The big question that you are consistently asked throughout you entire life early on, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" At 32 years of age, I still ask myself that very question.
Everyone has it drilled into their brain that you need to go to school and receive a degree in order to be want we want to be when we grow up. Who would ever answer this ultimate question with, "I want to be a janitor when I grow up!" You just don't hear this, so we are told over and over again to go to school. This is why I am at MATC. My brother received a Fire Science degree at MATC, my mother finished her Nursing degree at MATC, my husband is working towards an Accounting degree, and I am working towards an IT Programming degree at MATC... you might say it's a family trait. Realistically though, MATC is a great affordable school that enables me to work toward my goals part-time and on-line.
The reason I choose to pursue a degree in Programming was initially because I landed in an IT job at Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center 14 years ago and I wanted to return to school to finish my degree. Don't get me wrong, I do love computers and have been around computers my entire life. This goes back to writing programs to play on my Commodore 64 before I even hit two digits of age, but I never thought about doing this as a career. I actually began this degree program at MATC just because they can facilitate my busy, awkward work schedule and the IT Programmer/Analyst degree was the only degree at the time offered completely on-line.
Personally, I work 40+ a week at St. Luke's and randomly take additional on-call hours as the Radiology Applications Support Specialist. I work directly with the entire Radiology Department with the every application we use. The main applications we use includes Epic, Powerscribe, McKession, Emageon PACS, and Cerner. This doesn't mean that my IT work stops only with these applications, I also maintain our hardware and peripheral devices as well. I support and maintain all these devices along with direct training on these devices to all levels of caregivers through Aurora including many physicians. I look forward to any advancement I can in my current field, and plan to continue my education to keep up with the ever changing technology of today, especially since my 13 month old daughter can take my iPhone and scroll through different screens with her little pointer finger like a pro. Start them young I guess!
Seriously, even though I fell into my IT job and blindly choose to pursue a degree in programming, I believe that this is my true calling. I have been surrounded around computers and programming my entire life and though my mind was fogged with, "What do I want to be when I grow up!" I regret nothing. This is my chosen path and I may never really grow up, but at least I'll have a career with the education and experience to back it up!
