Why I Decided to Change Career Paths
It really is extremely difficult to leave one's first love. I had never experienced that feeling and the contradicting range of emotions that come with it until recently. Sports were my first love and I've spent majority of my life pursuing excellence in it. Whether it was my parents taking me to the store in 1st grade to collect trading cards and getting the stick of hard gum that lost its flavor after three chews, which evolved into me being a multi-sport athlete by age 8. Fast forwarding some, it led to me being a two-sport star in High School that had a selection of the finest universities in the nation to choose from to continue my dream. This gave way to academic and research achievements in the field, which allowed me to pursue athletics as a professional pathway and help numerous kids and adults follow their passion as well. It has been an amazing journey, one that I am very proud of; full of accolades, precious memories, meeting lifelong friends, and carving out relationships that I'll never forget.
So right now, you're probably wondering, "Why leave that?" I'll be frank, I felt like my overall growth had come to a halt. I felt as if I was no longer being challenged in meaningful ways conducive to my growth professionally and intellectually. It wasn't a decision I came to lightly, or that could be simply written off as a minor rut. It had been hanging over me for at least a year and a half and it was myriad of factors that caused it; some were external, some were internal. One thing that I promised myself was that I would never go through the motions at a job where I was powering through the week just to get to the weekend (or time off). I knew I owed it to myself for all the sacrifices I had made and to my family for all their support, to know when it was time to make a change and take that leap. I was blessed with an opportunity at my previous employer to do meaningful work within my own community and they took a chance on me when most of my experience was theoretical. I will always be grateful for that, but I'm excited about what is next to come.
This leads me to how I landed on Information Technology (IT). I must show my age a bit (lol), but when I was a kid in the 90's almost no one had a personal computer. Once my family got our first desktop, I was in heaven. As the most "tech savvy" in my household, the job of keeping our computer up and running was left to me. I still remember the hours I spent configuring it, sometimes making more mistakes than proper fixes before being forced to use system restore. By this time, I had already accomplished so much athletically that technology was just a hobby after school and sports. When it came time to choose majors it was business 1st, IT 2nd going into my freshman year. I took a first-year seminar in business and one in computer mathematics (interesting experience with binary) and the decision was decided for me. Showing my age again, (I enjoy getting older if you can't tell) popular social media sites like YouTube and Facebook were still relatively new my freshman year and the first iPhone had just been released and did not even have an App Store. In short, the opportunities in tech weren't even close to how expansive they are now. I believe everything happens for a reason. I was meant to pursue athletics and I'm hoping the things I learned and experienced along the way will help me with my foray into IT. The most difficult part has been having to remind myself to take the baby steps especially after leaving a field where I had 25 years of real-life experience. My early focus is on cybersecurity and to that end, I'm focusing on improving my networking skills and security concepts (I've already obtained CompTIA's Network+ and Security+). I will always love sports, but I feel renewed and I'm excited to see where this journey will take me.
So right now, you're probably wondering, "Why leave that?" I'll be frank, I felt like my overall growth had come to a halt. I felt as if I was no longer being challenged in meaningful ways conducive to my growth professionally and intellectually. It wasn't a decision I came to lightly, or that could be simply written off as a minor rut. It had been hanging over me for at least a year and a half and it was myriad of factors that caused it; some were external, some were internal. One thing that I promised myself was that I would never go through the motions at a job where I was powering through the week just to get to the weekend (or time off). I knew I owed it to myself for all the sacrifices I had made and to my family for all their support, to know when it was time to make a change and take that leap. I was blessed with an opportunity at my previous employer to do meaningful work within my own community and they took a chance on me when most of my experience was theoretical. I will always be grateful for that, but I'm excited about what is next to come.
This leads me to how I landed on Information Technology (IT). I must show my age a bit (lol), but when I was a kid in the 90's almost no one had a personal computer. Once my family got our first desktop, I was in heaven. As the most "tech savvy" in my household, the job of keeping our computer up and running was left to me. I still remember the hours I spent configuring it, sometimes making more mistakes than proper fixes before being forced to use system restore. By this time, I had already accomplished so much athletically that technology was just a hobby after school and sports. When it came time to choose majors it was business 1st, IT 2nd going into my freshman year. I took a first-year seminar in business and one in computer mathematics (interesting experience with binary) and the decision was decided for me. Showing my age again, (I enjoy getting older if you can't tell) popular social media sites like YouTube and Facebook were still relatively new my freshman year and the first iPhone had just been released and did not even have an App Store. In short, the opportunities in tech weren't even close to how expansive they are now. I believe everything happens for a reason. I was meant to pursue athletics and I'm hoping the things I learned and experienced along the way will help me with my foray into IT. The most difficult part has been having to remind myself to take the baby steps especially after leaving a field where I had 25 years of real-life experience. My early focus is on cybersecurity and to that end, I'm focusing on improving my networking skills and security concepts (I've already obtained CompTIA's Network+ and Security+). I will always love sports, but I feel renewed and I'm excited to see where this journey will take me.
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| My First Love of First Loves |
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