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My Job Description… I manage my company’s network department and communication system. And How I Got It… Through a connection with a friend – in this industry, having connections (professional friendships) is a good thing. And Why I Was Well Suited For It (And It For Me)… I think if it wasn’t for Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum in the Bay Area, I would not have any interest in science nor the IT profession. The Exploratorium inspired me to love art and science. I truly believe that art and science go hand in hand, and I see this in what I do. As a programmer, I can remember that it took creativity and logic to build an application. My first paid project was to create a psychological profile program, based upon an idea of an Industrial Psychology professor. The program was designed to show one’s personality traits by recording answers to fifty psychological questions, then calculating and displaying the result in a bar graph. This program aided an interviewer in deciding whether the interviewee was right for the position for hire. The program was called “Star Finder”, which I thought was a little corny, but oh well. The artistic part was designing the interface; how to record and display information so that it wouldn’t be boring. The scientific part was the logic of the process. But after a few more programming contracts, I decided that I wanted to do something different. I got a job as an intern for a local utility company. I discovered that I liked the interaction with non-technical people when they asked me for help. So I decided to become an administrator for computer networks (those that are internal to a company). This is called a “LAN (Local Area Network)” administrator. In this job, you are always talking to people, improving their systems and the ways they work. I started to work for a museum in San Francisco as an entry level LAN administrator. I learned through my boss (who became my friend and mentor), how to design and set up a Novell network and how to help scientific researchers. That was very cool! Although science and computers were traditionally male-dominated professions at the time, my boss gave me the chance and the confidence I needed to learn the skills and to excel! Now, I’m an information technology systems manager. As you can see, it’s easy to branch from one end of the computer spectrum to the other, pursuing your interests. And it’s challenging (technology is constantly changing), secure (you are always in demand), lucrative (just check out the job boards), and creative. So go for it! When I’m Not Working, I’m… a big fan of SciFi movies, indoor rock climbing, roller coasting, camping, playing pool, walking my dogs, writing poems – and especially, smelling the flowers. |
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