I made the mistake of taking the Network Administration "track" for my B.S. in Computer Science (at my college, everyone in CS takes 2 years of "core" programming classes, then transitions to a specialization in either networking, hardcore programming, or security/cryptology) thinking that I wanted to go into server administration. Got hired by the company I was interning for at the time before I graduated, spent 2 years working on servers, and hated every second of it.
I spent a lot of my nights and weekends reading books, programming and playing catch-up, and eventually landed a new job doing strictly web/applications development and data work. Best decision I ever made professionally.
I work for a mega-conglomerate consumer packaged goods company that generally treats their employees pretty well, pays decently, etc...they give you opportunities to work on projects that really make a difference on a global scale, plus you get the occasional fun trip overseas depending on the project (trying to finagle myself a trip to Japan next year). The fact that the company is outsourcing a lot of network administration to Argentina and the Philippines makes me happy I made that career switch when I did.
That being said, dream job was always to work at Sega corporate in San Francisco. At one point last year, a job popped up at Sega corporate that was very similar to the job I do now. I started looking into it though and found out the target salary...broke my heart to find out that I would have made less at Sega, in frickin' downtown San Fran, that I would at my current job in Wisconsin (with zero job security to boot).
I did have a friend growing up back home that always said "One day I'm going to work for Nintendo." Sure as shit, he does now and has credits in Wave Race Blue Storm and Metroid Prime. f*cking bastard.
