Online Education Specialist Plants His Flag In The Chicago IT World
What's not to love about having a job that you're already doing for free anyway? In a world filled with people's eyes and fingers constantly glued to desktops, laptops and smartphones, may as well make a career out of it.
According to Experience.com, the top 10 IT careers are IT consultants, cloud architects, computer forensic investigators, health IT specialists, mobile application developers, web developers, software engineers, information technology vendor managers, geospatial professionals and data modelers. One profession in the IT field that doesn't get talked about enough is IT work with online education programs.
Troy Underwood, Director of Learning Technology for Kaplan Higher Education, blended his English degree from Morehouse in Atlanta with his publishing position at RR Donnelley to move into the technology industry.
"We went from building computer-based training to digital classroom training and also created products for print," said Underwood. "Because I have a strong love for computers and technology it actually became a perfect fit for me."
His love and curiosity for technology has kept him in the online education field, but there's one thing he thinks IT professionals must have in order to succeed: the ability to accept change.
"When you drive a car off the lot it begins to depreciate in value, and the next year there's a new model. Internet technology is the same. You have to look at what the social media sites are doing like Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr. You have to see how companies are staying on the cutting edge. You have to know all of the available tools. If you think it's just a passing fad you won't be successful. You'll get left behind."
According to Underwood, soft skills couldn't hurt either.
"As you're working with people and even in the interviewing process, you need to be punctual. Take initiative. You need to be able to write. If you are a programmer for an event company a lot of that may be working on your own. Core skills like composition or interpersonal skills are good."
Shamontiel L. Vaughn is a professional journalist who has work featured in AXS, Yahoo!, Chicago Defender and Chicago Tribune. She's been an Examiner since 2009 and currently writes about 10 categories on Examiner.com.
