Long 1 Jonathan Long Professor Suzanne Ingram English 1101-049 November 29, 2013 A Lead Into the Future

What did you like the best about high school?, Did you attend prom?, or What was your most memorable experience? I could answer all of these questions about high school my high school experience, but the last one stands out to me the most. There was one opportunity I came across while in high school that changed the path of my life completely. It was my sophomore year. All seemed to be going well. I was making good grades. I had a lot of friends, and I was close to a lot of my teachers but more towards specifically one teacher, Dr. Mark Bryson. Mark Bryson is the Administrative Technology Facilitator for Kings Mountain High School. Dr. Brysons job included managing the schools computer network, facilitating support calls, and assisting any other faculty, staff, or students with technology issues, as well as teaching computer literacy courses. You could imagine that this is a very demanding job, so each year Dr. Bryson opens up applications for eight students to join him as his Computer Technical Assistants (CTA). I have always had an interest in computers and other technologies since I was about six years old and had the dream of having a career in technology. However, I had never interacted with other people when it came to technology. When I worked with computers, it was always my own or someone elses that I already knew, but never a strangers computer equipment. But when this opportunity arose in high school, I was eager to become part of the CTA team and hopefully come out of the shell of shyness that had

Long 2 overtaken me. The morning that applications opened up, I rushed to the school office to retrieve one and filled it out on the spot. I didnt care about being late for class that day, as I wanted to be the first one to put an application in. A true nerd, right? A few weeks later, I learned that I was one of the few chosen to take his class so I immediately joined the team. Overcome with excitement, I screamed, Yes! I had become part of something important within Kings Mountain High School. Although I was ecstatic at the time, nervousness had set in, as I hadnt had any real world experience dealing with others and their problems. The first week or so of class, Dr. Bryson educated us about the schools technology structure and how it all works together. I sat in his office, filled with computers, servers, cables, and heaps of disks. Some of these things I had never seen before in my life. As my eyes scanned across the office, I had a curious look upon my face as I studied the equipment and pondered about what would come from this experience. Dr. Bryson sat directly in front of me at his desk and introduced himself, as well as giving us a brief story about his background leading into the explanation of the schools technology structure. His explanations intrigued my interest in computer science because it fascinated me how computing systems could all work together to keep an organization running efficiently. But a lot of things he said were foreign to me. What were all of these acronyms? Dr. Bryson said things such as PSU, CPU, and other technology jargon. What had I gotten myself into? All I could think of that point in time was, Am I prepared for this? Am I as knowledgeable as I thought I was? However, to look like a professional, I maintained a confident face and posture to hide my inner fears. Feeling nervous and intimidated, I hit the books to learn a little more.

Long 3 Once we were finished learning how the systems operated and other computer basics, he said we were ready to be thrown out on our own to handle arising issues from teachers and students. I disagreed with Dr. Bryson at this point because although he taught us about the technology, he didnt give us any pointers as to how to commutate with students and faculty members. I was hesitant to complete my first few service calls because of being frightened to talk face to face with someone. Would I stutter during my explanation? Would I sound stupid if I just made up explanations? My thoughts were going crazy. I was so nervous that I skipped the first service request assigned to me to escape not having to solve problems under the expectations of a stranger. I thought in my mind, I cant do this. Dr. Bryson had found out I skipped out and scolded me for my actions, but finally asked me why I was so uneasy to start my new job. I explained my fears to him and he laughed. Why was he laughing? Is he laughing at me? Finally he spoke, Youre not the only student here who is scared! We do not expect you to come straight in and be able to fix everything and be able to explain it. Youre still a high school student, not an IT professional. Learning takes time and experience. Your personal and communication skills will develop over time in result of your experiences trust me. He gave me a few tips to always have a smile on my face when entering the room to help someone with an issue. Be friendly and try to make small talk while analyzing an issue. This eased my mind some, but I was still nervous. But I needed to get over myself. How was I going to become the IT professional that I want to be without building up the courage and facing my fears. I had never been much for self-confidence, but the thought of my future drove me to attempt to succeed.

Long 4 As time progressed, I became better and better at problem solving and talking with others in result of experience. The next year, I became a CTA Student again. Being a veteran, I became the go-to guy for technology questions by teachers and students. Now I would be teaching the new guy and helping him with personal skills while still de veloping my own. The word continued to go around the school until one day, my friends father reached out to me. Shawn Davis, the President and Network Engineer of Championship Networks, LLC in Gastonia, NC was interested in my abilities. Dr. Davis had previously recruited a sixteen-yearold computer technician at his business to provide support to incoming customers but he had just recently left to attend college ironically at UNC Charlotte. Mr. Davis informed me that he was impressed by my abilities and wanted to offer me a job as a part time computer technician a few days a week after school. I was immediately overcome with joy to hear those words. It seemed as if my dream of working in the technology field were coming true, but before I even graduate high school or college. I was completely dumbfounded as to why a successful company would want a high schooler that didnt even possess a certification or degree. I doubted my skills and ability to handle larger, and more urgent situations. Although I again had these fears, Mr. Davis assured me that I would be a perfect fit for his business and scheduled me to begin work two weeks from that day. My first day of a real job, or a future career, came around. It was over spring break so we did not have school all week. I remember waking up super early that morning to assure myself that I had plenty of time to get ready, eat breakfast, and make the drive to work. I ended up sitting in my car in the parking lot for about 45 minutes because I arrived so early. I sat in the car nervous, shaky, and sweaty. I was again letting fear over come my growth. I

Long 5 continued to sit as the drum of my heart continued to pound. BoomBoomBoom. My hands began to chill from the sweat forming in my palms and the cold air blowing from the A/C. I was nervous about walking into the business and being asked to do something I didnt quite know how to do and being afraid to let them know that I was clueless. Time was moving fast and it was time to go in. I walked into the business for the first time and felt a sense of welcome. When I first walked into the door, Mr. Davis greeted me with a firm handshake, like I envisioned an IT professional should. After shaking my hand, he said, Today, you are going to be helping me solve an issue being experienced by one of our largest clients, Gastonia Sheet Metal. GSM was experiencing a server failure and each employee did not have access to email, critical scheduling systems, or the business phone systems. At this time, I felt like I was under a lot a pressure as business owners can explain to you that for every minute their systems are down, they are losing several thousand dollars worth of sales. Just great , I thought, My first day on the job and I am being thrown into a large compa ny facing my fear of talking to others and being under pressure. I expected to walk into this business and see a server on fire, sparking and smoking, and people frantically babbling to you as everyone is frantically running around the office with paper flying in the air. However, my expectations were far from reality. When my boss and I arrived to take a look at the server, it was easy to notice that a core server service that allows a client workstation to communicate back to the server was not responding. I terminated the service and restarted the system, which immediately fixed the issue. This could not have been this easy, I thought. Or could it? Maybe I am overthinking things too much and causing a lot of stress. Walking out of the server room, I see employees

Long 6 getting back to work, people talking on the phones, and service vans departing. The President of the company confronted me to ask me what was wrong. I explained the issue to him trying to talk very professionally as I knew our company had to maintain a strong image of professionalism. As I was speaking with him, I was rubbing palms together and struggling to maintain eye contact. To be only seventeen at the time, it felt great to be able to communicate with people of all different age groups and cultures across all of our clientele, and work with these individuals under pressure. I had the early advantage of getting out into the real world before most people and learning proper communication skills, business skills, problem solving, and the importance of professionalism in todays world. From both my high school computer job and my real world IT position outside of school, I learned that communicating with strangers isnt as bad as I previously thought of it to be and working under pressure can build not only knowledge, but character. I feel prepared to continue my journey though college and jump right into a career following graduation.