22 years old, from Eugene, Oregon (formerly Bozeman, Montana)
Joel works for the University of Oregon and provides support and instruction for 30,000 computer users
Officially my job title is Consultant / Network Applications specialist. I work for the Academic User Services group of the University of Oregon Computing Center. We provide technical support and instruction for the centralized email, web and high performance computing resource for about 30,000 users.
Generally, my responsiblities include the installation, configuration and maintenance of systems which provide services such as,
I also fill a role and and instructor, teaching the introduction to pine, intro, intermediate and advanced unix workshops on a quarterly basis. I am also the primary contact for people looking to purchase or set up pc based unix machines as desktops or servers on campus and at home
(for an example of one such machine check out: http://twin.uoregon.edu for my personal desktop machine).
Helping people who are actually interested in using unix systems rather than in minimizing their contact with them.
Lemore naval air station in california was where I was born, but in 22 years I've lived in San Louis California, Riverside, California, Davis California, Tuscon, Arizona, Bozeman, Montana, and for the last five years in Eugene, Oregon.
I also play a pretty fair amount of bridge in Eugene, not competitivly, but often. Also I am finishing up a BA in history, which is the reason I came to the University of Oregon, but not the reason that I've stayed, I am however an avid student of modern european/american history and philosophy.
My parents bought a computer in 1983, I used it a lot, but I didn't get really into in until 7th grade, which coincided with the flowering the bbs/hacker scene that go so much press in the mid-eighties. What has become clear to me over time is that personal computers have gone through distinct phases of adoption based on what people used them for. My parents were for example early adopoters of computers because spreadsheets were the compeling application for them. For me it is more the computer as a communication tool.
Computers weren't great communications tools for a long time because netoworks were primitive or non-existant and the technology was expensive. Now Networks are robust, exist nearly everywhere, and are comparitivly cheap, and the hardware is both cheap and relativly easy to use, which goes a long was towards explaining the current popularity of the internet.
Yeah, I was in 4-H for 7th grade until the year I graduated from high school. I was president of the Springhill go-getter's for a year in Montana. Projects I have participated in include lamb projects, modeling, model rocketry, shooting sports, computers, and of course leadership. When you list it all out it seems like a lot, but it didn't seem like it at the time.
When you're younger, computers are things you play games on, write reports, etc. When you see a machine and meet the people that support 5000-20000 users, it changes the nature of the game a bit. For me it opened up a whole new series of possibilities that I had not previously imagined.
Keep in mind that it's estimated that on the order of 1.2 million technology related job positions will go unfilled over the next 3-5 years. There are tremendous opportunities for young people who are inexperienced, but willing to work hard and learn fast.
Keep in mind also that the World Wide Web was only invented in 1992, and didn't really become and industry until 1994. When I entered the university in 1993, none of the stuff that is on the web today existed at all. In another four years, you can expect things to be completely different, so experience doesn't give people already in the industry much of an advantage over people just entering it.