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| 12 Nov 2009, Thu |
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From News Reporter to IT Expert, and Now a Job that Combines Both Passions
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Who would jump into an IT course without knowing anything about IT except "feeling that something interesting was brewing in the world out there and that I was clueless about it."
If your guess is "a journalist", give yourself a pat on the back.
That was exactly what Tan Ee Sze, former Straits Times reporter, did.
In 1990 and four years into her first job as a reporter, Ee Sze changed course to learn more about the world of IT.
Recalled Ee Sze, "I had read about IT developments in the news and I didn't like the feeling that I was clueless about it. I wanted to learn about IT, not just enough to use it, but enough to be an IT professional. As a journalist, I always felt that I was living vicariously through other people's lives. I thought it would be nice, for a change, to pick up some other core skills and jump right in."
And jumped right in was what she did. Being "totally IT-illiterate" she decided to sign up for the ISS' Graduate Diploma in Systems Analysis programme, the only IT programme around that did not require an IT background.
She did so well in the course, she was the IBM gold medallist for her cohort. The programme not only left her indelible memories of the camaraderie she shared with her classmates and the buzz and energy of the breakout sessions, it also changed her life path.
When her internship landed her a stint at National Computer Board, she seized that as a chance to gain a foothold in the industry and joined them as a programmer analyst.
She recalled the pains and joys of being a greenhorn programmer.
"I had a great time. IT was still new to me. While I could handle user specifications and system design because of my training at ISS, programming was a riot. I would develop applications with a programming manual in front of me. Sometimes the programmes ran ok, often they just terminated."
Fortunately, helpful and "infinitely patient" colleagues and project leaders got her through.
In between making a mess of programmes, Ee Sze wrote two books: WWW: The Wonder Years of NCB for the National Computer Board, and a children's book: Pages of our History.
In addition, she also wrote and edited the SME IT Guide, which focused on IT adoption challenges facing small and medium enterprises.
Between 2000 and 2006, Ee Sze had the opportunity to combine her two loves when she became the editor of fortnightly IT magazine, Computerworld Singapore. As editor, she was responsible for charting the strategic editorial direction for the magazine, both print and online, and for overseeing the entire editorial and production process.
Today Ee Sze credits ISS for providing her a solid foundation that she continues to draw upon.
"The ISS course was not so much about providing answers, but about giving a foundation upon which you could build up your IT knowledge. The main skill I picked up was how to ask the right questions; a skill that applies whether I was talking to users or to techies.
"Also, the Graduate Diploma in Systems Analysis course lays emphasis on business/user requirements as the starting point for systems development. That gave me a good appreciation of the link between business and technology. This is something that resonates with Computerworld readers, who are mainly IT professionals. The need to bridge the business-IT divide, and how to build that bridge, remains a challenge, and when my readers talk about it, when
vendors talk about it, I know where they are coming from."
Ee Sze has recently left Computerworld Singapore, to devote her attention full-time to Wordcraft Editorial Services, a research and writing agency specialising in the IT and telcom industry. She set up the agency in 1993 with a partner. We believe that her ISS training will also stand her in good stead in this venture.
Ex-Computerworld Singapore editor and an ISS alumni, Ee Sze finds that the GDipSA is a foundation building course.
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