#ITmotivation #TechPassion #CareerChoice
Hey IT enthusiasts! Let's talk about what really drives us to pursue a career in IT. 💻🔍
– What was your motivation for pursuing IT? Were you drawn to the cutting-edge technology or the job opportunities?
– If the median salary in the IT field dropped significantly, would you still continue in this industry or consider switching to another field?
I believe that a true passion for technology should be the driving force behind our choice of career. However, it is also important to consider factors like job stability and growth opportunities in the field.
One possible solution to ensure that our motivation remains strong even in the face of challenges is to always keep learning and adapting to the ever-evolving landscape of technology. By staying updated and honing our skills, we can remain competitive and passionate about IT, regardless of external factors. Let's keep the discussion going! 🚀🌟
actually liked the field. I joined it before the salaries exploded and everyone and their mom wanted to do tech.
If EVERYBODY at the mid/senior level and up took a 30-70% pay cut, it’d probably be good for tech overall. It would shake out the field and get rid of the used car salesmen types who glommed onto tech.
When I went to college I didnt know what I wanted to major in. I took A+ and it was the only class that I actually enjoyed so I picked IT. It was also before the dot com bubble burst and they were telling us we were going to make 6 figures straight out of college.
I was always good at solving technical problems and pick up technical concepts quickly. I had/have the aptitude for it and couldn’t think of anything better to do so wound up in tech. It’s work, not necessarily a passion, but I’m fine with that.
I liked the field back when I was in high school in the late 80s. Graduated in 91 and got a job as a mainframe tech. I still like the field today over 33 years later, but its changed a lot. Mostly good, but sometimes bad. Since its mostly good, I will never switch. Paycut or not isn’t a big deal to me. I would figure things out.
I was a big PC gamer through highschool and wanted a high paying career field that I found interesting. figured tech was a good fit but full time coding wasnt for me, so IT it is.
I would likely switch careers if my salary dropped significantly.
Passionate? No. I enjoy the work and I like problem solving, and IT is just a great medium for doing problem-solving. If the median pay dropped I’d happily find something else to do.
To get chicks.
money
I enjoyed:
Gaining unauthorized access to paid BBS
Gaining unauthorized access to PBXs, switching gear, phones ect ect etc
Building PCs
Breaking PCs
Learning about IPX
Learning about frame relays
Learning about that neat tcp/ip stuff
Learning about directory services
Exploration of packet switched networks
Errr um I what I mean to say I was already getting some IT offers right out of High school.
That certainly paid way more than what most 18 year olds could make.
Interest in tech and money. I’m a simple person
I actually love tech, been tinkering with tech since I was 6 or 7 years old. I love the problem solving aspect of IT and it keeps me engaged.
With that said, front line support makes me want to pull my hair out. Treating help desk like glorified call center jobs will drain any love I have for the industry, especially if the median pay drops.
Got exposed to routing/switching by my HS and took CCNA my senior year. Had no idea what CCNA was really for but I knew I’d get a 100 in my class if I passed. Felt like the routing and switching stuff was cool so I pushed on with it. Fast forward some years and ended up as cloud security engineer atm.
I had no career direction and learned I could get the COMPTIA A+ and afterwards be able to get a good job. And that’s exactly what I did.
I thought I was going to make $100k of college. However, a year and a half out of college, I’m starting to become more passionate about it. I like creating something and watching it work the way I envisioned in my head.
Not good at anything else
Money and I already do a lot of it for my regular job
Not so much passion? It’s the fact I don’t have to deal with people in a therapy setting ever again. Also the fact that the potential increase in salary can be amazing
I like the field and I’d rather run out into traffic than work outside doing manual labor.
I’ve dropped 100 drain plugs in a day. I’ve served hundreds of plates in a day. Answered phones. IT, computers was fun and challenging and the pay was better.
I was always fascinated since I was a child. I was fortunate to have a PC at home running Win 3.5 and played with it all the time. As I got older I was allowed to explore the internet starting with basic AOL chat rooms and then finding out about BBS and IRC. I remember finding tech/hacking groups that guided me in the right direction to learn how tech really worked and I always loved learning and seeing my knowledge/skills grow.
Once I got into middle/highschool I loved helping others learn how to do “cool” things on the computer. I loved having small battles with the schools sysadmin. I fortunately had a sysadmin in highschool that instead of getting angry at me redirected and fostered my love for computers.
I then got “lucky” a few years after highschool by having a friend that was already in an IT role that was hiring a T1 helpdesk person and he got me in for an interview. School was never my thing, so I didn’t go to college. I continued to keep learning and growing my tech and soft skills.
I don’t do much homelabbing anymore as I’m usually exhausted from my days/weeks at work. But every once in a while I’ll work on a fun project at home to solidify skills or learn new ones. I couldn’t imagine doing any other sort of work. If my salary dropped significantly, I’d probably just take the risk of opening my own business doing something tech related whether it be consulting/MSP or building an application to solve some enterprise IT problem.
I like solving problems. Id like the possibility of working from home at some point in my career. Pay is better than what I’m currently doing. There’s always room to advance
My dad was a “hippy hacker” in the 60s that morphed into part of the first wave of “IT Professionals” in the 70s. I grew up around him working on mainframes and programming with punchcards. He taught me DOS, OS/2 and Novell Netware when I was a kid and he let me take apart an IBM XT the same day his company let him take it home for the first time in 1983.
I don’t know that those experiences motivated me as much as they inspired me. He never lost his love for what he did because he never stopped being that hippy hacker that did things because they were fun or interesting. His passion for tinkering, learning and solving technology puzzles became my passion. Probably pretty similar to a mechanic that loves cars and passes that love down to their children while they work on them together.
Money, back up for premed.
Tried electrical engineering, too much math. Switched to IT/CS since I had PC building experience and I’ve built websites before. I had a passion for IT in my 20s. I’m in my 30s now and I’m only motivated by money. Don’t care too much about the work anymore.
I’m passionate about not destroying my body any further in construction
Interested in tech, thought it’d be good money. Good money yes, but the interest died off as I got stuck in helpdesk for foreseeably the next 2-3 years as I gain “experience”. Break fix is great but it gets boring. I like project work.
Always understood tech well so it felt natural once I started studying.
Also money. Mostly money.
Interest in tech and helping people, also being able to have a reasonable lifestyle helps.
Money and that’s it. I don’t care if it’s IT, software development, database management, etc.
Right now my job is making me work very frequent overtime for free (overtime exempt), so I’m hoping after bolstering my resume I can jump to a better job
Let’s just say if my salary had a significant drop I’d log off this very second and text my boss that I’m quitting. I wouldn’t stick around for any knowledge transfer for the new guy or help them tie up my tickets. Call me an asshole but they’ve exploited the overtime exempt thing on me enough (longest shift was 20 hours). I’m not at all passionate about it. Just in it for getting paid
Everyone talks about the money but I guess it depends where you are. The pay in the UK can be terrible especially on support, the bean counters see it as an overhead that must be eradicated.
I like tech, I like money. Mostly for the money, but it helps that I also enjoy what I do even if it can be stressful.
Absolutely none. I enjoy technical learning, troubleshooting, and the entertainment capacity of technology. But the practical management or implementation – databases, OSes, networks, administrative maintenance tasks necessary to a functioning business – this stuff bores me to tears. I was a computer nerd who hated working in a professional capacity with computers so I went entirely in another direction with my employment. But after showing technical aptitude at my job, I was pulled into a meeting one day, told my division was being closed and all personnel being laid off. But that if I would accept reassignment to the IT department they’d keep me on.
Here I am nearly 15 years later – I’d take almost any other job *tomorrow* if I could jump and make the same money/benefits/etc.
It’s only job I can tolerate. I’ve tried tutoring/teaching. I’ve tried working in the hospital. This is the only thing I can tolerate that gives me a descent income with very little in the way of actual work.
I was familiar with tech and the barrier to entry in early 2000s, at least in my city, was pretty damn low. Pay was also the highest I’d been offered at the time to do something I was already doing as a hobby.
Money
I started out in printer repair because I couldn’t find anything else out of college with a communication/English degree. Transitioned into full helpdesk and they kept paying me, so I kept figuring shit out lol.
I am really passionate about systems and understanding how they work.
When IT money drops i’m out. Its my hobby already so I can pivot and lose nothing by doing so.
Money. I don’t like technology, but I hate being poor.
I discovered programming in the early 80’s and it just suited my nerdy analytical personality. It came easy to me. And the career path was really straight forward (no internships, apprenticeships, getting a ‘foot-in-the door’ type of thing.)
I doubt I would switch to another industry.
Money and not hard to do.
I wanted to get my foot in the door (since I would build pcs as a hobby and created custom scripts many years ago for pc gaming mod communities back when modding was more new circa 2010s). I had that drive and passion for technology and was happy I broke ground less than 10 years ago making $15 an hour. FF today, I make well over six figures and have my own side IT business that charges $150 an hour per client 😉