Investigate a Career: Computer Support Specialist

Kevin Golchin Per. 1 3/21/10 Investigate a Career: Computer Support Specialist After looking at various jobs, I find the computer support specialist position most interesting. There are many reasons why I think this career is most exciting: the computer support specialist provides technical support, assistance, and advice to individuals and organizations that are dependent on information technology. They can also work in organizations that provide computer systems for computer hardware and software vendors or a third party support services on a contractual basis such as help desk companies.There are two groups of computer support specialists; they are the technical support specialist and the help desk specialist. Work takes place at an office or a computer laboratory, although third party computer support specialists can either spend more time at a client’s work location or sometimes from a remote location. The amount of education to get this job can be from some formal colleg e education to a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering, computer science, or information systems, although some people may only need a computer related associate degree.The position entails some on the job training, which can last anywhere from a week to a whole entire year, but the training is usually about three months. A few years ago in 2008, there were about 565,700 people that held this job. The job outlook for this career is very promising because employment for this job is projected to increase faster than any average job, and the job prospect is good especially with a college degree. About 18% of computer support specialists can find employment in the computer systems design and related services industry.They can also be employed in various industries like administrative and support services companies, financial institutions, insurance companies, government agencies, educational institutions, software publishers, telecommunications organizations, and healthcare o rganizations. The median salary for this job is about 33,680 to 55,990 dollars, the bottom ten percent median salary is about $26,580 and the top ten percent salary is about $70,750. Some related occupations are a customer service representative, who respond to customer inquiries on any computer related issue, a computer software engineer, who create software applications and ystems, and a computer and information systems manager, who oversee all the technical information aspect of a company. My chosen career path of computer support specialist can advance into an information systems managerial position or can lead into a computer engineering or customer service position. I believe that I would enjoy the computer support specialist position because I enjoy working with computers like running diagnostics and resolving problems.I always help my mom whenever she has some problems with our computer at home. Another reason that I like this career path is that I would be continually expos ed to what is the latest in computer technology. I wouldn’t lose interest in the job because I would keep learning new things as information technology is always changing. One quality that I possess that will make me successful in this field is that I am smart, and I believe that I would be able to resolve computer problems even with high degree of complexity.Another quality that would give me an edge in this career path is that I am a hard worker, and I wouldn’t give up easily on any computer challenges that confront me. I also have good social skills and very patient, and these qualities would be helpful in dealing with computer users in a company, clients and customers. I find the computer support specialist most interesting and appealing, and I think that it would be an excellent career choice for me in the field of computer technology.