My Motivation for choosing a Career in Information Technology
I found a draft of my Graduate School Essay and it makes me realise that my reasons for starting a Bsc in Computer Science as a perlude to career in IT still holds true today : enjoy
ETHEL DELALI COFIE
SUPPORTING STATEMENT
The computer is dumb;
I am smart and the computer is only as smart as the one who writes its logic.
These were the thoughts that crossed my mind as I sat in my first programming class along with another thought “am I sure I understand correctly what this lecturer is saying”.
I had signed up for this computer training class after my secondary school education to learn for the first time in my life about computers and how they worked and my first class had succeeded in revolutionizing the way I thought of computers.
I begun think to myself, well this computer stuff isn’t that bad after all and then mentally put it on the list of my career options I was considering at the time. After 6 months of the computer training course, I decided that a career in computing was what I wanted; I therefore applied to Valley View University to pursue a BSc course in Computer science.
I was the unofficial Class President during my years in the university given that I was always the one who would organize and rally the class to complete tasks.
To further illustrate; The course work for the Expert system course included developing six expert system modules individually using the Knowledge Wright development platform from about a hundred pages of system requirement documents. I rallied the class and we decided that different groups of students would analyze and develop one system each, and make a presentation to the class for approval and onward dissemination, cutting down the effort and time needed to develop the system individually and enabling all of us to get much needed sleep.
In the University I took a semester’s course in distributed systems but I really developed interest in the subject area after taking an internet based applications course. Learning about object oriented client based systems,J2EE,Corba,Ole/ActiveX ,the concept of autonomous computers working together but seeming as one coherent system and the connectivity offered by the internet I realized there was limitless possibilities in this subject area.
I became fascinated for instance by the idea of developing a system connecting a company’s geographically dispersed sites as well as thousands of sales representatives which would effectively manage sales ,billing ,stock control ,delivery and order tracking all in real time .
This fascination led me to develop for my final year project a java based Client Server system for electoral data collation and statistic generation. This software is part of the few projects selected to be showcased in Valley View University’s annual press exhibition to be held in March 2006.
During my years in the university I endeavoured to acquire knowledge not only in the classroom but also in industry:
My first year summer break was spent as an intern in Softtribe one of West Africa foremost software houses. There I worked developing modules in C++ and Java for their major systems being developed at the time.
The second year summer break saw me studying French because I believe that to be successful you need to be internationally competitive.
During my third year summer break I became an intern at INIIT a computing research and development firm. After that summer I stayed on and worked part-time through to my final year and then after Graduation went on to work with them fulltime.
At INIIT, I initially worked on web applications using PHP and JavaScript, and then moved to system analysis and design.
I am presently the project leader involved in developing a Client Server System which will be accesses via the intranet using Visual basic and SqlServer and I also represented my organisation in an ICT, telecommunication and media convergence conference in Cotonou –Benin (West-Africa) in February 2006. This conference was organized by the Panos Institute West Africa ( CIPACO project), in collaboration with the Haute Autorité de l’Audiovisuel et de la Communication (HAAC) of Benin, the African Communication Regulation Authorities Network (ACRAN) and the West African Telecommunications Regulators Association (WATRA).
I was also part of the writing of the Cotonou Appeal on the Regulation of Convergence the document adopted at the conference.
I aim not only to develop more systems with a bias towards distributed systems and gradually move into the management of my own multinational computing firm and this has influenced my choice to study for an MSc in Distributed Systems Integration at De Montfort University.
This is because after a critical look at the course modules being offered I realised that there is the right blend of technical, management and e-business modules to give me the relevant skills, up-to-date tools and knowledge not only to be technologically savvy but also for management also because as stated in the prospectus the course was designed in conjunction with industry.
Ps : I didn’t end up going to De Montfort though they offered me a place ,
I went to Brighton University because they offered me a scholarship and they were by the sea
I do have my Msc in Distributed Systems now and everyday i happily work on a variety distributed Systems be it a financial sysytem or a booking system
Distributed systems are really interesting.
I specialised in distributed systems in my third year at Sussex, and found it far and away the most interesting part of my degree, and wrote my dissertation on a simple system. I was also fortunate enough to administrate a enterprise level distributed system as part of my work at my previous job. I’ve always wanted to do a MSc in Distributed Systems also.. what’s the Brighton course like?
Cheers,
David
fast and furious .it was an intense on year which forces you to learn and adapt fast . Great course content too defn give it a go .