I have spent many years in the IT field in a help desk position supporting staff at various organizations. If you are in the IT field, then you know how many problems are thrown at you each day. To be a good IT technician, you must quickly and professionally resolve your customer’s technology related issues.

After working in this industry for 7 years, I was left wanting more. It was no longer enough to service machines and customers. I wanted to be the person who built the software that the technicians were servicing. Learning to script inspired my curiosity for computer programming.

I found a tool that would make my life easier, and it was writing simple batch scripts. This way, the machine could perform a task for me if I were not able to be present at the moment. With batch scripting, I could add a printer, open a website through a specific browser, etc., all automatically without having to be there.

I began to learn the syntax of batch scripting so that I didn’t had to copy and paste from the internet. However, scripting is not the same thing as programming, though it has a lot of the same attributes.

I know a lot of tech oriented people out there that could be programmers if they just approached it in the right way. If you chose the IT field to begin with, chances are that you are analytical, detail oriented and typically think logically. However, this doesn’t mean that everyone in IT is cut out for programming. It also doesn’t mean that people from other fields may not be qualified either.

It is just about discovering if you have the aptitude to learn a programming language utilizing the technical skills required to be in IT. For me, scripting helped in the effort of learning the basics of programming without getting completely overwhelmed. It allowed me to get my feet wet without totally jumping in and slowly but surely, I transitioned out of the IT technician world, and into the world of programming.