I work as a System/Network admin, I have found that my job is much easier if I replace thing s that I do not like to do (parse logs, backup files, monitor equipment) with something that I do like to do (write Perl scripts to do my work). All of that aside, have a BS in Mathematics, where I learned the usual c, c++, FORTRAN, BASIC, assembler, etc... but I usually choose Perl because it is quicker to write and easier to maintain.