IT College Degree Options

SGT (Join to see), there are mixed comments about the Army's ACAP program, but since you'll be required to do it, you might as well knock it out early. There is a lot of good references they provide during the DOL mandated course, especially for those trying to explore what type of career they want after the military.

As SPC (Join to see) indicated, a lot is going to going to be based on what YOU want. You often hear 'backwards planning' harped on in the military and you should take a similar approach towards your education. You need to set your end goals first and then figure out what educational steps need to be taken to meet those goals.

Careeronestop (http://www.careeronestop.org/), O*NET OnLine (http://www.onetonline.org/), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS - http://www.bls.gov) are a great resources to look at different careers and learn lots of different aspects about them (plus they interconnect and reference the information between each other). For instance, if you at the "Computer and Information Systems Managers" occupation profile on BLS (http://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/computer-and-information-systems-managers.htm) it will give you a lot of detailed information about the typical positions, what they do, the environment, requirements, outlook, etc.

Good luck and heed my advice about doing your ACAP stuff now instead of later ... you will benefit MUCH more from it sooner than later and give yourself that much more time to prepare for the transition.

Justin,

Based on my own experience, here is my advice for you:

Are you interested in being a "technical" person or a manager?

Don't know much about information security/cyber security, can't provide advice here. If you want a career which is hot, here are two good options:


Learn everything about private cloud, and earn your MCSE-private cloud certification. A BS in Computer Engineering, System Engineering would put you on the right path, but not really necessary.

Consider a career in data analytics/data science. This is my current career field, and the field is not going away in the coming years. Feel free to message me.

I would say Information Systems Management. The reason is it offers the most opportunities and while the others do offer good job opportunities they are subsets of Systems Management being in a niche is good at first but then that need is fixed by software or hardware advances.

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/lmj45jgfi/no-8-management-information-systems/