Like Father, Like Daughter

I consider myself fortunate to be able to say I have a great relationship with my father. I don't take for granted that I have loving, kind parents and a father that made me feel loved, complete, and never like I had to be anything other than myself. I consider it an even greater gift to be proud of the qualities, traits, and interests that we share. I credit my father with my deep love of music, taste in beer, a broad inner landscape, appreciation for used bookstores, and wonder at languages. We share the same fascination that the Spanish word "corazon" actually sounds like a heartbeat when you say it. One thing we haven't shared, however, was anything related to his work or career.

You know how growing up everyone asks what your parents do for work? I could never describe what he did with any kind of accuracy. I could tell you "something in IT," but not much more. I knew he usually had a laptop in his lap or at the dining table (a Lenovo). I remember looking over his shoulder to see white gibberish text and slashes against a black background (the Terminal application). I knew he always needed to help my Grandmother with her internet as the default family technical support representative. I knew he had rows of books with animals on them, though I never could understand what a Rhinocerous had to do with JavaScript.

What I did know is that he worked incredibly hard for our family. I knew that he started with his employer as a French translator on a construction site in Georgia after meeting representatives from the company while working as a waiter, and continued to progress through various positions and divisions by investing in himself and his own knowledge.

I also knew that while I was in high school he went back to school for his Masters degree. I remember him working at his desk in our family den, and to this day I marvel that he was able to focus with a family around in the same room. I also remember when he was a part of the Accenture Challenge, working all through the night for 24 hours, and eventually winning the challenge that year with his team - something he is proud of to this day. Earning his Masters from CICS at Ball State University led to an incredible opportunity to work from the company headquarters in Paris, France, and definitively changed the trajectory of his career.

Over the years, through college and my first few professional jobs, he would encourage me to look at the CICS program. I would look at the curriculum, the graduates, the jobs, and think "Well this is incredibly over my head." I had never taken interest in taking apart a computer. I didn't know how the internet worked past knowing the Wifi password. Surely my eyes would glaze over if I were in any of those classes, right?

Little by little, however, I started to become curious about his world - the "computer" world. I watched a phenomenal YouTube series on Computer Science and was fascinated by Boolean logic and the levels of abstraction needed to create computers. It all started to feel a little bit like learning about space, and just as fascinating. That part of me that gets fired up and obsessive when I don't understand how something works lit up.

I'm proud to say that nearly ten years after him, I'm in the same program that he had been recommending to me all these years, and I'm loving it. I want more time to follow all the rabbit holes that are possible to go down - learning about Wireless networks from Dr. Jones, using Wireshark, introductions to computer architecture and organization. When discussing my course schedule with Dr. Stumpf, I think to myself "but I want to take all of them." Instead of my eyes glazing over as I expected years ago, I feel challenged and invigorated.

I'm excited that a whole new world is opening up to me, both in my understanding of communication and information systems and in the expanding set of interests I can now share with my father. I'm grateful to have him as a role model for my career and continuing professional development, and to have been able to give him the news this summer that I was also an Accenture Challenge winner. Maybe now he can finally retire as the family default technical support representative ??