What got you started?

The Silent Assassin

This is a kinda generic question and I expect many different answers but here goes, what got you started in IT? Was it something you just kinda picked up? Was it something you were drawn to, the newness of the industry?

I can't speak for anybody else but for me, it was a mixture of things. I've always been fascinated and drawn to electronics and how they worked. I used to take things apart and try to put them back together, which then led me to want to be a PC repairman/desktop tech back in 98-01 when I was in middle school. Then when I got to high school I was introduced to Cisco and that changed my career goals to network administrator. I just thought it was unique to take a ton of equipment and create a whole communication network from the ground up. Few years later after an associates degree I was introduced to network security and locking things down and since then it's been full on security.

Excuse my rambling, I just like to know an individual's background.

jvrlopez

I was always into electronics and computers as a kid, dating back to my father's Windows 3.1 PC. I never considered doing it as a profession until I got bored with my course of study (news writing) and joined the Air Force where I got a computer/IT job.

HeliGuy

In September 2006 I began teaching myself how to program. I spent 4 years doing freelance part-time. In January 2010 a Webmaster position was available at a local ecommerce company that was revenuing $5mm/year. I did not have a college degree or "professional" job experience.

One of the managing partners grilled me in a technical interview and also issued a written test (fill in the blanks). I was the only person of 20 candidates that passed both portions.

Fifteen months passed and due to the economy taking I was laid off (a month before my 2nd daughter was born). Three months later a web developer position opened at a specialty manufacturing company near where I lived. Just like the prior job I was the only one who passed the interview and written exam. A year later there was a lot of company restructuring which our IT Director and Senior Programmer left. This placed me in the perfect opportunity to learn Windows 2003/2008-R2/2012/Exchange Server as well as Cisco, NEC, Dell and HP networking equipping equipment.

I now hold the keys to the IT castle with a salary that has doubled since I got my first IT job.

UnixGuy

The chicks in IT

tpatt100

Video games, guy told me to build my own to save money and then he got a job in another state and left me with all my parts. So I got a book on building computers, went to classes at night sat next to a guy in class who got me a job in the defense industry so I quit my job selling power tools.

alan2308

I went into the Marine Corps right out of high school and was a radio technician. I tried staying in electronics, but that job market all but dried up in the years after I discharged and I couldn't even get a job at Chuck E Cheese fixing the games. A temporary job that I took to make ends meet while trying to get back to what I wanted to be doing became not so temporary. So I went to school on the GI Bill and did an Associates in Computer Networking, then a Bachelors in IA. Doing something computer related seemed like a natural progression from the military communication gear and later on the gas detection systems.

Deathmage

I've always been in love with computer since I was little.... after getting a BA in Forestry and realizing there was no money in saving a tree I decided to go back to college for Computer Science. Then I got a summer job at IBM and the rest has been history...