I have a wide range of interest in the field of IT. This came about from a young age. My best guess would have been when I received my first gaming system, the Sega Mega Drive II. I imagine this was around the year 1994, as I was too young to remember exactly. I was roughly 5 years old at the time. This love for video games expanded to computers a few years later into the ‘90s when my parents bought their first desktop PC. We didn’t have the internet for the first few years, though that interest only got stronger with the addition of dial up internet. From there I learned what Email is and how to send and receive. This was taught at school in year 3 or 4 if my memory serves me. After that, I have some of my fondest memories from hanging out in chat rooms, talking to my friends on MSN messenger, playing games and finding websites to print all the cheats I could find for GTA III and the SIMS, among others. Fast forward to year 9 and 10 where I took IT and Extension IT classes, there I learned the basics of HTML and JavaScript. One of the assignments we had was to build a very basic shooter game where our targets had to move on the screen at random. We also learned some robotics programming. I was lucky enough to attend a robotics competition in Brisbane that year where my team and I made a Lego robot that competed in a soccer match. Unfortunately, that’s where my learning seemed to halt as I felt that it was getting out of my capability of learning at the time. It was challenging for me to stay engaged and focused all the way through school, even when I was learning in areas that interested me. My whole life I found learning at school difficult and that gave me impression that I wasn’t smart enough, which is perhaps why I couldn’t focus. Because of that I tended to move on from those subjects and take easier options.
These days my IT interests, aside from gaming, are Cyber Security, specifically Penetration Testing and Software Development. Penetration Testing has my interest because it seems somewhat like a game. There is a mission and a problem to solve. I feel as though I would get a great amount of satisfaction if I was able to find ways through security protections and then know how to implement changes to ensure security of systems and networks. When it comes to Software Development, I would really love to become skilled at writing code. The creativity of it appeals to me. I love organisation and doing things consistently. When I see code, I think to myself, I bet the people writing take pleasure in purposefully keeping everything so neat and tidy. As well as that, both jobs have the potential to work remotely. One of my biggest dreams is to be able to work from home and see my children as much as I can. The flexibility of that lifestyle really appeals to me.
After 16 years in the field of Mechanics and Engineering, I decided it’s basically a now or never point in my life and career. I felt, if I don’t make a hard shift into a direction I’ve always loved then it will never happen. The spark I once had in IT returned mainly by watching white hat hackers, hack scam callers on YouTube. I had almost become victim to the exact scams myself. I wanted to learn how to secure myself on the internet and it led into the path I’m on now. I currently work fulltime as a qualified Diesel Fitter and not only do I not love my career, but I also don’t believe it has a strong future as the shift from fossil fuels to electric have already begun. I defiantly didn’t want to idle though life carrying out a career that I don’t enjoy, simply because I’m capable and it’s easy to keep doing. I decided to research degrees that I would be able to do online. I ended up speaking with advisors from Open Universities Australia. I was then offered the opportunity to study with RMIT.
While I carry out my studies, I expect to gain a better understanding of what Cyber Security is and how it works. I’m also expecting to learn more about programming and what it takes to build software applications. I understand there will be many subject areas that I will learn about that I have no prior experience in and possibly even no knowledge of. Outside of IT subjects, I’m looking forward to improving my academic skills and abilities. As per the learning outcomes stated on the rmit.edu.au website (BP162 – Bachelor of Information Technology), I expect by then time I finish my degree I will become proficient in five areas specifically. These learning areas are 1. ‘Enabling Knowledge’, 2. ‘Critical Analysis’, 3. ‘Problem solving’, 4. ‘Communication’, 5. ‘Teamwork’ and 6. ‘Responsibility’.