• Question: How did you get into IT

    Asked by kune519wren to Kirsty R, katebelson, johneaston, fleurcorbett, Edward on 31 Mar 2025.
    • Photo: Kate Belson

      Kate Belson answered on 31 Mar 2025:

      I’ve always liked solving problems so my teachers recommended I do a computer science GCSE, and from then on I knew it was what I wanted to do for a job.

    • Photo: Edward Smart

      Edward Smart answered on 3 Apr 2025:

      I didn’t directly. I didn’t have a computer at home growing up so it was not really a thing for me. I did maths at University and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do afterwards. To be fair, I didn’t put a lot of effort in because I was in my Uni bubble, having fun, going out and then it all came to an end!

      I was applying for roles that had some modelling in them and so you do need some programming skills to be able to implement all those methods you were taught. This was not made clear during my degree so applying for jobs, I got a lot of interviews but I didn’t get very far after that!

      I taught myself programming and that helped but I was unemployed for around a year. I played A LOT of computer games but it was quite depressing really.

      My first job was to improve an indecent image detection tool, to remove such images from work emails and school emails before people see them. The old program used AI and I was able to improve it. It was really exciting to see the power of AI to solve tricky problems so after that, I was really inspired to boost my programming skills and learn AI and machine learning.

Comments