I'm a comp science grad and currently am working in networking industry.
My comp is an MNC and my job is to provide hardcore tech support to worldwide customers.

I love networking, I have CCNP and other certs. It's true that if you love something nothing can actually prevent u from learning by yourself. But as a matter of fact if you learn something which you will not really use in future it will slow down your growth.

If you see networking as your future then I guess it's better to do an IT networking course, not computer science.
With computer science we learn things like data structure or programming paradigm, which do not AT ALL in use in my current jobs. If I spent the time in learning OSPF BPG IPSec instead of these stuffs when I was an undergraduate, I guess today I have been further than where I currently am.

vertical growth or horizontal growth is a choice. Some ppl know many things but not in depth, some ppl know something but damn good.
i guess the former can b good presales n the latter can b good techie, both r well paid. 5 digits not a problem at all.

choice may depend on situation. for example a system guy knows well about AD, a network guy knows well about router/firewall, a db guy knows well about oracle, what if the comp runs a solution that needs to integrate all these things? single-sign-on requires gateway + AD/LDAP for example, and if network itself is complex and the AD is of black forest..hehe even L3 tech support can screw big time. POC screwed up, sales screwed up, boss screws tech guy, sales screws tech guy, everybody screw tech guys. think twice if u really wanna b tech LOL

have a friend CCIE in voice, vy young, 5 digits pay. Spent so much time in leanring voice stuff n today he's a voice expert. But if you asked him to troubleshoot Exchange i guess he'll surrender.

if u wanna b a high-paid techie, don play warcraft, waste your time only hehe.

ops dunno where im heading to hehe. learning is fun.

if success is easy to achieve, everybody has achieved it
work harder, you will eventually reap it

imho