Furthermore, this field is growing by leaps and bounds, and the salaries of Information Technology (IT) professionals are on the rise. In some areas of this country,these salaries are approaching those of doctors and lawyers. But, these salaries are being constrained for the same reasons, i.e. any determined, intelligent and motivated person could reach the level of IT professional without a formal education in the field.

If you wanted to be a professional in any field in the past, you normally invested at least 4 years of your life at an accredited college in some course of study. This route was time-consuming, and required some expense to accomplish. Not to mention, it was not guaranteed to get you gainful employment in the real world.

In the 1980s there came a computer science cirriculum. It evolved as any new system of learning does. It was dubbed IT (Information Technology), MIS (Management Information Systems) or the less heard IS (Information Systems). At the close of that decade, it congealed into a structured curriculum of study. In its final form a student would learn the anatomy of a network and its functioning in the first year. In the second and third years, the student would get to apply this knowledge in practice. Usually by interning on a university campus, support LAN or WAN operations of the university. In some cases, students would intern at local businesses. The growth LAN or WAN networks, gradually made this sort of apprenticeship a necessary part of the 3rd year study. In the final year, students developed the intricate knowledge they would need, to fully support a real world client-server computer network. This year entailed some study of the Internet environment. His knowledge of topics covered in the previous years is deepened. he is given an opportunity to specialize in some area: WWW support, LAN administration, webmaster, Unix administration, etc.

This synopsis is a brief outline of what it takes to become an IT professional today. First, lets compare this traditional course of study in IT to a older area of higher learning: medicine. I consider this realm of knowledge a good comparative example, but by no means the only one. The choice of medical cirriculum is for illustrative purposes only.

To be a doctor, the time period is obviously longer. Doctors on average require 8 to 10 years to become professionals and it's more expensive. With these differences aside, the course of study in both fields share similarities. Both, start by studying the elements of a system, and move on to apply this knowledge. Medical students take much longer to arrive at this point. A pre-medical matriculation for 4 years, before a medical student actually begins to study the anatomy of the human body. Nevertheless, the process is the same. Medical students eventually get to apply their knowledge by interning at hospitals, and as they progress through their 4 year matriculation in medical school proper, they choose an area of specialization, just as an IT major does.

The same comparison can be made for law students, engineers, agronomists, linguists, physicists, etc.

It is now, possible to become an IT professional, without ever setting foot in any institution of higher learning. Furthermore, the business environment is actually encouraging this path to computer professionalism.

All that you would need to travel the alternative path to IT status knowledge is at least one computer, a lot of unrelenting self-study from a plethora of instructional manuals that are available, the Internet and time. I recommended that you have more than one computer and some peripheral equipment like a hub, router and printer, maybe some software to create your own network, but these extras are not strictly necessary. By investing your time in study and testing your growing knowledge on your home machine, then going on the Internet for even more instructional resources, in a matter of less than 4 years, a dedicated individual can develop a knowledge that even rivals working IT professionals. This process can actually be accelerated, if the individual has access to a functioning client-server network.

The same cannot be said of someone whom desires to be a doctor or lawyer. Why?

This answer is the source of the irony I’ve mentioned. The growth of client-server network systems since 1980 has spawned this new area of professional specialization. While it is related to other areas of expertise it is not the same as them. Computer science is the general area of knowledge under which Information Technology is classified. There are other areas that require as much, if not more study to gain competency. Software Engineering is one. Computer programming is another. While both of these specializations, are based on computers, you cannot achieve competency in either just by possessing a computer and having a strong motivation. You need to study subjects outside the field of computer science. Or in other words, you still need to go to college. But for Network Administration, the source of its study is now widely owned, e.g. computers. Moreover, the object of study, e.g. the system of connecting and using computers is even more widespread. Whether you work in a factory or office, a client-server network is probably used somewhere in your workplace.

The object of a medical science student’s study is the human body. It’s obvious that every medical student doesn’t have cadaver at home to carry on his studies. The object study of for a law student is the vast literature of the nation’s jurisprudence. It's even more unlikely to be contained in any student’s home. But, for an IT student the very thing he wants to be proficient with, is literally at his fingertips. Even better, far from necessitating that he go to college to become proficient, it (the computer that is) itself can make him highly capable with it and any network it connects to. There is the irony! Add to this, the fact that being proficient with this machine and the systems that surround it is extremely lucrative. Now, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that many people will opt for the self-educated route to IT proficiency. Why it wouldn’t take a moron to see that! And this irony becomes all the more strange, when we consider what the prevalence of computers and computer networks are doing to salaries.

Before 1981, when IBM jumped into the PC market, client-server network systems were virtually non-existent. If you wanted to be, an IT professional in those days, and not go to college, you would have found it difficult. No IBM mainframe was less than 100,000 dollars and I doubt if it would have fit into your house easily. (Unless of course if you were one of the very wealthy. But, of course they wouldn't have been evenly remotely interested in computers then) The principle of the mainframe operation is essentially different from a client-server network anyway. To learn how they work then, you would have to have gone to college, because those with the knowledge of them was so limited. But, since the introduction of these networks in the mid 1980’s to the present, the régime I described above has ensued. I mean to say, self-educated people coming onto a growing market with as much (if not more) knowledge as the college-educated professionals. Now, there are a great deal of project managers, executive managers, manager’s managers, vice presidents of operations, presidents of financial services, ad infinitum that see these young (hey they’re usually young) upstarts come to their firms and run rings around the established, very expensive college professionals. They conference in places like Short Hills, NJ, Reno, NV, and so on. And they have come to a to-be-expected conclusion: why not drop this Bachelors of Science in computer science requirement and pay the upstarts less, say just $70 an hour. It beats the $100 plus an hour some of these IT professionals are commanding in various parts of the country. As a direct result of this human networking, the labor for this highly skilled service is change. To prove my point, browse any search engine on the Internet and look up IT, network administration, MIS, etc, you find descriptions coming back with phrases like BS degree or equivalent experience. The candidate’s salary is dependent on this and nothing more. So, we have a second irony. The growth of client-server networks and people with the expertise to operate them has lead to a competitive market for their services. That competition extends to salaries. While salaries skyrocketed in recent years the very fact that so many could obtain this knowledge very cheaply has lead to a slow down in the enormous salaries IT professionals command. The demand for these people is what drove the cost of their services up in the first place. But, the entry of unconventionally educated players to this market has allowed users of their services to bring down the price for them. So, the very thing that caused a rise in salaries now causes a decline: demand.

I can’t divine the future of specialists in the field of IT. With the ironic twists that the changes in the computer science have already wrought, it would be foolish to make detailed predictions. But, in the guise of opinion, I can engage in fool’s play and venture a little forecasting.

So, my opinion is that the Net will usher in, an age of entrepreneurial inclined, and self-educated individuals, that will find each other and actually surpass the established institutions such as colleges and university to create their institutions. Having created their own establishments, they will be eclipsed by an even younger generation that develops even more robust and self-instructional systems. The process brings to feedback and I don't where it will end.