Questions on computer science

[ar81]

I would like to know the difference between

Systems Integration
Systems Administration
Systems Development

I like computer science, but I am uncertain about what kind of are I would like to develop professionally. Computer science is just too wide.

What kind of jobs computer science use to offer?
How is one common day when you work in such a job.
Studying and working is not the same. I am interesting about the kind of skills that I would require, and the kind of personal growth it allows.

What technologies can we choose from?
I understand there are UNIX based (in many flavors RedHat, SUSE, HP-UX, Tru64...), Windows... what else?

I also would like to see what could I expect in the near future, to see what career path should I choose.
I am interested about determining what kind of CERTIFICATION I would like to choose.

 

[Artlav]

Like the brands of managers - fancy names for similar jobsets.

Systems Administration - making things work and work efficiently (setting up and monitoring networks, securing the data, up to tech support)
Systems Development - a rough definition for large-scale programming. Could be used in many ways.
Systems Integration - roughly a SA and SD combined on large scale, making multiple applications work in a single business system.

What to develop professionally - depends on what you feel you're good at.
Have you considered a 3D artist - related career?
I know you can do some average VB programming, so there are a lot of way to go to get to a "system developer" level for you.
I don't know how good you are in configuring and troubleshooting software and hardware problems across the spectrum, so the integration/administration could or could not be a way.

Computer science is a wide definition, as you said, with jobs ranging from traveling across the country to fix high-tech things to sitting at home making code by specs, to sitting in the office making up system architectures.
So, there are hard to define common job description. Most common you can get is be in the office and do some computer-related stuff.

You will need some serious problem-solving skills and some communication skills as well, you may need to be able to explain limits of what is possible and negotiate a plausible system design in most development/administration positions, as well as making a possible hardware/software solution design to an informally stated problem.

You need to have good skills at making sense of the variety of coding styles and standards in serious software development position, as well as an ability to figure out how the different code works.

You generally need good social skills in IT/CS positions, or need to develop them en route. I'd call that an inobtrusive teaching skills - being able to explain technology to tech-ignorant people without explaining it.

As the certification go, i don't know what kinds do you have in american region of the globe. And, once again, it depends on which way you want to go - programming, troubelshooting, system architecture, communications and networks, data security, etc.

The technologies are also many and varied.

 

[Urwumpe]

Systems Integration, Administration and Development are general buzzwords from project management. Integration is combining many smaller subsystems into one big system, administration is the housekeeping part of the operations, development is the work of defining a system and splitting the big problem into many smaller problems = work units and subsystems, which you in a later phase integrate into the big system.


Jobs of computer science are typical engineering jobs, with a wide range of possible functions. You can work as pure formal scientist, software or hardware engineer, with many many specializations.

There is no common day for an engineer. You usually work project oriented. You can be sure that the only chance of ensuring a regular work day is to do impossible good work. If you are not willed to work for over 50 hours when the dead line comes closer, you have chosen the wrong job. Also, it is recommended to be a geek. You should not show it to the world, but you should have a unhealthy attraction to technology. You grow on the challenges. If you expect to become rich quickly, study marketing.

Technologies you can choose from are bigger as the pure choice of an operating system. You are already victim of a big misunderstanding: Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.

Take for example the computer science departments of my university as small hint about the direction things go:

• Operating systems and networks
• Computer graphics
• Information systems
• Medical computer science
• Programming and reactive systems
• Robotics and process control
• Software Systems Engineering
• Theoretical Computer Science
• Scientific Computing

Additionally, you have important cooperations with departments from other sciences:

• business computer science (together with economic sciences)
• Communications technology (together with electrical engineering)
• Computer and Communication Network Engineering (together with electrical engineering)

Other universities have different specializations and thus, different structures, but I would say, my university offers a good explanation what to expect (we are torn between medical science, multimedia, aerospace industry and very important: automobile industry).

So don't think computer science researches computers or is only about programming. You don't need to be a programmer to become computer science (IMHO, 90% of the students here are abysmal bad in it.). Computers are nothing else but a tool to execute algorithms. A large part of the work does not need to take place on a computer.

Finally: What you learn and what you do, are two different things. You can learn to be perfect software engineer and finally become a very good hardware engineer. You have the basic skills and the methods to do it.

 

[garyw]

For what its worth I'm a systems admin but for that I do a hell of a lot of thigns including storage admin, server admin (netware, *nix and windows), firewalls, routers, switches, etc, etc.....