After my morning class the LaGuardia CIS department hosted an IT Tech Trends seminar yesterday that was sponsored by Microsoft. The seminar was open to high school juniors and seniors from the NYC area with the express purpose of getting them interested in IT careers in general, and IT studies at LaGuardia specifically. One of the schools that had confirmed backed out at the last minute because the coordinator had confused the dates and had booked parent-teacher conferences on the same day. The turn out, while not as big as we had originally expected, was still respectable.
The day consisted of providing tours of the LaGuardia facilities and giving presentations to the high school students on the various programs that we offer at LaGuardia. I gave a couple of presentations to the students on the multimedia tools that we use in the New Media program. I focused in on the commercial and open source applications (Blender, Final Cut, Flash, XNA, etc.) that I have integrated into the curriculum. The students seemed to be genuinely excited about the program and the presentations, which made me feel good since I realize how hard it can be sometimes to motivate high school students at all. I was shocked at how young they all looked. It was hard for me to believe that I had once been just as young and as fresh faced.
At the end of the day the chairman of the LaGuardia CIS Department asked me to speak to the high school students about the IT job scene and my experiences working within the tech sector. I spoke off the cuff and from the heart about the field in which I have worked in for close to twenty years. I talked about the convergence of old and new media. I highlighted the impact that social networks and video delivery systems such as Facebook and YouTube have had on the entertainment and business sectors. A more importantly the opportunities that are now available to digital content creators as a result of these systems. I wanted to make sure that these students fully understood what an exciting time that they living in and how easy it is for them to market and promote themselves and their ideas.
As I reflected back on my own career, I realized that I have never been out of work for any serious length of time. Despite the stock market crash in the late 80’s and the dotcom bust in the 2001, I have always been able to support myself and my family. This is primarily due to the fact that I have always stayed current with the changes in the tech sector. Thus my basic message to the students was that the IT and New Media fields are areas of constant change and evolution. You have to be willing to accept and adapt to those conditions if you are going to not only survive, but thrive in that environment. You have to constantly be dedicated to learning new things and updating your skills if you plan on remaining employable. This can be easy and profitable IF you love the work that you are doing. If not, then you should find something else.
The full video of the speech can be found below.