Another day has passed by, and you’ve grown tired of counting tips before heading home past midnight. Or you’ve come to resent the work that keeps you outside in the heat of Summer as much as the cold of Winter. Perhaps you’re sitting in Political Philosophy class right this instant, wishing for your professor to get to the point. Maybe, just maybe, you really just want to go home and play some video games.

How is it that you can bring together the interests that inspire you and the skills that set you apart to start a real career? How is it that you can go to sleep each night not worrying if tomorrow’s customers will be generous to ensure that you keep the lights on? How is that you can get yourself into a job without so much stress, without such a time commitment, without dealing with so many people?

“I’ve got it!” you say, “I can work in IT!”

You sure can… but should you?

What is I.T.?

IT is a broad field. Like medicine or law, there is much beneath the surface that many people never see. We work on the help desk or manage storage solutions. We architect networks or administer systems. We manage projects or manage the financial aspects of our departments. We are consultants, road warriors, public speakers, mentors, and thought leaders. We are Service Managers, Change Managers, Transition Managers, Security Managers, and maybe even IT Managers.

IT is not the brainchild product of application developers, though the lines blur more and more every day, instead, it is the infrastructure on which the applications we depend on each day ride. IT is often behind the scenes but can be front of mind as organizations work to leverage every last dollar of capital to increase sales, reach more people, or advance their mission.

And never before has there been a better time, statistically speaking, to join the field.

It is a good time to be getting into Information Technology.

To be fair, it has been a good time to get into IT for a long time. The tech unemployment rate since 2000 has never been above 6.5 percent, and today, we’re looking at sub 2 percent unemployment. In many parts of the United States, those in the market for a new job in IT can find themselves facing negative unemployment. Negative.

This means there are often more jobs than there are qualified individuals to fill them. The increase in competition drives up wages, and today we find ourselves in a world where the median pay for Computer Support Specialists is $52,810 per year, and the median pay for Network Architects is beyond $100,000 per year. Combine this with projected job growth of 11% year over year, and we’ve found ourselves a field where one can make at a minimum a respectable wage, and perhaps even move towards financial independence- all with the comfort of knowing that changes in the marketplace won’t drive you out of your job.

This all sounds pretty wonderful, especially if you are young and aimless, or you’ve been in the workforce a long while but haven’t found whatever it is you might be looking for.

So why isn’t the market flooding with talent?

IT isn’t for everyone.

There is more to this field than your interest in consumer technology, gadgets, video games, personal computers, or mobile devices. You’ll need to know more than some binary math, the OSI model, or how to setup the family router. No matter where your career takes you, it will be important to learn how to understand, work with, and ultimately influence people- for good, of course. There will be difficult days, and long nights. You may find yourself on-call during special occasions or traveling around the country for extended periods of time. Perhaps one day you’ll be the boss, and feel as though you have made it, only to experience the feeling of having to let go of otherwise good people when their performance just isn’t good enough.

Most IT jobs are good jobs. Some are most definitely not. The pages that follow will be your guide to deciphering the jargon, cutting through the lingo, and creating a path towards success. Welcome to the IT Atlas.