IT Network Administration: Career Path and Work Environment

Introduction

During my educational career I had several opportunities to become involved, informally, in solving various computer network issues. Initially, I learned basic computer network setup and troubleshooting skills simply to deal with problems I encountered on my home network. In college, I encountered similar challenges when helping dormmates configure their laptops for use within the university wireless network.

The more experience I gained with IT network configuration, troubleshooting, and support, the more I began to wonder whether a career in network administration might fit my interests, skills, and abilities. In my first year of college, I began taking IT administration courses and eventually became proficient enough to seek employment in the field. It has been a very rewarding career, and I would like to share some insight and advice that might help others determine whether information technology and IT network administration could be a rewarding career choice for them as well.

Career Path and Qualifications

In my particular case, IT network administration was not an obvious career choice. I was never especially interested in computer technology beyond whatever I needed to keep my personal computers working and relatively safe from viruses and spyware. For me, it was more a matter of realizing that many of the skills required in IT network administration were skills I tended to pick up easily—I seemed to remember various protocols and diagnostic procedures without much difficulty.

Generally, the most important requirements for a career in IT network administration are a broad familiarity with various operating systems and hardware. Even though practical experience is probably more important than formal education in the field, it is a highly competitive profession today, and a formal degree in an IT-related area is likely the single greatest advantage a job applicant can have on a résumé.

Strategic thinking is also a tremendous asset in network administration. Network administrators must frequently balance non-technical considerations such as the specific applications a particular network requires, the threat environment a given enterprise can expect to encounter, the relative sensitivity of the information the network handles, and the budget available for IT network design and maintenance (Kizza, 2005).

The Network Administrator Work Environment

Information technology network administrators work in a wide variety of environments. Small companies may have only one or two employees responsible for their entire IT infrastructure. Those employees handle everything from determining what systems and capabilities the organization needs, to designing the most effective system within the available budget, to training employees, to identifying and repelling threats, and to managing access controls, password security, and data encryption. They also oversee setup, programming, testing, troubleshooting, and ongoing maintenance and updates.

Even smaller organizations may not employ any full-time IT administrators at all; they rely instead on freelance professionals or companies that provide mobile technicians. Individuals who prefer a stable office environment and working with the same systems daily are probably better suited to in-house network administration roles. Those who get bored easily and prefer variety in their work—different systems, locations, and circumstances—might be better suited to contracting work serving multiple clients across different premises.

Nowadays, almost every conceivable type of professional business enterprise depends heavily on its computer systems, including retail outlets, wholesale distributors, professional service providers across every sector from medical to industrial, transportation companies, and municipal and government agencies at every level (Kizza, 2005; Personick & Patterson, 2003). This tremendous range of organizations relying on IT systems creates many additional opportunities for anyone pursuing a career in network administration.