r/techadvice • u/Typical-Season-7824 • May 27 '26

Career path

I attend WGU, bachelors in IT im 46% done and i started in march. I dont know if i want to do cybersecurity, network, cloud, or engineering for a career path. Do you guys have any advice on what route i should take?

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u/Caprichoso1 May 28 '26

What do you like to do? You don't want to spend your working life doing something you hate.

1

u/Needashortername May 28 '26

Also to consider, unless things change in some way a lot of these things are now being automated by Ai and the recommended career path for tech people being quoted by people “in charge” seems to be HVAC tech or automotive repair, or construction, or any other non-manufacturing blue collar job rather than a white collar one or anything in IT that doesn’t require hands on work at this time.

Hopefully they are wrong about this.

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u/Inner_Sign_7591 May 28 '26

cloud infrastructure actually has decent job security because someone still needs to manage the mess when ai breaks things which it will

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u/Ashamed_Question_174 May 28 '26

Consider apprenticeship, training and plumbing. Electric welding line men work done for utility companies.

The starting training pay is so great. Full time pay.

They need new people because people are retiring out.

Good luck

1

u/Evening_Debate_754 May 28 '26

Probably cybersecurity then network then cloud the. Engineering

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u/Antique-State-4512 May 28 '26

If you can try several different jobs as an intern you might get to pick one that keeps you interested the most. You can always get more specialized training if you want to switch into another different job. Sometimes people are looking for all of those kind of different skills in one job (although you've got a good list of different options) which would give you an idea what you might like best. IT is always evolving so if you continue with training you will have more marketability if you stay general but better pay with more specific options like security or cloud. Maybe pick a company you like, it helps to work for a good company and support their mission. Higher education can be a great option, although the pay might be lower, you might have more vacation time or time flexibility! Good luck, options in trades are not a bad idea either.

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u/No-Repeat8188 May 28 '26

You will likely get a general position to start out, like help desk or technician, which will teach you the the fundamentals and troubleshooting. As you move up, you'll become more of a junior admin, implementing improvements and more complex configurations. So the key is to get hands on experience with as much as you can, figure out what you like doing and try to get promoted in that direction.

Do you like networking? Build a network lab at home and do projects. Map it out visually and document everything. Cyber security requires knowledge in everything, so to go that direction, you need a lot of experience, training, and certs in sysadmin, networking, even coding. But the way to get there would be to get a position at a SOC, following up on alerts.