Not where I thought I’d be

Way back when I was still in high school (it seems like a lifetime ago), I never would have thought I’d be where I am today. I had it in my head all through high school (I think I was bit by the bug around 6th or 7th grade) that I was going to have a job in a weather related field. I loved storms, and was just generally interested in the weather.

I did end up following that path. I went to the University of North Dakota to pursue a degree in Meteorology. I spent 4 years there and ended up with a B.S. in Meteorological Studies (That was 10 years ago this May. Wow does time fly). A couple summers before I graduated, I worked on a weather modification project in western North Dakota. I loved that. I was genuinely interested in the field. I find it amazing that you can reduce the size of hail or make it rain. After college, I got a job as a meteorologist at a company in the field of weather modification. They had projects all around the world, not just in the US. I was there for over 4 years.

That job is what started my migration away from the weather related career path. I was there for over 4 years, but basically was only an office assistant. I did get to go out in the field once (to Oklahoma). But there wasn’t any weather during the week that I was there. So my job mainly entailed gathering paperwork from the field projects, compiling reports, generating reports, logging data … that kind of stuff. Nothing dealing with the weather.

But that job did get me started on my current career path. While I was there, I took over maintenance and development on the company’s website. I did have a couple computer classes in college … 2 in C programming and 1 in computer concepts in meteorology. It was the computer concepts class that I got my first taste of web design/programming. We had to do all of our reports as a website. But other than that, I’ve had no formal education/training in web design/programming. Everything that I know is stuff that I’ve taught myself through trial and error. Good thing I’m a quick learner.

So working on that company’s website is what started pulling me into the world wide web (so to speak 😉 ). I delved deeper by developing websites for myself and for a local country band that I know. I ended up registering a domain name and having several subdomains.

That brings me back to today. I have been working as a web programmer for almost 4 years now (the end of June brings me to the 4 year mark). I’ve been with the same company (sort of) all that time. I say “sort of” because at the beginning of this year, that company ceased to exist, and the 2 of us left are now working for the client we had been working. So I’ve been working on the same websites all that time (Well, almost all that time. I started on small projects/updates for the first couple months.).

In these past 4 years, I’ve expanded on my php programming skills and learned mssql. I had only worked with MySQL before that time. And this week I started working on creating my first web service. We’re integrating our shopping cart with Google Checkout, and I get to do the development. I’m learning more and more with every new project we embark on. This web service development is allowing me to learn to work with DOM objects and create/parse XML. This is stuff that I can use on my own websites too. I just need to come up with some good ideas. :think:

While I never imagined I’d be where I am today, I am happy. I really enjoy web development. And the more time I spend on it, the better I get at it. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still am intrigued by the weather … especially severe storms. One of my dream vacations would be to go on a storm chasing tour. But as for a career … it just wasn’t meant to be.

Where will I be 10 years from now? Who knows. But I’m hoping it will be in a career that has something to do with web programming.