As a student pursuing a field completely and utterly unrelated to IT and tech in general, it got me thinking about what percentage of us have formal training and are self-taught. I think it would be neat to see the breakdown. I’ll close the poll in a week.
0 voters
I’m someone who went in to IT by hobby and chance.
A relative was at a local IT place and got me in.
Was studying something different at the time and loving the job.
Got MS-900 certified a few weeks ago and now going for the AZ next.
I currently work in technology but I wouldn’t call it IT. I have worked as a computer tech in college though. I answered the third option.
An interesting breakdown. Just over half of those who answered have formal training/experience in IT, but there’s still a sizable chunk of laymen. If anything, I hope this (very) small poll can highlight that the privacy and security journey is for everyone, regardless of their experience with technology.
Formal training/education doesn’t really mean much. We give people who apply for a developer job a test before the interview, most people who just finished their education can’t pass a test in programming.
I started studying computer science in 1999, but the way the university taught it was way too theoretical for me, so I quit after a few months. I worked in web development afterwards for a year, but in 2001 that agency had to fire 90% of the people. I studied English and German linguistics and literature and went into game QA after that, first mostly technical, then only linguistic. Now I’ve been a translator/editor for 9 years, the past 5 as a freelancer. I’m relatively happy with it and earn well, but recently I’ve been thinking about going into IT instead.
I think this also highlights an important consideration when it comes to recommendations. It’s not just about the threat model someone would like to have. We have to consider the possibilities that can reasonably be implemented by the people. It’s not just about how inconvenienced you are willing to be in order to improve your privacy. Sometimes it’s about steps or technologies being to technical for someone, so we have to give them other options in the realm of what they can do (ex: how to make Windows more private).