Case studies: Web and IT support officer: Aidan

Aidan graduated with a degree in computing visualisation and a Masters in animation for computer games. He works in web development for a professional association...

My undergraduate degree has proven more useful to my current job as a web developer as it was more technical than creative and the course content was broad enough to accommodate a wide range of potential career areas.
 
I got my current position as my undergraduate degree contained an optional module that included web design, which I then continued to develop in my spare time by building websites. This then gave me a portfolio of work to demonstrate my skills to employers.

My degree course was perhaps too general to be of specific use to one particular career area, although it did contain enough variety to provide samples of work areas that could be pursued.

As my skills have been gradually revealed at work, my role has been expanded. Initially starting with web development and support, I also assist with any technical queries, building computers and creating graphics and animations. I have found myself producing offline applications as well to assist in what were previously tedious and repetitive tasks for the people responsible.

I have found that it is important to not be limited to having skills in one area, as IT work is rarely restricted to the same type of task for long periods without some form of evolution.

My degree helped me realise that keeping skills and knowledge up to date and relevant is a must in IT; although it wasn't specifically mentioned, it became apparent from observing others that didn't appear to have realised this. It also doesn't hurt to say 'I don't know' on occasion, rather than acting on wild guesswork - a quick search will usually provide the correct answer.

The contents of my degree didn't necessarily help in securing my employment (although one of the requirements was to have a relevant degree of some sort), but the diverse range of content did provide a basic knowledge of many IT-related aspects and allowed me the opportunity to follow up with further research on areas of interest. This was useful in employment because it gave me a broad familiarity with subjects that I may not otherwise have been interested in, even if I wasn't an expert in everything.

AGCAS

Sourced by AGCAS editors

Date: 

May 2010

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