New to Tech

Faith_406 · October 3, 2019

Hi! My name is Faith.

I’m 19 and I’m from Montana (USA). I’ve been watching Linus videos on YouTube for quite some time now and absolutely love the content. I’m drawn to the humor and the subtleties in the videos.

See, I’m very new to the tech world. I really don’t know much about it at all, but I find it fascinating. I built a water cooled PC (filled with purple solution that smelled like a hospital) once with my friend and have been interested in learning more ever since.
I am reaching out in hopes that someone could help me understand how to get into the tech industry. I have finished my freshman year of college and am currently on a gap year so that I can figure out what I’d like to do with my life. But who ever knows what they want to do with their life... right??
I’m thinking maybe tech is the way to go. It’s an ever growing industry that is constantly advancing and that’s whats so amazing to me. It never quits moving forward. I grew up with only sisters, so I never played video games and seriously don’t know my way around a piece of hardware, let alone know the software that goes into it.

I know there are not very many women in the technology industry and I would like to open those doors up to more women/young girls interested in tech for the future.... I just need a good place to start and I thought reaching out to a community team may help me find a solid foundation in which to jump off of.

Starting a YouTube? Going to school? Just research? Joining a team?

Thank you all!

Fasauceome · October 3, 2019

18 minutes ago, Faith_406 said:

I just need a good place to start and I thought reaching out to a community team may help me find a solid foundation in which to jump off of.

Starting a YouTube? Going to school? Just research? Joining a team?

Thank you all!

really depends on what you're good at, I started a PC building side business for myself because it fit my skill set, but it wouldn't be viable for everyone.

welcome to the forum!

RAM555789 · October 3, 2019

Yeah it a combination of what you enjoy doing and what you are good at. The thing about the IT world is a lot of stuff can be self taught and does not always require college.

Gavination · October 3, 2019

Hi! Software developer here, and I'm more than happy to echo some of the sentiment along with providing a very biased opinion on how tech careers should be looked at.

I'll be speaking purely from the perspective of a software engineering curriculum, but I'm sure you can get some generalities as well.

Firstly, before anything, remember to be passionate. You have to love what you do, and while some of it will be a slog, if you hate every moment, consider something else.

When recruiting from most universities, we tend to look more at how the candidate stands out than anything. Meaning, are you just someone who did more than undergo a CS or EE curriculum in college, or did you attend hackathons, join engineering groups, maybe found a way to marry your passion for other things alongside tech? Some general pointers I'd say would be good to look into are:
- Joining engineering groups: IEEE, your school's CS club, Women in Technology, etc...

- Participating in student hackathons. Checkout the Major League Hacking site. put em on your resume, especially if you win

- Hunting hard for internships. Make yourself as interesting as possible, start at the top of Fortune 500 companies list, and apply EVERYWHERE

- Go to conferences where you know recruiting is important. The Grace Hopper Celebration and Richard Tapia conference are targeted around promoting diversity in tech, so networking with folks there would be a great opportunity.

- Start a GitHub account, learn Git, and upload cool things you're building in order to learn. Recruiters LOVE to see Github accounts from students. It tells them you can walk the walk and talk the talk.

- Learn. Learn everything and always be hungry to learn more. Tech changes dramatically very quickly, so you have to be prepared to always be skilling up in something.

*leaves soapbox*

Gavination · October 3, 2019

2 hours ago, comander said:

At the end of the day, you want to have a VERY compelling resume ready by the day you set foot on campus your last year of undergrad.

1000% agree. It sounds like a lot, and that's because it is. I'd also like to add that when it comes to resumes, get as many eyes on it as possible before you toss it out in front of folks you want a job or internship from. I recommend obsessing over your resume and remembering that it's a living document; it's supposed to grow and change as you gain more experience.

Jtalk4456 · October 5, 2019

On 10/2/2019 at 8:23 PM, Faith_406 said:

Hi! My name is Faith.

1. I’m 19 and I’m from Montana (USA). I’ve been watching Linus videos on YouTube for quite some time now and absolutely love the content. I’m drawn to the humor and the subtleties in the videos.

2. See, I’m very new to the tech world. I really don’t know much about it at all, but I find it fascinating. I built a water cooled PC (filled with purple solution that smelled like a hospital) once with my friend and have been interested in learning more ever since.
3. I am reaching out in hopes that someone could help me understand how to get into the tech industry. I have finished my freshman year of college and am currently on a gap year so that I can figure out what I’d like to do with my life. But who ever knows what they want to do with their life... right??
4. I’m thinking maybe tech is the way to go. It’s an ever growing industry that is constantly advancing and that’s whats so amazing to me. It never quits moving forward. I grew up with only sisters, so I never played video games and seriously don’t know my way around a piece of hardware, let alone know the software that goes into it.

5. I know there are not very many women in the technology industry and I would like to open those doors up to more women/young girls interested in tech for the future.... I just need a good place to start and I thought reaching out to a community team may help me find a solid foundation in which to jump off of.

6. Starting a YouTube? Going to school? Just research? Joining a team?

Thank you all!

Nice to meet you Faith! Before I get into your actual question I want to say something about the forums and people you will talk with in case you have any trouble. If you go into any "troubleshooting" forum, you'll see a lot of people saying the problem without listing their computer specs, software involved, running conditions, etc. Basically, "my pc is broke, why" with no details. some people can be very detail minded individuals and come off a bit rash with their responses asking for details. You seem to have some good idea of everything you would be expected to in your position, but I just wanted to warn you for anytime you deal with questions like this that have a lot of vagueness or generalizations. For the most part though, if you put in as much detail as you can and behave in a mature manner (unlike some people around here XD) you should find a lot of great help from the community here.

1. Montana is a beautiful state, but I'm really not too sure of the IT base around there. I live near charlotte, nc which has a booming tech industry, so as soon as I finish my degree, I'm set. I have no clue if any of the areas around you have strong IT industries. If not, you would be trying to find a large company with a branch or headquarters near you, as any office building big enough will need networking, help desk, and security at the very least.

Since I don't know the area, I found a list of large companies in Montana.

https://www.zippia.com/advice/largest-companies-in-montana/

Hopefully you can use that to your advantage and find a foot in the door somewhere.

2. Don't worry about being new. I'm 30 next year, I have no degree (for now) and I have almost no real tech experience. I went to college for environmental studies, had no motivation, didn't finish, and went several years of my life just casually enjoying computers before it hit me that I could stop doing crappy factory jobs that I sucked at and do something I like. You're young and have plenty of time to learn everything.

3. The worst part about "liking tech" is that there's SOOOO many ways to go with it. Programming, project management, networking, security, artificial intelligence, hardware, electrical engineering, the list goes on and on and on.

The best part about tech, is that just about everything has free and cheap training and resources and help somewhere online.

Coding: Codeacademy.com

Networking: Cisco Networking Academy

Just pick a topic, and type it into google with "free training" and you'll be flooded with results. There's tons of free newsletters for each topic and on a forum like this, there's someone from every specialty messing around here.

There are a few specialties I consider to be the main courses most people fall into: Programming, Networking, and Security. Most other specialties fall into one of these three or relate somehow. I suggest finding free training in each one and devote a month or two to each. Let the learning experience tell you which you are enthusiastic about. If one stands out, look at what the paths are and all the different sub-specialties. Also try a few smaller paths if you can, just to see.

Here's where it gets good. Once you find an idea that you might enjoy doing, pick one of those big companies, call and ask to see if you can talk to one of their it people in that specialty. Put yourself out there and see if some IT guy at Company Co. will let you shadow him for a bit, just to see what the day to day experience. This will give you an idea of what you're dealing with and if you like it, this might be your eventual foot in the door somewhere.

4. There's enough gamers here to get you started XD There's also a bunch of hardware guys here if you have any questions at all. For most hardware, we have a tier list that will help guide you in getting good hardware.

5. The industry is getting more diverse each day, but it's still far behind where it should be. And maybe your place is not in the industry itself but another role like teaching tech in grade school to get more girls into the field. You can start local clubs for girls, etc. There's no shortage of ways to walk the path.

6. If you can, I say YES. Do all of the above. Do whatever you can. The downside of a technical field is that it's harder to stand out. In art, one artist can paint the same bowl of fruit as another, but one might be so good someone will pay money for it while the other artist gets a normal job and leaves art as a hobby. In tech, there's little "art" to it. there's only one way to plug an ethernet cable into the back of a server. And you won't be the only one who knows which hole to put it in. Communication and participation in everything you can will be the key to your success.

Never be afraid to ask for help or advice. That help might be the difference between landing that job or settling for something else. Same goes here. Feel free to ask people here and make lots of friends. You'll likely absorb a good amount of information like I did when I came here over a year ago.