True (young) heroes of IT.
Yesterday, at Share in San Fransico, CA Announced two winners of the #Mainframe Academy Scholarship award. . Victoria Wixon, a computer science student at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas, and Ahamed Ali Thousif, a mainframe systems programmer in Bangalore, India. Each were awarded the equivalent of $35,000 in credits to attend an eight-week, vendor-agnostic immersion CA Technologies mainframe program that blends instructor-led classes with virtual and self-paced learning.
To some, this may sound like just another bit of news, but to me, having worked in the mainframe space for a long time, it is exciting news. More and more, when I visit clients, I meet young people who have chosen to become "one of us". And when I ask them "WHY?", it gets even better.. Without exception almost, they tell me that, at first, the idea sounded horrible. "Working on a mainframe? Me? But isn't that old and obsolete technology?". But after a while, they often realize that the job is not only challenging, it is exciting as well. And almost without exception, they tell me that they are surprised about the level of control you have when you work on a mainframe. If you want to, you can literally find out what every byte on the mainframe does, why it does it, and why it takes a certain amount of time doing what it does. And it's that level of control that excites young people who want to work in IT.
So when you people like Victoria and Ahamed get the opportunity to join our ranks, all I can say to them is; Welcome to a world that is never boring, where you literally can be in the driver seat. Soak up as much knowledge from "the elders" as you can and enjoy!!!!
Share this post: