Screen Goddess Linda

I started out my working life as a dental nurse, but after three years had found that I had learned just about everything there was to learn in the job. After a further five years, I left work to have a family, and started thinking about getting a new career.

My husband was about to start a new career also, in computing, and encouraged me to also look into it. I had no experience in IT, never even used a computer at home or work, but I read the university handbook - computer science section - and decided then that it looked far more interesting than the other courses on offer.

So the next step was to hop onto our brand new (secondhand) computer and start learning. After three weeks of working my way through the beginners guide, I was ready to enroll at university part-time. And that was the beginning of a lot of hard work and late-night study.

My children were one and three years old when I began, and seven years later, I finally had my degree in Commerce (E-commerce and Management Information Systems). During that time, I took up work experience with three different companies and one of those offered me part-time work, which led to full-time work after a couple of years. So by the time I had my degree, I also had six years of work experience, a great start to a new career.

I have been able to work in many different areas, due to the dynamic nature of the industry. So far, I have been a web developer, project manager and enterprise systems analyst. I love IT because it is always evolving and presents a constant challenge. And I know I have a lot to look forward to in the future!