Career: Network Administrators

There’s no question that a computer on its own is quite powerful. It can perform superhuman calculations and makes typing up your research papers a breeze. But networks of computers that can share information multiply that power -- and businesses now depend on them. And that, of course, means they also depend on the administrators who tend to them.

Network administrators design, install, and manage computer networks for businesses and organizations.

Did You Know?

• Many network administrators offer their services remotely, through email or the Internet, to reduce travel time for both their clients and themselves.

Are You Ready To...?

• Discuss network needs with the employees of a small start-up company
• Configure a network and server from a remote location
• Design a wide-area network (WAN) for the various branches offices of a corporation
• Protect networks against hackers

It Helps to Be...

As interested in working with people as you are in working with computers.

Make High School Count

• Sign up for computer science.
• Apprentice yourself to whoever’s in charge of your schools computer lab.
• Build strong communication skills in English, drama, and speech classes.
• Learn by doing: create your own website on the Internet, the biggest network of all.

Did You Know?

• Data was first transmitted between individual computers in the 1950s, when MIT set up a network for monitoring the air defense of the United States.

Outlook

Government economists predict job growth for network administrators to be much faster than the average for all careers through 2014. Businesses continue to depend heavily on networks and are particularly concerned about “cybersecurity.”

Compensation

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the average yearly salary in 2006 for network and computer systems administrators was $65,260.