What college?

kiwi_bird

Well I'm siting here in Germany and thinking about studying something related to IT. Well the main problem is that in Germany there is a class called "Informatik", 60% of the ones who studied it got unemployed. So I was thinking of studying in the US because I think I have better chances there than here. Even if I could study it here I figured that the job market is way better in the US since we have 30% unemployment where I live and it isn't much different elsewhere. So I hope some of you guys could give me advice. Thanks in advance!

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I'm not the Signature I'm just the cleaning lady!

GreatTeacherMacRoss

The USA is a pretty big place and unemployment rates vary a great deal. Your best bets are probably going to be the major cities where tech is going on. NYC, D.C., Seattle, Austin and Huston (drawback being you'd actually be in Texas), and many areas in California are pretty hot.

There are probably both established and "budding" oppertunities in other places, but I'm not the best guy to ask.

One thing we'll all tell you, stay away from Rochester! RIT has created a glut of unemployed tech students.

kiwi_bird

But are there any good combinations that you can study ?

GreatTeacherMacRoss

Combinations of what exactly?

kiwi_bird

Well, specialising in something, f.e. programming languages.

Andrew

Computer Science is the way to go if you want to be a programmer.

Rym

Don't worry about specific languages. That's not what you go to uni for.

Getting a degree in CS/IT/whatever isn't supposed to teach you how to code in Ruby or program a CISCO router. You're there to learn how to learn to code in whatever language someone wants, or set up whatever router someone needs. CS teaches you how coding works. IT teaches you how computers and networks work.

If you know how to program a CISCO router, you'll be able to program a CISCO router. If you understand IP routing, you'll be able to program ANY router.

Think more about what with computers you want to do.

Alex

If you're interested in actually making software, you probably want to study Computer Science or Software Engineering. CS tends to be a little more theory-oriented, SE a little more business-oriented, but the practical difference is small. If you do study CS/SE, you'll later have the opportunity to specialize in some subfield or other, be that graphics software, artificial intelligence, databases, cryptography, programming languages (making them up, not using any particular one), etc. As others have suggested, you'll pick up a number of programming languages in school and will have to learn more at work; the important thing in a software-related degree is learning the organizational principles that all of them are based on.

If you're interested in making hardware that is used by computers (the chips and circuit boards themselves), look into Computer, Microelectronic, or Electrical Engineering.

Just about anything else you might want to do with computers falls under Information Technology, which has its own set of specializations such as system administration, networking, and so on.

Decide which of these interests you the most(based on further research than this thread, I hope), and then start looking into schools that offer what you want.

Katsu

System and Network Administration is for you if you want to know how computers communicate with each other, other devices, and how to make an unwieldy mishmash of network devices and components work together.

kiwi_bird

I would be interested in networking as-well as in programming languages. Now I would like to know which on of those will get me a job, earn me enough money and can be done without dieing because of stress. Thanks to you all for helping me out!

kiwi_bird

Sorry, I was gone for a few days.

So are you saying RIT is a bad place to go if you want to study? And could you please answer my question up there.

Rym

RIT is an excellent place to study. It's pretty-much the top IT school in the US (having the first such degree program in the nation) in addition to being a hotbed of geekery.

kiwi_bird

So would you recommend me to go to RIT ?

Katsu

If you are interested in any of the IT fields, then yes. Since I didn't take any of the CS courses, I can't really comment if you're interested in Computer Science.