Hello AUXPERC- you ask this so long ago that I am sorry it was not answered to your satisfaction. I will be happy to offer advise. I am a professor for a community college in the networking field as well as an instructor for a Fortune 100 company. Your question is a good question and I frequently hear this from my students.I will explain to you as I do to them. First the networking industry is wide open. Occupations as you rightly pointed out from Admin to network security exist. With that wide diversity you can be employed at anything you get skilled at. So what is it you enjoy? Your are working for a software programming company , do you enjoy this? Programming is an admirable profession.
By now you should have taken some of these courses you listed. Of those my favorite is the Cisco curriculum but that is my desire. Which did you enjoyed? Of those careers you mentioned the most in-demand is Cisco followed by UNIX skilled administrator then Microsoft and Novell. I am certified and teach in all of them and I recommend that you also set a goal for certification as well as for minimal costs take a community college course on the subjects. In addition many community colleges have a class for on-the-job training skills that you can take for college credit and experience. Wages sometimes help make a decision keep in mind that skill level will dictate the wage level. In the SouthWest (add cost of living in your area) Network Admin wages are low $35,000 to $50,000 ( that would go for Microsoft, Novell, with Unix at the higher end). WAN TECHs- usually $50,000 to $60,000 (Cisco 2 years of experience).
Here are a list of sites:
1-
http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/1997/01/27/smallb2.html
(an old article but good)
2-
http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/support/handbook/netadmin1.html
3-
http://infoeagle.bc.edu/bc_org/fvp/ia/euc/lan.html
hope this helps
Greg J. hauser