Ok so i've been and gone to the interview thing. I thought I'd get all nervous having to speak on tape and in front of people but I was fine. I was basically asked about my life experience with I.T and how I came to be doing the course I was doing (They were interviewing people who were doing a ICT course at Swinburne) and then about stereotypes in I.T (Male Geeks etc.), then we finished up talking about women in I.T. and why there is a decline in numbers of women enrolling in I.T related courses and working in I.T related jobs.
I spoke to these guys for about 90 to 100 minutes, non stop, I think it's the first time i've ever spoken for so long about anything. I feel like I was losing my voice at the end and felt really drained.
The first hour of the interview was basically me having to give them my life story on my I.T experiences, which they seemed pretty excited about since I've been using computers solidly since I was about 8 or 9 and have worked in Industry (they was very excited about the fact that it was a dot com and it still exists today :P ) and having also gone to TAFE (to do programming) and now I'm at uni originally doing a strict ICT course and then choosing to move over to a double degree. All of these little factors seemed to be having them literally jumping out of their seats! Later one women told me I was such a unique case and was really glad I came down to do the interview, glad I could help lady! Didn't realise I was doing anything special but hey, whatever you need for your research!
We then spent some time glossing over my family history and there academic levels, I.T use etc. One lady (I'll just say "she" from now on as the others were fairly quiet and taking notes etc) said it was very unusual that I am where I am without anyone pushing me or really encouraging me to do I.T when I was younger.
After that it was onto Swinburne and what I thought about TAFE, Uni and the difference between the ICT and Business schools and students. The answers I gave to there questions ended up with me painting a very bleak picture of the ICT school and their students and basically stating that I really prefer the business school over it. Which is true to an extent, I am really enjoying the business school side of my degree. I.T students and just terribly self focused and cynical, mostly at Swinburne i've encountered all these ICT students that just want to "get there degree and get out" and are constantly sighing and laughing throughout lectures and tuts about "how they know all of this" and everything is "a waste of time" and everyone is pretty darn competitive too. They have a problem with international students and think they should "learn to speak english properly" before they come to study here (even though they can fine, they just can't be bothered to try and understand their accents) They are the type of students that complain about Swinburne and universities in general and say "it sucks" yet are the last people to do anything about trying to change it. They also get terribly self impressed when they get a high mark in an assignment/subject and think they are just gods gift to computers, nay, the world. Yet everything I've encountered on the other side of my degree is vastly different, people are still competitive, sure, but people are at the very least SENSITIVE to the other students around them and actually try to communicate with other on some sort of common level instead of "I-SCORED-98%-IN-MY-BASIC-JAVA-EXAM-I-AM-CLEARLY-THE-WINNER-OF-THE-KNOWN-UNIVERSE-AND-THEREFORE-ANYTHING-THAT-COMES-OUT-OF-YOUR-MOUTH-IS-STUPID-OR-A-LIE-BECAUSE-IF-I-DONT-KNOW-ABOUT-IT-HOW-CAN-IT-POSSIBLY-BE-TRUE" attitude you get from snotty 19 year old programmers. And you know what? People are actually very happy to SHARE information with each other and work TOGETHER on things, something I haven't experienced in I.T since i've been to TAFE (Which was so so much better than any experience i've had with students from ICT).
Ok back on track serp, just to finish up on the topic before. I also paid out a bit on 2 ICT subjects i've done at Swinburne, I felt extremely bad about doing it but she was glad I did cause it really helps them (somehow). I was already going to complain at the end of this semester about one of my subjects (cause maybe then someone will LISTEN), but being given the opportunity to say something here was very therapeutic, in fact the whole thing was pretty therapeutic as I got to get a lot of stuff off my chest about Swinburne and also just talk about my life and put it in perspective a bit.
We finished up with women in I.T and what I thought about them and so on. I didn't really have much to say since I haven't experienced many females during my working career actually working in technical I.T roles, they all mostly "work" for an I.T company but never doing programming or whatever, the closest I got to one is multimedia developers.
She asked me how I would go about encouraging women into I.T, I fumbled for a while trying to think of something, and then I realised that in actual fact I would encourage not just women but anyone to STAY AWAY from technical/programming I.T roles unless you really really REALLY love it. Personally I don't see programming as something I could do for the rest of my life or even for 10, hell even 5 years. Unless it was something EXTREMELY RAD but to get into those sort of roles you need to do other courses/degrees/DIY time to get the skills to do something massive and cutting edge.
Anyway thats about all I can be bothered typing at the moment, I'll finish by saying I actually really enjoyed going to be interviewed, the best thing about it (which I wasn't expecting) was the fact that I learnt a lot about myself in the process. She asked me what my "ideal job" was, I rolled my eyes and told her that I've been trying to figure that out seriously for the last two years and didn't have a clue. However by the end of the interview I ended up blurting out something that prompted her to say "I think you've just answered the question on what you want to do with your life".
I'll think about it for a little longer before I set anything in stone, but I think she might have a point :) .
I spoke to these guys for about 90 to 100 minutes, non stop, I think it's the first time i've ever spoken for so long about anything. I feel like I was losing my voice at the end and felt really drained.
The first hour of the interview was basically me having to give them my life story on my I.T experiences, which they seemed pretty excited about since I've been using computers solidly since I was about 8 or 9 and have worked in Industry (they was very excited about the fact that it was a dot com and it still exists today :P ) and having also gone to TAFE (to do programming) and now I'm at uni originally doing a strict ICT course and then choosing to move over to a double degree. All of these little factors seemed to be having them literally jumping out of their seats! Later one women told me I was such a unique case and was really glad I came down to do the interview, glad I could help lady! Didn't realise I was doing anything special but hey, whatever you need for your research!
We then spent some time glossing over my family history and there academic levels, I.T use etc. One lady (I'll just say "she" from now on as the others were fairly quiet and taking notes etc) said it was very unusual that I am where I am without anyone pushing me or really encouraging me to do I.T when I was younger.
After that it was onto Swinburne and what I thought about TAFE, Uni and the difference between the ICT and Business schools and students. The answers I gave to there questions ended up with me painting a very bleak picture of the ICT school and their students and basically stating that I really prefer the business school over it. Which is true to an extent, I am really enjoying the business school side of my degree. I.T students and just terribly self focused and cynical, mostly at Swinburne i've encountered all these ICT students that just want to "get there degree and get out" and are constantly sighing and laughing throughout lectures and tuts about "how they know all of this" and everything is "a waste of time" and everyone is pretty darn competitive too. They have a problem with international students and think they should "learn to speak english properly" before they come to study here (even though they can fine, they just can't be bothered to try and understand their accents) They are the type of students that complain about Swinburne and universities in general and say "it sucks" yet are the last people to do anything about trying to change it. They also get terribly self impressed when they get a high mark in an assignment/subject and think they are just gods gift to computers, nay, the world. Yet everything I've encountered on the other side of my degree is vastly different, people are still competitive, sure, but people are at the very least SENSITIVE to the other students around them and actually try to communicate with other on some sort of common level instead of "I-SCORED-98%-IN-MY-BASIC-JAVA-EXAM-I-AM-CLEARLY-THE-WINNER-OF-THE-KNOWN-UNIVERSE-AND-THEREFORE-ANYTHING-THAT-COMES-OUT-OF-YOUR-MOUTH-IS-STUPID-OR-A-LIE-BECAUSE-IF-I-DONT-KNOW-ABOUT-IT-HOW-CAN-IT-POSSIBLY-BE-TRUE" attitude you get from snotty 19 year old programmers. And you know what? People are actually very happy to SHARE information with each other and work TOGETHER on things, something I haven't experienced in I.T since i've been to TAFE (Which was so so much better than any experience i've had with students from ICT).
Ok back on track serp, just to finish up on the topic before. I also paid out a bit on 2 ICT subjects i've done at Swinburne, I felt extremely bad about doing it but she was glad I did cause it really helps them (somehow). I was already going to complain at the end of this semester about one of my subjects (cause maybe then someone will LISTEN), but being given the opportunity to say something here was very therapeutic, in fact the whole thing was pretty therapeutic as I got to get a lot of stuff off my chest about Swinburne and also just talk about my life and put it in perspective a bit.
We finished up with women in I.T and what I thought about them and so on. I didn't really have much to say since I haven't experienced many females during my working career actually working in technical I.T roles, they all mostly "work" for an I.T company but never doing programming or whatever, the closest I got to one is multimedia developers.
She asked me how I would go about encouraging women into I.T, I fumbled for a while trying to think of something, and then I realised that in actual fact I would encourage not just women but anyone to STAY AWAY from technical/programming I.T roles unless you really really REALLY love it. Personally I don't see programming as something I could do for the rest of my life or even for 10, hell even 5 years. Unless it was something EXTREMELY RAD but to get into those sort of roles you need to do other courses/degrees/DIY time to get the skills to do something massive and cutting edge.
Anyway thats about all I can be bothered typing at the moment, I'll finish by saying I actually really enjoyed going to be interviewed, the best thing about it (which I wasn't expecting) was the fact that I learnt a lot about myself in the process. She asked me what my "ideal job" was, I rolled my eyes and told her that I've been trying to figure that out seriously for the last two years and didn't have a clue. However by the end of the interview I ended up blurting out something that prompted her to say "I think you've just answered the question on what you want to do with your life".
I'll think about it for a little longer before I set anything in stone, but I think she might have a point :) .
posted by serp at 4:13 PM
5 Comments:
That post was rather gripping, sir. I couldn't put it down. Or rsther, skip to the next one.
It's sad that IT students tend to be dicks. I've noticed this too. The comp sci people are mostly aqnnoying teenage nerds who feel like they need something to lord over you ("You decompile programs for fun? Your penis must be so big!") The science people are really nice though.
And it sucks that they complain about the university. They should realise how lucky they are to be able to go to uni at all!
Heh thats interesting, I wasn't trying to write a gripping post! I just sat down and had verbal diarrhea like always!
I just read back over the post for the first time then and boy, do I ever make a lot of spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes!
And yeah, science people are generally pretty nice with the ones i've had contact with, the biomed people at Swinburne are pretty ace.
19 year old it programmer comp sci student type kiddo.
Housemate.
ps:
TELL TELL TELL
I wanna know your passion ^_^
c'monnnnnnnnnnnnnn
huh? what do you mean?
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