Until my senior year of high school, my depiction of an engineer was an old, greasy man shoveling coal into a hot, flaming furnace on a moving train. I did not have any other vision of an engineer in my mind. When the opportunity arose to participate in a class trip to a local engineering college, I only thought it would be a fun day away from our school. Â
By the time the field trip was over, I felt as though I found a new religion. I was fascinated and wanted to learn more about this concept of engineering. It blew my mind to see students, who were only a few trimesters older than me, studying to be engineers when hours before I thought a missing tooth and denim overalls were a requirement to have such a title.
Thanks to this high school field trip, my mind was opened to an unfamiliar area. I sought to get familiar with this area and was accepted to the same college’s after school engineering program for high school students. Learning about engineering was a powerful lesson I carry because I thought I would not be interested in the field because a false depiction I carried. If I allowed my skepticism to stop me from even getting information on engineering, my path might’ve been limited. I am very grateful for that field trip.
Today, I am a Firmware Development Manager and lead a team of engineers who code the functionality and solutions for the IBM Z mainframe. I have been in this role for almost two years and am constantly getting familiar with the unfamiliar.
In closing, I leave you with a dare: I dare you to be curious and learn more about an area you did not know about. Where can this new information lead you? I dare you to get familiar with the unfamiliar.
My article is part of a series of IBM IT Career Stories to inspire people from underrepresented communities to pursue IT careers and education with #IBMSkillsBuild. #Cybersecurity #AI #Career #IBM Impact #Engineering #SystemZ #IBMImpact