What was your inspiration to work in IT ?

Codeman6669

I one day accidentally deleted some windows 95 system files causing the PC to not be able to reboot. (The one my parents spent all this money on, and acted like it was the superior materialistic item in the house). My parents were out and due to be home soon.

I quickly figured out how to...well.. reformat and install windows all over again! WOO!
Never done it before, had no idea how to do it, but i figured it out 3-4 hours of slow install, oh re-installing AOL (lol) getting everything back and working.

Feeling pretty good, dad gets in.
Apparently he had a 20 page paper he was writing for college that was no longer there.

From that day i knew,
1 how to really piss my dad off, and 2, i can now repair a PC (kinda) lol

discount81

Not sure I just liked computers, an older friend of mine owned his own business young, and hired me to work part time when I was a teenager, he introduced me to FreeBSD and Linux so I had a pretty good knowledge of Servers and Networking, went to college and studied Networking.
There was zero IT jobs when I finished college I tried for a year to find work but couldn't get an IT job.

Worked in a cell phone store and insurance company for a while, enjoyed the cell phone store job just highly stressful and I wasn't a born sales person.
_HATED_ selling insurance, left and worked in the post office investigating lost and stolen parcels, which was a fun job, but I kind of felt like my IT skills were going to waste, by that time there was a lot of IT work and I managed to get a job, the rest is history.

joehalford01

I wanted to be in welding and fabrication or something with cars. I finally realized no one took me seriously because of my clean cut look. Put me in office casual and everyone believes I'm a computer guru. So I got with the program and started learning.

kly630

I was actually in college and graduated with a degree in math in late 2007. Tried my best to become an actuary, passed a couple of those ridiculous actuarial exams but didn't interview well and never got an offer. After failing that, it was either law school, or get a terrible part time job and look to become a statistician or study computer science. I opted not to go to law school (which was really pretty brilliant) and chose to study comp sci. Figured I just needed to get really good grades and I could swing a good job somewhere. Turns out that was a pretty good assumption.

UnixGuy

Not knowing what I wanted to do with my life after school, went to uni to study Computer Engineering...

kohr-ah

My father.
He bought us a 286x33 and the guy at the place informed him he was insane to buy this for a 7 year old. We would never understand it.

Sure enough.. I broke it a very short time later and he told us you broke it you fix it and gave us the 1 packard bell DOS disk that came with it. I fell in love ever since.

Never intended to be a network engineer though :P I feel that was because there is something wrong with me and no meds to fix it.

earonw49

How I got into Computers and Technology:

I remember the first time my father came home with a computer. It was 1998 and I was 7 I believe. The computer my father purchased was an old school Acer computer that ran windows 95. Funny thing about it was that it just came with the case, mobo and power supply installed. My father and I spend hours putting in the CD drive (which was hundreds of dollars back then), floppy drive, and RAM. Ever since then, I never looked back.

What got me into IT (The pursuit into IT Security):

One day when I was coming home from high school, I walked into my home to find my mother crying her eyes out on our couch. She had bills and statements EVERYWHERE. All I remember from that day was how my family nearly lost all of the very little money we had (lived in the ghetto) due to an online thief/hacker.

He/she compromised my moms accounts and somehow got her identity as well.. We knew it was an online attack because of the information the banks and investigators gave to us which pretained to that notion/conclusion.

I took a personal interest and vow to learn what I can and take part in a career who prevents hackers, cyber criminals, etc from accessing organizations/people's data.

I remember as a young teen spending countless hours messing around with our Cisco router, creating FTP servers, reading about IT security...

From there, the rest as they say was "history"...

philz1982

I work for a large company. Some how I got known as the tech guy. I have a photographic memory so I just started reading and several hundred sales calls later I was the tech guy all the sales people wanted to take with them. Fast forward 4 years and here I am....

MeanDrunkR2D2

I got into IT for the chicks and stacking paper.

Just kidding, I got into it because IT intrigues me and is something I enjoy. The chicks and stacking paper are a bonus. (Well, no chicks anymore as I'm married)

NOC-Ninja

Ive always liked troubleshooting and technologies. I used to work for this bio medical company. I became really good friends with the network architect. He told about ccna and I never looked back. He also told me how much he makes. lets just say, he got his **** together.

Chev Chellios

Aww man this brings back memories, lol

gorebrush wrote: »

My father worked in IT so naturally I got into it as well. Though I started young. Got my first computer age 4



BBC Micro ftw!!

Chev Chellios

Like many others here I kind of fell into the IT world after growing up with early home computers and playing/breaking/fixing them and the old school consoles. Was always the go to 'techie' dude with friends and family and continued throughout school and uni (though I didnt do a computing degree) I found a part time help desk job to bring some cash in then my career has gone on from there.

It's great reading about other folks motivation and how they got into this crazy but great IT world!

coreyb80

It was definitely my father as well. I watch my father go from collecting guns to collecting computers and computer parts. He put himself through school to get his associates as well as a nice collection of certs. I sat in a dead end job for about 5 years, but in it I learned that I really had a passion for IT and I landed my first real position a year and a half ago doing Desktop Support. I love talking tech talk with my Pops as we both help each other out. He's currently working as a Senior Application Specialist at a hospital and he stays as my inspiration daily.

alan2308

Mostly all the jobs going away in my previous field. One can only be laid off so many times.

ccnpninja

The college teacher who gave us networking courses sucked. I asked him what I should do. He replied "go get Cisco certs"

GeekTechie

Back in 2010, my father said to me that he didn't want to see me struggling and being unhappy with life. He encouraged me to return to college to find something that I was passionate about and enjoy doing since I was working at a hotel. I didn't see myself working as a Steward for a career since I didn't have a passion for it. It was holding back from building the kind the life that I actually wanted. After looking around for potential careers, I decided to go with IT even though I've been using computers my whole life with gaming and using Microsoft Office since I have a bit of a creative side in writing fiction since I was young and for assignments for my school work.

I was enrolled at Bauer College at one point and even met with the department head of IT there, but had to withdraw since tuition was too expensive. Eventually, I found my way to Dekalb Tech (Now called Georgia Piedmont Technical). Since my math scores weren't that great (I sucked at math!), I had to take remedial courses before jumping into the IT courses. The first IT course I took was difficult since my professor talked really fast and moved quickly, so I had a hard time keeping up. I didn't pass the course and got a academic warning as a result. For me, I was at a crossroads at this point-I could either retake the course again or completely changed my major. I decided to retake the course for the Fall term and ended up passing it. It was around this period that I decided that this is what I wanted to do with my life and didn't see it any other way. I love being mentally simulated and solving complex problems in computers along with doing projects and lab work in Unix, Microsoft server systems, figuring out how to put different parts together and figuring out what makes them tick. It's very rewarding and fulfilling at the same time. From there on out, I did good in my coursework and worked full time at the hotel. But I never thought that I would be very good at computers. In a way, I fell in love with it and didn't look back once I started.

I ended up opening a LinkedIn account and posted videos of lab work and projects I've done for school to help me stand out in the crowd of college students and even got some job offers. I received one from Amazon for their Web Services for a Cloud Engineer position at one point. Now, I'm on the verge of graduating since finishing up my final semester last year with a technical certificate as Network Administrator (waiting on my credential to come in the mail though) along with doing some volunteer work for a non-profit IT organization last year. Right now, I'm studying for my A+ certifications which I hope to take this month and do Network + afterward along with attending networking events and doing my job search weekly.

My father went a difficult time earlier this year when his job got hacked and found out that the people that did it messed up his salary from work. As a result, he had no funds coming in and I had to help him out a bit financially for awhile before he got back on his feet again financially. It was hard for me as a son watching him go through that. With that in mind, I'm considering going on the network security path because if I can help someone or a company protect their data from being stolen, then that will be a rewarding path to embark on with making a difference in others lives while keeping those whom wish to do harm away. I'm very excited to start on this journey.

VinnyCisco

Shout out to my Navy Shipmates on this thread!

First time I touched a computer was in computer class in 1983 - The Commodore 64. I was hooked. I bothered my father for months before Christmas that was the only thing I wanted that year. Well, I got it. It turned my dad into a computer freak, and we were soon running a BBS and providing "wares" and such.

In 1996 I went into the US Navy and served on board a Destroyer for a few years supporting the mainframes, and the workstations. At that time it was Windows for Workgroups, and then NT. The mainframes were UNIX.

Fast forward to today, I am an independent consultant working for myself in NYC for top Fortune 500 companies.

Couldn't ask for anything else.

Node Man

My earliest inspirations were:

1) The Commodore 64
2) The movie War Games
3) Kelly LeBrock

Yup, that covers it.

gespenstern

Just like to understand how pc works. Assembled my first PC in 1995, programmed x86 assembler, it was awesome.

gespenstern

He bought us a 286x33

Probably 80386. Later 80286 had 20MHz frequency at max and most of them were 12MHz.

stlsmoore

Fell into it from the High School I went to, which was called St. Louis Career Academy. You had 8 different industries to choose from, I wanted to do something related to tech so I chose the IT career program. I had no idea what IT really was, I just knew it had something to do with computers.

The first semester there we had to build our own PC from all of these donated parts, which couldn't do much more than load Windows 98. This was back in 2002-2003. A year later we did the Cisco Academy course which none of us took seriously (including myself). The teacher really wanted me to get my CCNA then but I brushed it off being an ignorant kid at the time, looking back it was one of my biggest career regrets!

Anyways in order to graduate you had to take an internship, somehow I convinced a radio station with the help of my mom who worked there to start an internship for students interested in IT. That was all she wrote, I've been in the industry ever since.

BTW I didn't obtain my CCNA until 5-6 years later, when the test was a lot harder and I hit a dead end in desktop support. Probably would of had at least one CCIE attempt under my belt if I wouldn't of messed around in my earlier years.

Xavor

Help Desk would never tell me how to fix my cup holder. Got me motivated to teach them how.

Deathmage

A friend of mine promised me I'd be a women magnet if I got into IT.... 7 years later I called BS on him...but now IT is my love and passion...maybe his methodology was twisted

Ismaeljrp

Never had a personal computer growing up, and I was always fascinated by the technology. Grew up super into video games and consoles, especially the technical specs and all that. I learned a lot just from reading Game Pro, and PC magazines at the school library.

Only times I really got to use a PC was at school, or family member's house.

I wanted to learn how it all worked. Things like streaming content, web servers, networks.

I'm only 27 btw.