borismkv

No. Studying IT in college is rarely worth it. You're better off learning some skills that are missing from most IT people, like technical writing. I switched from an IT major to English with an emphasis in business writing. I still work IT, but every manager I've had has loved me to death just because I can write up customer facing documents better than most of our marketing guys. Plus I make the company money by being a skilled consultant.

It depends. If you have DoD clearance and some IT experience or certs, you can get in with just about any government IT contractor. I don't know if Google does any of that, though. Generally with them you're going to be working with Linux, so the Red Hat certs are a good idea. If you want to get a masters in IT, go for either a security discipline or MBA. A straight masters in IT isn't worth the cost or effort, since there's a pretty solid cap on the income for general IT workers that will keep you below 6 figures unless you have heavy certifications like CISSP or CCIE.

I did government contracting myself for a while, but couldn't stand it. Dealing with Federal government in the US is a drinking man's game. And I am not a drinking man.

One of the big problems with medical software companies is that they are all about least effort, highest reward. If their software isn't blatantly breaking HIPAA regulations, they won't really do anything functionally different.

Unfortunately, regular old IT people like me have very little control over the functionality and features of the software the companies we work for use. All we can do is keep it working. It's the software developers that bring out the new features and handle the way things work.

It's a general theme among medical industry vendors, to be honest. Do as little work as necessary but charge out the nose for what they provide. I'd personally like to see some regulation in that industry, but no one in government seems to be willing to give up the campaign funds that come from them.

There are some certifications that are specialized for the health industry, but they aren't well known and rarely demanded. You are usually good with a solid knowledge of HIPAA requirements and how to meet them. Beyond that knowledge, Industry certs like RHEA, MCSE, CCNA, and the like are extremely important for getting through the interview process. The tricky part is finding a good company to work for.

Get a degree, but avoid majoring in IT. Take IT classes for your Minor, and major in disciplines that will teach you skills that IT people hate. Like communication or writing.

One of the problems I see constantly is people who have majored in IT but don't have any knowledge of how to work with the systems they need to. One coworker I had got a bachelors in CIS, but he had no troubleshooting skills, and could not grasp technical details. He was a great guy, but no way was he meant to do Infrastructure work. He ended up moving into Sharepoint Development, which is a good field if you're, you know, into that.

I majored in English, but spent my entire college career working for mom and pop computer repair shops around town and seamlessly (well, almost seamlessly) transitioned into small business consulting. Right now I do enterprise consulting for some pretty big companies you've heard of but I will not name :D

If you want to learn fast, get into consulting. If you want to spend a year working and turn into a freaking IT rock star, get into Managed Services. If you just want to get a paycheck and be bored all day, get into Internal IT.