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I understand. And you're right, there are far fewer IT programs than CS programs. Especially for any form of degree. It's actually been a frustration of mine to see so many IT related job postings with a heavy preference towards anyone holding a degree. There's so few degrees level programs for IT that the only way to satisfy that requirement is to get a degree in CS, most of the time. CS isn't IT.

The sad truth of it is that most people can't differentiate between an IT specialist or someone in CS or development. Nevermind anything more specific than that, like an SQL/net/sys admin. I'm sure there's just as many of the same or similar roles that people lump together into "tech person" on the CS/dev side, but I don't know them nearly as well, since I'm firmly on the IT support side of things.

The point is that the entire field, for pretty much anyone who isn't in it, or anyone who works directly with IT teams, is just one conglomerate of every "tech" person out there, as if any of my skills are transferable to development, or any developers skills are transferable to systems administration. So since there's computer technology degrees, people with them must have more skills and somehow be better to hire than someone who doesn't have such a degree.... Which could not be further from the truth. People with more recent, real-world experience in IT, generally are better suited for jobs in IT than anyone fresh out of uni holding their bachelor's in something, looking for an IT support role.

Which also brings me to industry certifications. I don't love certifications because bluntly, most of them are certifying that you can use the certified device/system/software when it is working normally. I almost never encounter a ticket where someone is having a problem with a thing that's working as it should. I have yet to encounter any certification that says that thing A can break in X, Y, and, Z ways, here's how you fix each.... Because if the vendor knows about the problems for long enough that it ends up in training materials, they probably should have solved the problem already.

On top of that, most industry certifications are valid for 2, maybe 3 years at most, and even if they didn't expire, and even though most of the skills are transferable to any updated version of the same thing, generally the certification on that thing becomes irrelevant to have after a few years because the vendor releases a new thing. You were certified in VMware 7.5? Ha, get fucked, everyone is using VMware 8 now. Sucks to be you. Go do the cert all over again. Nothing of consequence changed, but you get to do it anyways. Sucker.

Because of this, even if you do industry certifications, you have to recertify every few years regardless just so you can put thing (version++) on your resume. It's stupid.

I hold my vcp5 and vcp6 because they don't expire anymore (VMware), and neither is useful because both VMware 5, and 6 are EOL. But I got those certs working for VMware as part of GSS. I know how things work very in-depth. The kind of knowledge that you can't get from a certification. How to read logs to determine specific problems, how to troubleshoot and solve those problems, how the inner workings of the program actually do what they do. I can't exactly express that on my resume beyond stating that I have an in-depth understanding of VMware and it's infrastructure subsystems, which, I don't know a hiring manager that will understand what that actually means, but they'll see VMware 5/6 and be like, we're using 8... And go hire a vcp8 instead though they have no deeper understanding of the product than what VMware discloses in their training; so when shit hits the fan, that vcp8 has no earthly idea where to even begin diagnosing the problem.

I don't have the time to keep up on VMware certifications because I work with too many different technologies; I can't dedicate months of my time to learning what VMware wants me to know about their product to recertify.

The problem isn't just VMware. It's everyone. I have my Cisco certification (CCNA) which is now expired, but Cisco hasn't really made any changes that would require me to. In the mean time I've worked on countless Cisco routers and switches (among others) where my knowledge has been critical. On top of that, I've transposed those skills onto Juniper, watchguard, sonicwall, mikrotik, HP/Aruba.... Many many others. Yet, my sonicwall certification is also expired by many years at this point, I have no certification in juniper, mikrotik, Aruba, or any others. So while I may know how to administrate those systems, without dedicating my life to continually obtaining and recertifing with them all the damned time, I'm not taken seriously. What a fucking joke.

Then some green beard with a CS degree walks in and my application is filed in the round bin with all the other rejects.

The stupid thing is, I have a 2-year diploma in computers/networking. I want a degree in IT, and I can't get one, because even though degree programs for IT now exist, they're only offered as in person, classroom courses, and at 40, with a mortgage, I can't afford to take 4 years off of work to do the degree, just to be taken seriously. I want to take it part time/remote, and I could care less if it takes me 8 years to complete. But I can't, because the option doesn't exist. Most universities won't even discuss making a plan with me because I'm not enrolled. I can't enroll because there's no course I could reasonably take without quitting my job to go to school full time. It's infuriating.

All I really want is to sit down with someone from a college or uni that offers a degree in IT, and talk about how I could possibly accomplish it doing the majority of the work remotely. I can't even get that. If I could get a quantum of help from these clowns, I could do it. I'm not lazy, I just don't have any idea where to even start with getting the degree. Sigh.

Sorry for the rant, but the whole thing boils my blood. I've worked so hard and I'm stuck at mediocre pay for jobs that I don't want to specialize in. I'm doing largely IT generalist work and I'm most interested in all avenues of networking. But I'm stuck here because nobody gives the generalist a chance to prove themselves as the network admin; meanwhile I've been the most skilled network person at several jobs; and when the NOC guys come to me for answers, I have to question my sanity.