I have been teaching introduction to IT class for more than 3 years now and I have been successful on many occasions to ask students in the introductory class to consider IT as a major. Many of these students would never have considered IT as a major. Some even attest to me the fact that they are allergic to technology. Little did they know of their closet passion for IT. I continue to help open that closet and uncover some of these qualities found in these students and in some cases, convince them that they should consider pursuing IT as a second major. I have missed quite a few but I always try. I am proud to say that some have now worked in the IT industry for two years and have been very successful. The following are some of the things I look for in a student that are signs that they will be successful in an IT career and hence should consider pursuing IT as a second major or perhaps take more courses in IT to augment their coursework.
You are a perfectionist. You work on a project with a team. You are never satisfied with the product until it is turned in. Everything has to be just right or done better until all options are exhausted. You always wonder why some people cannot see why something in the project is just not right. Maybe it is the color, maybe it is the font size. Every small details count.
You are a good leader. To do well in this major, you have to lead many projects. You take risks in doing out of the ordinary. Just doing the vanilla is not good enough for you. You lead the team through uncharted territories. Also, you can work under the constraint of a deadline. Looking back you always wonder how you could do so much with so little time. And when you are done, the whole team celebrates. Even when the semester is over; your team is still intact as friends because all of you share this feeling of elation and success that you never felt before.
You enjoyed hard work and ultimately love to see the final product. This is not a major where you can loathe and get away with it. Everyone has to do the work. Otherwise, you will not meet the project objectives or outcome. It is rather embarrassing to present to a class with a project half done when your fellow classmates are able to complete it and complete it with style. There is no faking around it.
Ultimately, for every student in the business school, you need to know technology. It is nice to go to interviews whether you are marketing, finance or any major and tell them that you also have IT as your second major. The signals you give to the recruiters are that you like challenges and IT gives you the challenge. You are adaptable and you have a thirst for learning. Everyone knows IT majors have to do programming, yes, the dreaded programming course many students would happily avoid. But imagine yourself as a non-IT major taking a programming class. What does that tell the recruiter? It doesn’t say you are NUTZ. But it tells the recruiter that you have the “bring it on” attitude. They like that. They know that technology will always change and they want their workers to be adaptable and able to face these challenges that are unavoidable in any organization. Also, many of the skills you learned in the IT courses will be useful and will be immediately beneficial to you when you start your career.
Finally, the pay for IT/MIS starting salary ranks among the best for all majors. Most students would expect to make between $45K to $57K depending on whether you are working in Wisconsin or Illinois. Also, more than 80% of our May graduates were placed (defined as IT positions, graduate school or military service) by graduation and more than 92% were placed during the new academic year. There is a shortage of IT graduates, so if you do well in your courses, you will be highly sought after with multiple offers.
