Thoughts on a management information systems degree?
i'm currently on the path to receive a BS in business administration management information systems concentration from a four year state school. i was accepted to my major near the end of this spring. my university also has a data analytics minor that i am heavily considering.
once i am done with summer classes i plan to really dive deeper into excel and ease into learning sql b/c that will help in lots of MIS contexts it seems.
i read online that MIS is a great degree that can lead into system admin, database admin, network admin, or business/it/system analyst roles. id find any of these careers interesting so at this point in time i feel on the right path. most importantly i just want to a job that will allow me to live a comfortable life, ya know?
i have never really met anyone that has an MIS degree before so i have no idea what the job market is actually like for degree holders beyond clickbait articles that say how great it is. if you have an mis degree, what is your experience with it and what kind of role are you working? would you recommend this degree to someone else? what skills do you recommend most for hire-ability? id assume this is area specific, but i live in the PNW and live near an area with a strong biz/tech scene and lots of govt opportunities.
i was recently speaking with some CS majors and they were talking about how MIS is a garbage non-technical degree that isnt good for much. obviously CS is a harder more technical degree that can result in higher salary but i feel they were just trying to put my down for pursuing what they saw as a lesser degree, but nonetheless it put a sense of fear into me about my potential career opportunities.
i just need some guidance and would like to hear your experience.
thank you
I have a BS in MIS. My degree set me up for a business analyst role more so than sysadmin, netadmin, or dba. It was very focused on requirements gathering, systems design, and project management. After I got through the very basic CS course requirements, I was out of the dev environment and into the Office suite. Visio, PowerPoint, and Word were my tools.
Where my degree took me is far more interesting. I'll refrain from doxxing myself but my education led me to a business analyst internship, which turned into a networking part time, then a sysadmin full time that converted into infosec analyst, then security ops management. Then I got tired of ops and the company, so I'm now an analyst again but in infosec engineering/architecture. In many ways, I'm using what I learned more than ever but I don't know if I would've gotten here without the experience I built up post graduation.
I heard from the CS dorks that my MIS degree was worthless and they couldn't be more wrong, but a degree is going to be worth what you do with it. A ton of IT roles don't require a degree, CS or MIS. But I absolutely would not have gotten an internship with the local Fortune 50 company without being in a college program, and that was my foot in the door for a rather successful career. I proceeded to do a lot of work that my degree didn't really prepare me for, but my breadth of knowledge benefited me. Consider what you want to use the degree for.
None of the above. I'm not doing a lot with numbers these days, so much as reviewing projects and identifying security requirements. Before that, I'd get a lot of mileage out of just Excel.