Now that depends what do find more comfortable with. You might have at least done some sort of academic course on programming like C, C++ etc. If u r comfortable with any sort of programming then better take Java but if u enjoy more on command line stuffs, shell programming , network administration etc then go for system administration. Both options have huge opportunities however now that this 'Cloud' computing slowly gaining its market and eventually everything be hosted on cloud, jobs that deals with system administration supposedly might undergo fierce competition. On the other hand there will be constant demands for programmers whether it will be Cloud or something else coz once u r familiar with one programming language u would easily catch up with another one if something new evolves and creates demand in the market. After all the notion of programming is same in case of all languages only syntax and semantics are different.