There is a world of in­for­ma­tion at our fin­ger­tips. If you're in­ter­est­ed in tap­ping in­to this in­for­ma­tion then maybe a ca­reer in the field of IT is for you. As He­mant Pooran, 29-year-old, IT An­a­lyst/Pro­gram­mer tells gieMAGAZINE, the field is in­deed in­ter­est­ing and holds a wealth of knowl­edge. Pooran is a 29-year-old IT An­a­lyst/Pro­gram­mer em­ployed with a state owned com­pa­ny. He at­tend­ed Na­pari­ma Col­lege where he pur­sued sci­ences. He then went on to the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies where he com­plet­ed his BSc. Com­put­er Sci­ence and Man­age­ment. Pooran has been in the IT field for ap­prox­i­mate­ly sev­en years. Read on as he tells us more about this rapid­ly grow­ing in­dus­try.

Ques­tion: Why did you want to be­come an IT An­a­lyst Pro­gram­mer? What sparked your in­ter­est? An­swer: I think my in­spi­ra­tion came at the time I re­ceived my first desk­top com­put­er. At that time I was in sec­ondary school and had very lit­tle in­ter­ac­tion with a com­put­er up till then. In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy wasn't even part of my cur­ricu­lum. So I was pret­ty ex­cit­ed when I got my new PC. In one of the box­es the com­put­er came in, I found a book on 'QBA­SIC' – a very old pro­gram­ming lan­guage. I start­ed play­ing around with it and pret­ty soon I was writ­ing sim­ple code. I re­mem­ber the feel­ing I had when I got my first pro­gram to run. I felt in­spired that I could turn an idea in­to code and see it work. Ques­tion: What are the func­tions of an IT An­a­lyst/ Pro­gram­mer?

An­swer: An IT An­a­lyst/Pro­gram­mer ba­si­cal­ly stud­ies the busi­ness needs of an or­gan­i­sa­tion and de­signs, de­vel­ops and im­ple­ments soft­ware in­for­ma­tion sys­tems to meet these needs. An­a­lysts/Pro­gram­mers try to bridge the two realms of busi­ness and tech­nol­o­gy in an ef­fort to make busi­ness op­er­a­tions more ef­fi­cient.

Ques­tion: What are the re­quire­ments to get in­to the field?

An­swer: Most em­ploy­ers re­quire po­ten­tial em­ploy­ees in this field to pos­sess a min­i­mum first de­gree (BSc.) in Com­put­er Sci­ence or a re­lat­ed field. There are al­so many cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grammes avail­able that will im­prove your skill set as an An­a­lyst/Pro­gram­mer.

Ques­tion: What is the length of study?

An­swer: Most de­gree pro­grammes are com­plet­ed with­in three to four years of full time study. Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grammes are much short­er.

Ques­tion: Where can one who wants to get in­to this field of study and fur­ther one's ed­u­ca­tion?

An­swer: UWI of­fers a BSc. In Com­put­er Sci­ence that is re­spect­ed through­out the in­dus­try. In­sti­tu­tions such as SBCS of­fers for­eign based de­grees and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grammes that are al­so very com­pre­hen­sive. Some oth­er in­sti­tu­tions worth con­sid­er­ing are UTT, COSTAATT and SAM.

Ques­tion: Do you think your course of study lacked any­thing? Are you ca­pa­ble of deal­ing with every­thing that you en­counter in the world of work?

An­swer: I did my BSc. Com­put­er Sci­ence and Man­age­ment at UWI and it was very com­pre­hen­sive and pre­pared me for most sit­u­a­tions I en­counter in the work place. It goes with­out say­ing that cer­tain at­trib­ut­es would have to be learnt as you go along. Time man­age­ment to meet dead­lines, man­ag­ing projects and work­ing un­der pres­sure are some such qual­i­ties. A good de­gree pro­gramme will arm you with the ba­sic skill set of an An­a­lyst/Pro­gram­mer, which would en­able you to con­fi­dent­ly ap­proach any sit­u­a­tion in the work place as far as de­sign­ing, de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing in­for­ma­tion sys­tems.

Ques­tion: Is there a mar­ket here for I.T. An­a­lysts/Pro­gram­mers or is the field sat­u­rat­ed?

An­swer: In­for­ma­tion sys­tems are now an in­te­gral part of every or­gan­i­sa­tion. There is al­ways a need for new sys­tems and tech­nol­o­gy to meet busi­ness needs. There is al­so a need to main­tain these sys­tems. As such, there is in fact an ever grow­ing mar­ket for IT An­a­lysts/Pro­gram­mers. Trinidad and To­ba­go has many tal­ent­ed pro­gram­mers. Some cre­ate a mar­ket for them­selves by build­ing, sell­ing and main­tain­ing their own ap­pli­ca­tions. Groups such as The Trinidad and To­ba­go Com­put­er So­ci­ety seek to net­work those in the IT field to share knowl­edge and keep abreast of lo­cal de­vel­op­ments in in­for­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy.

Ques­tion: What are the ad­van­tages/re­wards of your job?

An­swer: It is a dy­nam­ic field so it re­al­ly push­es you to al­ways bet­ter your­self by learn­ing new tech­nolo­gies etc. Al­so, you get a sense of ac­com­plish­ment when you cre­ate some­thing with code and see it be­ing used to solve a re­al world prob­lem.