schools that provide masters programs in electrical or mechanical engineering.

In the computer sciences and technology education, you’ll find an array of options for online programs. At Kaplan University alone, there are six online associates degrees that include majors in computer information systems, Java, network administration, programming, web development and wireless networking. Those are just the beginner levels of online education, but they can often help you get your foot in the door of a technology company. Kaplan also offers a distance learning program for a bachelors degree in information technology (IT). The areas of specialization in this online program include database, multimedia, information management and web development. This is just a small list at one single school, there are many more options available at many different online schools.

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