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...When I immigrated to England in the early nineties, I had decided to be a stay-at-home mum, because I thought that this would be the best way to ensure the welfare of my children as well nurture them intellectually. But, when they entered full-time school education, my life was taken over by the “heady” mix of day-time TV, household chores, school playground chats with other parents and volunteering at their school. I yearned for more intellectual stimulation. I decided to take up some form of retraining that might be both intellectually and financially rewarding. I have to admit it was not all fun and games when it all started.
I made a lot of wrong choices like taking up teacher training, which wasn’t for me as a mother of younger children, as it is quite intensive and I couldn’t get reliable help with child care. I had to give up even the training course, albeit broken-heartedly, as at that time teaching seemed to be my only option. But, as time went on, I realised how wrong I was. Teaching requires a lot of previous experience which I clearly lacked, having just come into England. I would like to mention that one should be very prepared to be able to learn and move away from bad choices, as they are not completely avoidable, and still have the thirst, drive and vision to re-evaluate them and start all over.
While I was recovering from the shock of having to give up teacher training, I had the wonderful chance to volunteer at a secondary school supporting displaced refugee children. I had to use the internet to gather teaching resources. After this, I realised that I clearly had a good aptitude for this kind of work involving computers. Around that time IT was a promising field to get into.
I was fortunate enough to get a place for a two year part-time (evening) computer science conversion MSc degree at a good university. However, I was woefully out-of-date with my revision technique and found being a student extremely demanding and hard at times. I had a few family crises as well, like my children falling ill many times and my husband having to undergo major surgery. I had to keep reminding myself of my goal to obtain a profession at the end of my course, as the course, especially the dissertation part, was very difficult even for younger students with fewer commitments. However, my teachers and classmates were very helpful and I somehow managed to pass the course and find my dream job, despite all these trials and tribulations.
If I were to condense my experience and thoughts into a few useful points, those would be:
1. Weigh your options well ahead of time and make sure you have the right aptitude for IT and make sure you have financial arrangements, especially if you want to take up a formal degree course.
2. Establish a good rapport with friends and family members and obtain reliable child care. I used to help out the parents of my children’s friends with evening childcare while I was at home. This helped me obtain the same kind of help with my children when I had to go to college.
3. Obtain basic computer training (most of the basic ones are free or very inexpensive) and secure part-time jobs, like office administration, to get a feel and a better aptitude for more intensive IT jobs.
4. Look at websites like womenintechnology, specially designed for women in IT, or computing.co.uk etc. The following articles provide some pointers:
• How to Get into IT
• A Career in IT
5. Research on the web to identify the types of career pathways available to IT students and see what would be best suited for you.
6. It would be very useful to attend open evenings at colleges where you wish to study, well ahead of when you actually intend to take up the course. Lecturers and students are only very glad to answer your queries at such events.
7. We have to work on our confidence, especially if we have stayed away from the work place for a long time. It would be best to be prepared to do well in the initial interviews that help secure your first IT job once you have qualified. Career search websites carry advice on succeeding in interviews. Specialised IT websites also provide help on answering specific IT questions.
8. Public sector jobs or part-time jobs tend to be more flexible in terms of work-life balance. They will help you settle down and will prepare you for more challenging private sector jobs, when you decide to take the leap.
9. The honest truth about returning is also that one has to work that much harder to be able to match one’s younger counterparts, who might not have as much responsibility and family commitments and should thrive under stress and pressure to succeed in a delivery / results oriented field like IT. Having said this, if we can attain this frame of mind, the rewards are endless.
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