Graduating with an online Masters in Computer Science provides access to many different types of working roles, both traditional computer-related ones and those using computing knowledge but that aren’t solely focused in that area.
What Can You Do with a Computer Science Degree
Here are a few interesting jobs that you can do with a Masters in Computer Science online.
Game Developers
Gaming developers produce games on a variety of platforms including PC, Mac and Linux, gaming consoles, and smartphones or tablets on the iOS or Android operating systems. The fastest-growing area of game development right now is smartphone mobile gaming which sees many new titles released each month and a high level of innovation and competitiveness between development studios.
With developing, it is split into the coding side which often relies on knowledge of C++ and then storyboarding for cut scenes, animation skills, artwork and texture mapping to bring the gaming engine to life with a playable game. Employers are going to want to see early prototypes of personal games that you’ve developed in the case of a PC game or a full-blown mobile game to demonstrate your creativity or coding background.
Cyber Security
Cyber Security is a hot topic right now with companies in the Fortune 500 needing to protect their intellectual property and digital assets at all costs. The damage to brand reputation when a database of customer records gets hacked is difficult to measure, but certainly for some companies it can spell the beginning of the end for the ongoing viability of the business. When trust is lost, it’s very difficult for even the best companies to get it back from its customers and they’ll often go elsewhere.
A Computer Science degree at the Master’s level goes into far more detail than a Bachelor’s degree does and provides a better grounding to work from. Courses often include going over ethical hacking where the employee attempts to hack their employer’s network security to test it for vulnerabilities. Working in cyber security is especially challenging because the risks are high and the technological knowledge requires an ever-changing landscape.
One thing is for sure: It’ll never get boring.
Systems Analyst
A systems analyst is responsible for the design and network usage in a company including its setup and configuration. As well as working with different types of hardware, the role requires coordinating with other personnel like database administrators to track down issues they believe are hardware or network degradation issues and not software related ones.
The analyst often puts together the initial plan for how the network will be configured and deployed. Being productive and analytical in your thinking is required to perform well in this role. Different hardware combinations have pros and cons, so it’s up to the systems analyst to weigh the possibilities and choose wisely while weighing up their client’s requirements.
There are many different things you can do with a Computer Science degree or a Master’s degree as a follow-up to advance your knowledge. Branching out beyond a purely computer-related role is possible later which opens the door to managerial positions at a senior level too.