The big picture

For the most part I have used a chapter from the book as a guide for each of my blogs. In this blog I am just going to give my own personal view on how IT has impacted my life.

As I had stated in my first blog I did my best to stay away from technology. Admittedly it was because it seemed so complex and hard to grasp. Computers and the internet were intimidating and I felt only suited for the computer science type people. As time wore on and these technologies became more user friendly I still resisted. It almost became an issue of pride that I could be a fully functioning member of society without the use of technology.

The big turn around for me came when I realized I was going nowhere in my current job and had to start exploring different avenues of employment if I was going to build on my existing education. My mother was actually the one who suggested taking an IT course because she knew several people who had found great success after completing one. Well since mother always knows best I enrolled at ITI.

This was a huge leap of faith to move from Saint John to Moncton and enroll in a complex programming course especially since I had never even sent an email before. I was overwhelmed within days of starting the course since I was several years older than most of the class and all of the students were already proficient with computers. I honestly thought I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.

As it turns out it was one of the best moves I could have made. Even though the IT job market completely hit the skids during the course (An IT job site, computerjobs.com, had 55,000 jobs when the course started and only 5,000 by the time I graduated...) it provided me with an excellent framework to build my IT career.

Despite the fact I have worked almost 6 years in the IT industry I am still intimidated and overwhelmed by the sheer size and scope of gizmos and gadgets technology has spawned. My experience has taught me though that simply ignoring these advances will not make them go away and embracing technology instead of resisting it will only be beneficial in the long run.