What was your inspiration to work in IT ?

Heyo techies!
*waves awkwardly*

What was your inspiration to work in IT ? No matter the position, whether it's a Networking, Infosec, Systems, etc. etc.

For me, personally, it was when I was around 13 or 14 and watching a couple of european hackers tap into phones wirelessly to retrieve messages, contacts and more. And I am talking about those old, brick-weight, antenna hoisting, tiny screen phones..(think: nokia). Anyway, being the socially awkward teen that I was, my train of thought was naturally along the lines of "how can I know more about people without talking to them?". I didn't become a hacker (yet..?) but it really piqued my curiosity in the realm of Telecommunication which only got focused after doing a 3rd year engineering course at Uni. Now, I am very much passionate about Computer Networks (and security too!) and determined to make a healthy career out of it.

I don't worry about competing or becoming like the hackers I saw more than a decade ago, I just worry about becoming someone better than my past self (context: career). The pleasure I get from knowing how stuff works is a very satisfyingly sublime experience, and it totally redeems all the work, sacrifices and compromises made to get that. Ever wonder how many man-hours have gone in to making a simple click on a website work ? I know for a fact, that I shall continue to be fascinated with one of the fastest and quite an incredible thing that is Communication Networks (and all things comprised).

Sowwy for a little longer post than planned

Would love to hear your stories ! What made you fall in love or what inspired you ? How has your life changed since you start following/living your dreams/goals in this field ?

Cheers

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Comments

Double J

For me, it was Edward Snowden.

hurricane1091

Went to school for meteorology. School sucked, career outlook sucked. Figured I could do IT. Literally as simple as that.

RomBUS

Well being the first generation of parents that came from a different country...I always thought I owed them big time for making sacrifices and working hard to provide me the life I love today. I feel like one day I pay them back by having a career they could be proud of that I went for and it was my choice and didn't choose some job.

Also, a lot of my friends went for union type jobs (did not believe in education) and I just did not want to join that crowd as well

DigitalZeroOne

I simply liked playing Video Games, and I knew that I wanted to make them. Well, it turns out that I wasn't cut out to be a programmer, but I generally liked computers and the rest is IT history. Of course now, the programming basics that I did learn have helped tremendously in using PowerShell. PowerShell can be used very effectively without any programming knowledge, but it sure helped.

jamthat

Definitely my dad. He's has a really cool and successful career and has been able to stay technical and out of an official 'management' position by choice - currently a Principal Architect with a major ISP.

Growing up with the latest and greatest was always fun...128k ISDN?? Woahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Verities

It allowed me to stay in California, after getting out of the military and had excellent potential for career growth.

N2IT

Dumb luck to be honest. I was a property manager for a while and before that logistic analyst, so I had some tech skills in databases, financial software, project management software etc.

Eventually the property manager position eventually dried up, I was let go and I hit the job boards. Took an A+ course at the community college and was picked up on a help desk. Reinvented myself and never looked back.

I have found that my previous and current employers have been good and identifying my skills and seem to leverage the previous skills I had learned prior to my IT transition.

ajs1976

Took Intro to Computers my 2nd year of college, liked the material, and had a really good instructor. Was losing interest in Chemistry and took Principles of CS I my 3rd year. Liked computer work better, but know I didn't want to be a programmer. Really found what I wanted when I started at the helpdesk and saw the potential to be a server / system admin.

Polymathic

I was really into video games as a kid and I wanted to make video games. I got into modifying cars and manipulating their technology to get more power and eventually became a mechanic. I decided that industry wasn't cut out for my long term goals and aspirations and I really didn't know what to do next. I've always been inquisitive and into computers and tech in general. As I was thinking about my next career move, I realized my childhood love for computers and tech and I decided to change careers. I'm actually on the cusp of getting my first IT job

side note, I took a few classes in college A+ and I remember taking a highs school class on basic networking provided by Cisco. When I look back on it, I wish I would've stuck with learning about networking through Cisco a long time ago, I would be doing pretty good by now for sure lol.

Magmadragoon

My cousin actually got me interested in IT. He bought me Que's Upgrading and Repairing PC book when I was 11. I think technology at that time was just starting on the conversion of Pentium 2 slot 1 to Pentium 3 chipset. I started to learn about building PCs and went to computer shows to get the parts I needed to put them together. Then I did computer programming classes in all four years of high-school. In college, I ended up getting a degree in business and working in the financial field while in school. Did not have a strong passion in it so I went with something I love doing was learning about technology.

gorebrush

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!!

NetworkingStudent

Honestly my dad
I was always using computers

I worked alot dead end jobs:
wal mart
printing
ect...

Anyways, everyone said "you're always on the computer, why don't you go to school for computers?"
My dad was and still is my inspiration.
He started a computer repair business by reading books and tinkering.
He has been doing it for 20 years and has been very successful.

I like learning about new things, and seeing how people happy people are when you fix a computer problem they're facing. I know it sounds silly ,but it's a sense of accomplishment for me.
Also, it's nice to think to myself I know something that the general population doesn't.

IT is a very rewarding career.

John-John

About 10 years ago I was in the Navy as an electronics technician. I was on the ship and there was a lot of downtime between flight operations. In my workshop there was a computer that had some A+ exam software on it so I studied to pass the time. It was like a game. When I got out (my Navy career ended a few months after) I took the A+ core exam and passed, but I was interested in electronics at the time so I didn't bother with pursuing IT any further or finishing the second half of the A+ exam. Fast forward to 2010 and I heard that CompTIA was going to retire the lifetime exams and going to the three year expiration ones. I decided to start cramming to finish up my A+ and get my Network+ so that I could have a lifetime cert. Why I even cared I don't know why. I was in the middle of my electronics career. I think it was because I always wanted to work in IT anyways.

Basically one thing lead to another. My studies made me more and more interested in IT. I quit my job to go back to school and here I am. After ten years in electronics now I work with computers. My love of computing started a long time before that. And there were a couple more factors that lead me to change career paths but that A+ exam is what started my interest in IT as a career.

anuragaks10

Nice to see this thread receiving some awesome responses from the equally awesome TE community. It's very interesting how vastly different backgrounds some people have had in the past. Thanks to each and every one of you for sharing a little bit about your life.
Keep'em coming!

Cheers

dave330i

Geography. Plenty of IT jobs in the area, while very few engineering jobs.

AwesomeGarrett

OMG! I forgot about B drive floppy disk. I think I blocked that out of my memory at some point.

Kinet1c

Curiosity, fixing stuff and seeing existing IT people do a bad job.

Cyberscum

Money/Interest. I have always been involved in security (military) so INFOSEC was right down the path for me. I still do all aspects of security and really enjoy it.

MrAgent

I joined the Navy in '95 to do radio communications. After a couple of years we were combined with the ADP folks to make a new IT community. Since I had a knack for IT, I was moved over to systems admin side of things, and I have been into IT ever since.

blargoe

Chicks.

hiddenknight821

My Windows XP home computer (my friend gave me) that's constantly falling apart when I was in 7th grade. I always had to fix it by downloading and installing random crap that said it'd fix the problems. I didn't understand what I was doing. Maintained it for 5 years until I was a senior in high school. Finally was able to afford a cheap Dell.

Really, it was the free 4-week summer computer camp I attended after my junior year. They said I had potential with my good math/science background. Since then, I never look back.

anoeljr

When I first used a computer in 3rd grade, I was hooked lol.

stryder144

I would see the TRS-80 advertisements on the back of comic books at the barbershop and it seemed really interesting. I would, from time-to-time, pick up copies of the Computer Shopper magazine (when it was closer to the size of a phone book) and browse through the different parts and slowly picked up what they did and why they were important. Around 1996 I bought my first, (used) computer. Several months later, my computer failed to boot, even though the power supply and monitor came on. Using my Computer Shopper-based knowledge, I figured out that the I/O board failed. Bought a new one, replaced it, and it booted just fine. Boy, was I hooked.

Ever since then, I have been the go-to guy for family and friends. I even spent a fair amount of time as the unofficial computer/network tech for the various units I was assigned to. After retiring from the USAF, I couldn't find a job managing Air Fields and didn't want to go into physical security, so my wife reluctantly suggested that I pursue a career in IT (she hates computers but acknowledges that I have a freakish knack for diagnosing and fixing computers...I was able to diagnose a component failure by listening to her responses when she was talking to a family friend over the phone). I haven't "worked" a day since!

f16jetman

I was always the kid growing up that got told I need to get off the dang computer and go play outside by my parents. I loved trying to get programs to run on my parent's Windows 95 machine. We didn't have the internet in our home at that time, so I had to figure everything out for myself.

I love what I do, but IT is not my whole life. I am good at it and happen to enjoy it more than most people, but I do not live and breathe IT.

darkerz

Really had a fun time creating bots and exploit programs for MMORPG's in 2001 - 2004.

Discovered networking through textbooks and some classes as a local community college. Looked easy.

Turns out there was a market out there for Network and Security Engineers (who don't suck at it!) who could do both and fix/maintain/build infrastructures with virtually no competition besides a lot of .com'ers who got lucky, just doing enough to get by.

I'm automating those people out the door, while bettering the Network, Security and Virtualization piece of it that's left.

It's almost the same thing as writing bot programs for World of Warcraft - except it's bot programs for servers and network devices.

varelg

anuragaks10 wrote: »

Heyo techies!
*waves awkwardly*

What was your inspiration to work in IT ?

Greetings AND salutations! (even more awkward hand wave)
The cool people that I met that happen to work in IT draw me in. My older cousin- engineer and his success with IT, few of my neighbors that did IT on temporary basis, cool peeps at parties that happened to be Oracle DB admins...

Snow.bros

Well for me, I am fascinated by technology if I was an A student in high school and had the means I would have studied something in innovation it is one of my dreams to invent something that would contribute to the tech industry. Realistically every career I had in mind is in IT, graphic design, animation, programming but honestly I never thought I would end up in support considering I am not a peoples person but ever since I started in this part of the field it got me on my feet and challenged me (it's challenging now and will in future) but my interest in technology pulled me through and ever since I started swimming I have started to love what I am doing and I discovered that you learn a lot when you are not in your comfort zone so for me it's been a blessing in disguise.

Just to add: My start is not really influenced by inspiration but TE and the members have something to do with the inspiration to keep me going I don't think if I didn't join this community I would still be interested in this field.

bertieb

I kinda fell into it straight after leaving University when the job I had lined up in Electronic Engineering got shelved at the last minute right after my final exams

. I found a job the next week (literally a mix of 1st line helpdesk and building a data centre) to get some cash and it all went from there

Priston

I've always had an interest with computers, electrics, and video games. I took computer engineering technologies, networking, and programming classes in high school. After high school I knew I wanted to do either programming or networking. Since the community college I wanted to go to stopped offering programming as a degree, I didn't even have to decided to go into networking.

E Double U

Just finished college and was working in Universal's marketing department. I needed a "real" job and I knew of a guy with his own contracting company that needed someone to help with building, delivering, and installing computers for the school district. That was my 1st IT gig. Moved on to networking and now security.

Before working in the field I just used my computer to get **** and music from the internet. Now I pretty much do the same thing, but I have a lot more technical knowledge