Career Field Research
The career field I am researching is computer systems. My interviewee was Steve Thompson and his position is a systems analyst. He works at Hartford Hospital with my dad and has had this position for 7 years. His work is based on queries, algorithms, and data sets. He uses the SQL programming language on the hospital’s medical information system called Epic. This system is used in several departments of the hospital, such as in radiology, in the pharmacy, and in labs. Steve uses the system to help others with their experiments, studies, and projects. People give him certain criteria for subjects within their projects. This can include inclusion and exclusion criteria such as people with neurological issues and people without diabetes, respectively. Steve has to generate data sets based on what’s requested of him, and although it may seem simple, it is actually much more complicated because there are so many variables. If someone asks for people with neurological issues, you have to separate between people with neurological issues due to things like stroke or because of a genetic disorder. Steve describes the process as a puzzle and says you need to be creative and have a lot of concentration to solve the puzzle. Although Steve interacts with many of his coworkers on the job, he doesn’t usually work with anyone. Steve went to UCONN for computer science and engineering. Back then there was a long waitlist for computer science at UCONN. He initially went for electrical engineering instead because he always liked electronics and programming from a young age, but went for computer science once a spot opened. He returned to UCONN for his master’s and specialized in bioinformatics. He is now working on his thesis on queuing theory. Although Steve received a master’s, he said that his position’s pay does not increase with the level of higher education. Employers in the field care about the experience that their employee has in different coding languages in systems because if they have a lot of experience, it means that the employer would have to pay for minimal training and the employee could start working right away. Steve explained that the hospital is a nonprofit and not a private organization, so it pays less than say a company like Travelers. However, he stressed the benefit of working at a hospital because of the stability. Unpredictable obstacles like the pandemic caused many to lose jobs across the country, but hospitals stayed running and those working in them kept their jobs.
From what I understand from Steve, the career field is very tough and requires a lot of work. However, this does not discourage me. The field of technology and computers continues to grow today and there is so much to learn, so I am willing to challenge myself, but at the same time, I want to make sure that the career will make me happy and not too stressed or anxious all the time. I realize now that I have to find a balance when setting a career goal. I shouldn’t get a job that I hate and that leaves me tired all the time, but I have to realize that it is very unlikely that I will get a job that I love completely. I still firmly believe in attending college after high school, but I did start to think about how my degree will help me. It is definitely better to have a degree than to not have one, but the price of the degree comes into play when deciding if it was worth it. In my opinion, getting a degree is almost always worth it. I am someone who loves learning, so dedicating myself to learning and specializing in a certain field for 4 years sounds amazing to me. Even if my degree won’t greatly benefit my career, such as giving me a higher salary, I still wouldn’t regret obtaining it.
From what I understand from Steve, the career field is very tough and requires a lot of work. However, this does not discourage me. The field of technology and computers continues to grow today and there is so much to learn, so I am willing to challenge myself, but at the same time, I want to make sure that the career will make me happy and not too stressed or anxious all the time. I realize now that I have to find a balance when setting a career goal. I shouldn’t get a job that I hate and that leaves me tired all the time, but I have to realize that it is very unlikely that I will get a job that I love completely. I still firmly believe in attending college after high school, but I did start to think about how my degree will help me. It is definitely better to have a degree than to not have one, but the price of the degree comes into play when deciding if it was worth it. In my opinion, getting a degree is almost always worth it. I am someone who loves learning, so dedicating myself to learning and specializing in a certain field for 4 years sounds amazing to me. Even if my degree won’t greatly benefit my career, such as giving me a higher salary, I still wouldn’t regret obtaining it.