What is management information systems?

What is MIS (management of information systems)?

• Is that type of degree hard to pursue, i.e. extremely difficult courses, etc.? What is it like? I've changed my college pursuit from Music to something in Business, and I was considering MIS since someone told me a little about it. Can anyone give me more information about MIS, like "what's it like" and "what can I do with it after school"? I would appreciate it!

• Answer:

  First off, pursue your passion! If you really like music and you feel like there's no money in it, don't change your "career objective," change your attitudes towards living with a minimal income! In this capitalist system, we're tricked into believing that we need to make a buttload of money to be happy or successful. But if you only semi-enjoy music, then it's a different story. MIS is kind of a unique field. I'll start by telling you what everyone else has probably told you -- that it's a "mix of business and computer science." This is somewhat true. More likely than not, you will become a project manager. But you will need a strong understanding of the fundamentals of both how software works, and how business operates. This mix makes you valuable and eligible to do either software or business. Since you are most likely going to be a project manager, it means that you will need to assign tasks efficiently to (I can admit it because I am one!) socially inept, and unusually grumpy, Computer Programmers and Software Engineers. You will need to know how software functions, and what kinds of things could bottleneck performance and efficiency, both in the software and within the group you manage. As you can probably tell, this means that your life is most likely going to be spent in a large corporation, which may or may not be what you want to do. I'm finding a replacement for my job (Web Application Developer) as I'm going abroad, but let me tell you -- some of the best candidates majored in fields completely unrelated to Computer Science. Topping the list of qualified candidates is a major in "Radio Communications." Study what you like, that's all I can say.