Fully Qualified Academic
Working where my values lie is something I’m incredibly thankful for. Every day I go to work and work with people who love what they do, are passionate and driven, and they’re literally changing the world.
But what am I doing? I’m not just sitting here resting on my laurels. I think that's something that's lovely about working in academia, the possibilities are endless because you’re not working to increase the profits of some CEO or stakeholders. The whole mission is to drive value for all of society, and when I was a little lost in early 2021 I could never imagine sitting here right now being able to weld my dot Edu email again when I have a random question about something, remembering that I can dive deep on the internet to learn about fully qualified domain names everywhere or going native IPv6 or even how to gracefully administer exchange servers while peppering in some AD or bothering some of my great friends about 5G or LTE and always being curious. Being in this environment helped me grow my values of always learning, and even though some days are tough, I’m never going to stop learning, and I'm thankful for that.
I think what also makes where I am right now so wonderful for me is my feedback is not only valued but put in motion. People see me as a professional, whereas I was treated much less in past positions. Even in my last position, I was treated like I wasn’t a professional, and now I’m a professional, an engineer, and someone who's valued.
That’s something I’m grateful for, anywho, have a great day.
Tootles, Shane