First In, First Out

This is a short introduction to me: the early years.

Hi, thanks for visiting. I'm glad you found me. To keep the main page clean and present you the option to fall asleep reading my bio, I'll give you a more formal introduction to myself here.

I was born in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas what seems like ages ago. I spent my early childhood there and then relocated to Rochester, New York at 11 years old. My dad was my primary parent and mentor, and growing up with a brother and all male cousins meant two things: I was predisposed to being a tomboy, and I learned very early about how basic democracy works (hint: generally not in your favor when you're in the minority!). My dad encouraged myself and my brother to work hard in all aspects of our life. School was important. Free time came second to chores. And just because I was a girl didn't mean I was getting out of manual labor. Dad always said "hard work builds character". As much as I grumbled, I'd like to think I've become a well adjusted adult.

He also allowed me to learn lessons the hard way. That's how I ended up pursuing a degree "in English, but not to teach" after high school. An associate's degree in hand and being burnt out on school, I spent a number of years working full-time in office positions. It was during this period of time when I officially fell in love with computing and technology.

In my spare time, I was hosting a private online game server, doing minor programming tweaks to customize events and in game elements in an effort to gain a player base. At work, the corporate IT department had stumbled on my aptitude during an outage local to my business unit. I had only started to poke and play around in our RedHat based application because the outage meant I had no data entry to do, and was therefore bored. I can't take credit for resolving the issue, but the IT team recognized that I was computer literate enough to assist with minor help tickets within my local office, and a former coworker put the bug in my ear to consider going back to school.

In 2010, I committed to a few classes at my local community college. My plan was to get up to speed on the basics, get a few certifications, and work help desk to make a few bucks more an hour. My advisor pushed me to consider a tour at RIT and the moment I visited the campus, specifically the Golisano College of Computing, I knew I needed to be there.

The rest is history. I applied into the networking program and was accepted. I worked all three of my co-op experiences with the Information Security Office on campus (I loved this role very dearly). I graduated in 2013, and worked in a NOC role for a recently acquired cloud Voice over IP company. And lastly, I found myself relocating to Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. I began working at EMC, the behemoth information storage tech company as an associate presales engineer - an opportunity I will forever be grateful for.

I will make a point to delve into each of these roles in future blog posts, but I don't intend or plan to make this blog entirely topic specific. More likely, I will probably talk about anything ranging from industry technology trends and gadgets to things I love-hate about being a millennial.

Until next time,

Lauren