Information Systems Concentration Decision

After many years in college, I have finally advanced into my field of interest. Now that I have information systems as my major, I need to decide what to concentrate in. The University of Arkansas has a great business college, and an even greater information systems program. Its information systems program offers three areas of concentration which include applications development, enterprise resource planning, and enterprise systems.

All these concentrations are really interesting, but I can only choose one. Applications development mainly deals with programming, and making applications suitable to a certain company. This concentration has the potential of being good, but you also have to be very good in programming since programming can easily be outsourced. Programming is very interesting, but I have yet to test out my full ability to code in VB.net or Java. In my previous programming classes, I haven't been so good at programming, so I might turn away from this concentration.

The concentration that I am considering the most right now is Enterprise Resource Planning. Having skills in ERP makes me very unique because the Walton College is the only business school in the world that teaches the systems that are run by Fortune 500 companies-real, large-scale Enterprise Systems. Lots of companies would love having an employee with a background in ERP. The Walton College is one of only few colleges that offers hands-on experience with SAP, the world's leading provider of ERP business software. I already have some experience with SAP, and I can work it pretty well. Next semester I will be advancing into the second SAP class, and get more in depth with it. If I have no troubles in the class, then this would be perfect for me. People in SAP work also get paid very well. One time in class, one of my professors showed the class the average salary for an entry level SAP consultant, and it was between 80,000 to 100,000 dollars. This seems like a good path for my future.

The final concentration offered is Enterprise Systems. I haven't learned much about these, but they're the big mainframe systems that Fortune 500 companies run and hold all of their data on. The Walton College offers four major hubs and support systems, and access to large, real-world datasets that are IBM z-Series 900 Mainframe Server, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Teradata Database Server, and SAP Enterprise Resource Planning Software. This concentration also sounds very interesting as we learn more about big datasets. I still have a few years left to take classes, and learn more about Enterprise systems.

As of now, I am having Enterprise Resourcing Planning as my main Information Systems concentration. Choosing a major was already hard enough, and now choosing a field to specialize in is important. For any Information Systems majors I suggest you take all three entry level classes to the three concentrations to see which fits you, and your skill sets the most. Even if one of the classes doesn't fit you, it won't go to waste as it will count as a junior/senior elective. Also for anyone that is having a hard time choosing a concentration in your major, just find your strengths in the concentrations, and do the research. You will make the right choice, and you can always changing your concentration is a whole lot easier than changing majors.