Choosing a Career in IT

The IT industry is one of the largest and fast growing industries in the world with companies such as Microsoft, google, apple et al trying to dominate in this world of IT. As an individual thinking of having a career in IT, not only does it expose you to a world of new opportunities or big financial gains, you also benefit form a lot of other opportunities IT provides.
There is no company that is not IT related that would still not need the services of an IT specialist.
Just like in the medical line where you either get to be a surgeon or a gynecologist, optician and co, there are varieties of Fields in the IT sector. Some of the popular IT fields are
Network Administration
Database Administration
Programming/ Software Engineering
Web Development.

Network Administration: Network is a group of computers connected together communicating and sharing resources with each other. Companies around the world depends on computers networked together for their employers all around the world to communicate and share resources.
Therefore there is a need for a Network Administrator. According to Wikipedia, A network Administrator is an individual that is responsible for the maintenance of computer hardware and software systems and network devices that make up a computer network. They are also responsible for installing new servers, troubleshooting errors, checking performance logs monitoring network traffic.
There are certifications one must write as a network Administrator. Infact there are certifications in all areas pertaining to IT.
Some certifications that relates to Network Administration includes:
Microsoft Certified Solutions Experts (MCSE)
CISCO's CCNA
CompTIA Network+
Red Hat Certified Engineer.

Database Administration DBA: A Database Administrator is an IT Personnel that is responsible for installation, Upgrading, monitoring and maintenance of Database in an organization. DBAs work with Network Admins whose responsibility is to maintain the servers on which the database is. They also work with Programmers/web developers for the design of the database.
DBAs are required to have knowledge in SQL, My-Sql, Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL server and so on.
Some Certifications for Database Administrator includes:
Oracle 11g Administrator
Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA)

Computer Programming/ Software Engineering: Programming is the process of writing computer programs to perform tasks. It is the writing, debugging, testing and maintenance of computer programs or source codes. To be a programmer, you have to be a person that loves challenges and is not willing to easily give up because just a semi-colon will cause about over a thousand lines of codes not to work. But hey, there are IDEs that make programming look easy they almost help you in solving your errors or rather they give hints as to where your errors are coming from. There are lots of programming languages out there but it is always advisable to stick to a few like the saying (Jack of all trades master of none). Some programming languages include
Java
C
C++
JavaScript
PHP
Python
Perl
Some Certifications for programming are:
Oracle Java Programmer
Microsoft Certified Professional Developer
Microsoft Certified Application Developer

Web Development: this is a term that refers to the work involved in developing a website. Web developers could also be referred to as programmers but theirs involves building and maintenance of a website(s), web content development, client/server-side scripting et al.
Some of the Certifications one can do as a web developer are:
Micrisoft Certified Professional Developer
CIW Web Development.

Note: Certifications are not a must but be sure it would boost your CV. It gives you an edge over non-certified IT gurus in whatever field you are in.