Information Technology

Discipline History

The history of Information Technology has four basic periods. Those periods are the Premechanical Age, the Mechanical Age, the Electromechanical Age, and the Electronic Age. The Premechanical Age, which was from 3000 B.C. to 1450 A.D., started with the first humans communicating through speaking and drawings. The first calculator was the abacus. The Mechanical Age, which was from 1450 to 1840, brought on punch cards and “computers” that were used for general purposes. At this time, the term “computers” was a job title for people who could work really well with numbers. The Electromechanical Age, which was from 1840 to 1940, brought on the invention of Morse Code and the Telegraph. Another invention that was created and has been improved on to this day was the telephone, created by Alexander Graham Bell. The telephone was invented in 1876. Finally, the age that is the current period to this day, the Electronic Age, brought on the first vacuum tubes, and digital computing. The current generation of digital computing allows for people to build PC’s, or personal computers for their own leisure, or for a business.
As far as the history of Information Technology goes at Georgia Southern, the few things that I was able to find was that the College of IT did not get started here at the university until 2003. It might have been earlier than that, but I could not find any more information about it.

Education

In order to graduate from Georgia Southern University with a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology, a person has to have 51 credits in their IT major classes, 9 elective credits, 18 credits in a second discipline, 48 University credits, 126 total credits, and 280 hours of internship in a related field.

Major Page at Georgia Southern

College of Engineering and Information Technology home page

Degree Plan

Information Technology Degree Plan

Academic Advisor(s)

The academic advisor for Information Technology is Joshua Williams. His room is 1208G. His email is ude.nrehtuosaigroeg|smailliwjauhsoj#ude.nrehtuosaigroeg|smailliwjauhsoj.
List of advisors

Research and Writing in the Discipline

Writing Assignments

Throughout my time in college, writing will be an important factor into being able to make it throughout my profession. Being that my major is Information Technology, there will not be so many writing assignments. Most of my assignments will have to deal with technical work. However, if I ever chose my second discipline in my major to be Technical Writing, I will have to do a good amount of writing assignments for the next two years. The Technical Writing discipline of Information Technology has a list of eleven classes that deal with improving a person’s writing for their profession. There are not many writing assignments that I could find online for the classes. The only thing that I could possibly find was the course descriptions of the courses for the second discipline. The courses that I need to take for the Technical Writing include Writing in the Workplace, Document Creation for Technical and Professional Writers, and Technical and Professional Editing.

Non-Traditional Research and Writing

Blogs

There are a couple of blogs for IT readers that are updated periodically. One of the blogs that are important is Information Week. Information Week is a website where it dwells into the more business side of information technology. Most of the articles on Information Week talk about technology in healthcare, business, education, and other topics such as government. Another important blog is CNET. CNET is a website where people can find out the latest news on technology. They can also find reviews and previews on technology so it would give the audience their opinion on whether to buy that specific product or not.

Listservs

There are not many listservs that students can subscribe to for information technology. One listserv that could be of importance is the University of Iowa IT listserv.

Publication Manual(s) and Style Guide(s)

For Information Technology, writers use the IEEE manual. IEEE stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. Description of the manual

Jobs and Careers

There are several careers that a person can pursue after they graduate with their Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. Some of those careers include Information Technology Manager, Systems Administrator, Network Engineer, Software Engineer, Information Technology Consultant, Senior Software Engineer/Developer, and Project Manager for Information Technology. The salaries for the IT careers range from $59,000 to $87,000 per year. A Systems Administrator would make roughly $59,000 a year, while a Information Technology Manager would make roughly close to $87,000 a year. However, location is very important as far as salaries go. If a person were to work in the IT field in California, their salary would be roughly $81,000 per year. Meanwhile, in Georgia, the salary would be roughly $71,000. Experience in the field will come into play as well. If a person has one to four years experience, that person would be making roughly $45,000 to $50,000. After five to ten years experience, that person would be making $60,000 to $70,000. Ten to twenty years experience would have the salary at $80,000 to $90,000. After a person has twenty or more years of experience, the salary would be roughly around $100,000 a year. As far the employment trend is concerned, the trend continues to rise for companies to employ people who have IT experience. Technology continues to evolve every year, and companies thrive for people who have experience with the latest technology trends. IT workers are needed in all organizations now, so the demand is pretty high.

Graduate School(s)

There is a fair amount of graduate schools that people can attend in order to have a Master of Science in Information Technology. One graduate school is Nova Southeastern University. The University is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and their program is a 36 credit hour program. Another graduate school for information technology is the Georgia Institute of Technology, better known as Georgia Tech.

References