lickfrog

It is always better to error on the side of caution! I do however understand were your coming from. Although most newer systems are more than capable it is my experience that many business do not understand or are not willing to justify the extra expense when for all intense and purposes their current legacy systems are more than adiquit from an executives point-of-view. However many Enterprise level AV products are designed with this in mind. NOD32/ESET is in my opinion the best on the market. They're unique use/implementation of the highly regarded heuristics scanning is light years ahead of the competition. And they are the only AV provider that I know of that can claim 0 missed In-The-Wild viruses and (last I heard) less than 5% missed Zero-Day viruses. The only real down side to this particular product is that it doesn't have most of the more advanced features of current market leaders like Symantec, Norton, and Trendmicro. But lets face it people... this is the vary crap thats slowing down AV products and nodes everywhere! Back to my original point... don't make the mistake of assuming your safe just because you and your staff are the only ones intended to have access to the Server and remember how stupid you'll feel when everything blows up in your face! We've all done it! Good luck hunting!

Although, school is important, in this industry nothing hold more weight than experience! If you really want to be competitive, I would start working on your certifications. Most people will tell you to start with your MS Certs as they tend to be easier for new comers to the field but if you'd like a slightly more aggressive approach I'd start looking into getting your SANS or Cisco certifications. As for your choice of major, that should be based on your primary interest or your intended career. Which ever route you decide to take, if you truly wish to be competitive in the field of pen-testing your are going to need a strong understanding and background both in networking/network protocols and computer programming (among other things).