General Advice, appreciated?

Hey fellow redditors, you guys help me out on everything and I thought It'd be time to ask a question that I don't feel the most comfortable asking.

I'm 23 and I've been studying in IT for a number of years, to date the only real piece of paper that I have is my HND in Computer Technical Support.

Currently, I'm at university and before that I scored a pretty sweet first time position with IBM, I was there for roughly 9months and I learned a lot in a very short period of time.

Fast forward 2 years and I'm coming up to the close up for my BSc in Computer Security, security they told me, this right here is the biggest lie ever. I've had close to minimal security apart from 2/12 modules that I've studied so far.

I, like some others I know thought that leaning towards security was an exciting and valuable prospect and this was true for sometime and then we were told that apart from being top kit students and landing security positions, we'd were most likely to end up attempting to provide evidence on convicted pedophiles.

This right here, instantly made me feel quite sick, I then started to think that I could adjust to it and after being subscribed to Forensics subreddit I heard things like, "they just become objects on a screen after a while" and coping mechanism and bi-yearly psychological checkups. This isn't what I want from professional life, simply put.

I have the imagination of being a Network Engineer or Sys Admin, a respectable position that allows me to perform what I enjoy most.

At the moment, I'll work for £16k-19k, that's a decent wage for my age and experience I believe. What I'm trying to achieve here is where do I take appropriate steps to get a position like that, in my opinion several employers and agencies don't seem to want to touch me after working for IBM, either that or the market has dried up here? I was on about 2 interviews a week when I was applying before IBM and now, I barely get anything back from the same if not very similar positions.

You could also say I'm looking to make "higher tier" friends and "similar tier" friends here. I'm probably still considered slightly introverted, but I was a lot worse in my younger days.

TLDR: No certs, 9month experience, Bachelors degree won't be awarded until August.

Need: General advice and some professional friends.