The Dim-Witted IT Graduate

Welcome stranger. I am on a quest to be competent in the field of Information Technology. To understand better what I mean by this so-called pligrimage to competency, a brief background about myself is in order.

(I would like to apologize for my grammar beforehand. English is not my first language.)

I have a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology. I graduated in a college that belongs to one of the poorest country in the third world. Though I am am a degree holder, I could not find a decent job in my field that would elevate my economic status. IT job openings here in my country are abundant. But no company would accept me due to my lackluster skill in Information Technology. I am simply evaluated as incompetent and pales in comparison with the other thousands of job applicants vying for the position. I got my first job at the age of 24 despite graduating many years earlier than that. And the jobs I got was not something I am proud of nor is it something that would make me more credible in the IT industry. My total experience comprises of two jobs with a combined length of 9 months. In short, years after my graduation I only managed to work in the field for less than a year. And again, those jobs are nothing to write home about.

I have to do something. And that I did. After making a careful examination of my field, I narrowed down my target into one. I wanted to master one aspect of the IT industry and give it all that I got. Being honest with my own capabilities, I cannot hope to multitask like many of my known IT professionals who are masters of multiple fields simultaneously. It is unfortunate that I am restricted and constrained by my intellectual limitation to only be able to be competent on one. My first bold forays to becoming an IT legit was to attempt to be adept on Microsoft’s .NET platform. I planned to master ASP.NET using VB.NET (Now VB2008) and not expectedly but hopingly, add C# in my arsenal of geeky know-how. I remember starting sometime in 2002 when .NET was still in its infancy. I continued studying it until 2007, just a couple of months before .NET 3.5 was released and the VB/C#2008 major update. Alas. in all those years, I only managed to achieve… shall I say, advanced beginner status. I wish I could confidently say I am now on an intermediate level but I do not wish to lie to myself. What happened you ask? There were simply topics in .NET developing that I cannot get past through. I have read many books on .NET (E-books can be found all over the web, not to mention, a few books I have personally bought) but I ended up being unable to finish many of them due to the fact that I always come to certain points where I could no longer move forward since I simply don’t get them. It was really hard for my intellect to comprehend its advance topics. I then realized I have to give it up and move forward. Perhaps .NET is not simply for me, or worse, hardcore programming is not for me. I need to find something else that would really fit my intellectual abilities.

I decided to target Linux. I am hoping to become a Red Hat Certified Engineer someday. I honestly don’t know if this is the right choice for my low intellect, but Linux interests me at the moment. Though I am targeting a Red Hat certification, I plan to start my tinkering on Debian (by using a Debian-based distro) since I found Fedora 8 to have annoying bugs I couldn’t stand. I really don’t know where to start but I will just tread and walk and hopefully find directions along the way.

So I am on a quest to be a Linux qualified professional. If I fail on this, I might try XHTML, CSS, Photoshop CS3, and hopefully PHP (which, based from my limited understanding of, is quite harder than ASP.NET… oh well )

I am a loser. I admit it and that’s ok. I was not given the intellectual capacity to breeze my way through the journey. But I will walk. Success may not be a guarantee but it’s better than doing nothing.

Watch me finally rise or… fall once more…