What fuels a person’s passion to work with
computers? Many people have fond
memories of when they were kids and received their first computer. From that point on they knew they didn’t want
to work in anything but IT. My route to
the IT field wasn’t as clear cut as that, but my desire to work with computers
brought me down that path in the end.
I’m not old enough to have worked with an Apple II
or Commodore 64, but I do remember an age before home computers and the
internet were commonplace. Our family
purchased our first computer in 1997, back when they still cost around $2000. (Although that may seem steep in
an age of super-cheap computers, in hindsight you’d expect to pay about that or
more for a top-end gaming rig or Ultrabook today). I certainly had an interest early on, but I
can’t say that I always knew that I wanted to work with computers. I lived in a small
farming community, and IT careers just weren’t something many people moved into.
For me it was more of a slow progression as my
knowledge increased over my high school years.
Basement LAN parties began to be a regular thing, with me lugging the
family computer around (despite my mother’s pleas). I began upgrading the family desktop when it
no longer met my expectations. My first personal computer was a custom-built desktop I had a friend build when I was a senior. I moved off to college and was surprised that
I was one of the few people who had their own computer. For many of my high school friends, that was just
something you had!
Once I became a serious student in college I
didn’t have time for my “hobby”. My desktop
computer became unstable with hardware and software issues that I didn’t know
how to fix (I was still an amateur). My
desktop became a paperweight, as most of my work was done on my
university-issued laptop. This was how
things progressed for most of my college years.
Thankfully, shortly after graduating and entering
the “real” world, my hobby resurfaced, and this time it really took off. I built myself a brand new custom rig. I reconnected with my old LAN party
friends. I worked through my own issues and resolved them myself, rather than relying on customer service. I started overclocking my GPU and CPU to
boost performance. And I was having a
blast!
After graduating with a degree in Engineering
Technology I worked in the field of energy conservation. After five years I took the time to
reevaluate what I’d done and if I was happy with the direction I was
going. As one of the few industries that
saw growth during the recession, it was a fine career and an exciting industry
to be in, but something seemed to be missing.
It finally hit me that I’d never explored computer
science as a career. In fact I was
fairly ignorant of the careers that were available. I wrestled with the idea for a while and
finally realized that I just wasn’t excited about the prospects that my current
career path was taking me on. I spoke to
some friends in IT about what they’d gone through and the work that they'd done,
analyzed which path would be best for me, and decided to go all-in on a new
career in software development. I signed
up for the associate degree program at MATC (Milwaukee Area Technical College) and came up with a plan to switch
careers.
The decision to switch has been one of the best
decisions of my life. I’m blown away by
the wealth of opportunities available to me and am excited about the work that
I will be doing. I look forward to what lies ahead for me and can't wait to move forward in my career.
