Career Options

I'm pretty new to the IT field (21, in college for CS, working full-time at 45k/yr, and taking those easy ass certs) a little over 2 years in with over 8 years programming exp. I'm curious as my prospects seem to be high right now and I would like some experiencedfags to shed some light on this subject.

Moneywise which path should I take?
-System Admin (active directory, exchange, fucking with servers type of thing, pretty easy)
-Programmer (self-explainatory, but I find it average difficulty and boring as shit)
-DBA (i know a little about normilization and optimization. I'm also interested in it and very good at data mining)
-Infrastructure (routing & switching type of thing)

Anything else? This is all entry level though, looking to be director or higher later. Pros/Cons of each?

just do what you enjoy doing.
if you don't enjoy any of those things, then gtfo my /prog/

>>1
Your post enrages me.

Dedicate your life to something useful like Haskell.

Pros
- AWESOME!
- Free dog!

Cons
- Nothing!

NO EXCEPTIONS

>>3

What did it ever do to you?

>>2
I enjoy all these things to a degree which is now why I care about the money.

>>4
Just out of curiosity, how does Haskell lend itself to making money? All I hear of it is academic in nature. Where do I get my free dog?

>>4
Cons
- Dog is dead!
- (:)!

>>7
Pros
-Free dead dog!

>>6
How about you concentrate on being happy rather than making money? Just learn some enterprise bullshit and do some minor enterprise jobs, and learn Haskell to play around when you have the time.

hello im the sussman

        . . ,.".".'"""..
      .             ,__\.~~
     .    ;'``` '``     \!"
     .   `.              \~"
      .., '  ____________|'~"
     `.  .__/     |_|    |\
      `..'  |  = /  | =  ||
          | \___/   |\___|/
          |        _|    |
           \      __     |
            \    /__\  ./
            |`'._____.'|
           /|          /\

- (:)!
> <span class="pun">
How apt.

>>11
apt my anus

>>4
lolol is ur dof ded

>>9

Die, hippy die!
</cartman>

Doesn't matter, Sanjay and Ramesh will end up taking your job.

>>15
he he he he he.
you go and believe that. i love this baseless fear that so many people have.
get a job outside of programming, go do plumbing or something - unclogging people's toilets.
all the more jobs for me :3

Head up north/south/east/west on a fabled journey in a search for the famous AI LaCSAIL.

If you ever get there, maybe you can send us a postcard with a signature of The Abelson on it.

>>16
It's strange, though. I live in a civilised country, with higher wage rates than the U.S., and yet the IT industry seems to be thriving fine. It doesn't matter that Abdul and Xong Lee can program Java in their respective countries as long as the most important parts of a software project are intelligence gathering and team communication.

In any case, outsourcing is overrated. It may be cheaper, but it's hardly a panacea. There's product quality and communication with the rest of the larger team to worry about.

>>18
because the IT industry is growing.
sure, more and more work is being outsourced, but so many new jobs are being created that it all balances out in the end.