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Gesina Susanna Maria Sands

Personal Information

A thirst for knowledge and a desire to make a meaningful change in my life led me to choose this degree. I believe IT to be a field in which there are endless opportunities for learning, development and growth. Finding myself drawn to the mixture of technical, theoretical and creative problem-solving skills that is required to be successful in IT, I finally decided to pursue study in the Bachelor of Information Technology.

I am originally from a small town in the semi-desert region of South Africa called Calvinia. The town itself garnered its name from French religious reformer Jean Calvin (Frandsen,D 2013) and the Dutch Reformed Church is still one of the integral characteristics of the town’s life in way of religious instruction, social gatherings, and general meeting place.

When I was about seven years old my parents decided to move to New Zealand for better work and educational opportunities for my sister and I. Though I was removed from my country of birth, my parents ensured that we still understood the Afrikaans language, written and spoken as well as the customs, food, and music of our culture. Afrikaans was my first language and when I moved to New Zealand, I learnt how to speak English. Though it was a difficult transition moving to a foreign country, unable to communicate with anyone, the skills in attaining a new language allowed me the ability to see that with hard work you can overcome major obstacles in life.

At the age of twelve I decided to take up piano, and at that point, becoming a pianist became my sole desire. I eventually got accepted into the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in South Bank Brisbane which is when I moved to Australia to undertake tertiary studies. After spending so much of my life focused on one single goal of becoming a pianist, I realised I had not explored other avenues of interest which led me to take up martial arts and subsequently that has become a favourite hobby of mine. In particular I have been drawn to the grappling martial arts such as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Freestyle Wrestling.

martialartscompetition
martialartscompetition

Pictured here in the black Gi is me in a Queensland State competition in Brisbane. (Some people say Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is akin to involuntary yoga...I would tend to agree)

Interest in IT

I have two main interests in IT, building and designing intuitive and well-designed websites and applications for businesses as a Front-End Developer. My other interest is in data science as I love the idea of making sense of large quantities of data that I am then able to present in useful and meaningful ways.

Though these are my interests currently, I am very much looking forward to the journey of discovery that happens when studying to see what other areas of IT interest me as I am keen to not limit myself as I did in my prior degree.

My interest in IT arose from the enjoyment I find in being handed a new piece of technology and figuring out through trial and error how it works. Whether that be a new phone, a new game, music recording software or Bluetooth to connect to a car, I always felt as though it was a fun challenge. My desire to work in this field has been pushed further with the arrival of my daughter and having already accomplished my career goals as pianist. I want to work in an area which is not static and where I can be challenged mentally and creatively. Moreover, it is important for me to set an example for my daughter. I believe it is important for young children to see their parents working towards their goals so that they can learn to set and achieve their own. I hope that as my daughter grows and she sees me studying in the evenings that it will instil a love of learning in her as it did me when I was growing up and seeing my parents’ study.

RMIT was my university of choice because of its attitude towards adult learners, and the flexibility of the course. The fact that I am able to start the course doing one subject at a time means that I can spend valuable time with my daughter during the day but also continue to better myself and develop my skills in the evenings to have a better and more secure financial future as well as having a job I am passionate about and that can challenge me on many levels. On online forums that I have read over the years in relation to the best tech universities in Australia, RMIT has always come up as a university that teaches practical skills and prepares you well for the real world in IT.

My IT experience is limited to none. Apart from building a few websites for family and friends with tools such as XAMPP, MySQL, WordPress and completing a few courses on Code Academy, I would say my IT experience is very little.

During this degree I expect to learn practical skills and theoretical knowledge to prepare myself for a future in IT. Learning how to work well as a team member and being taught the most up to date technologies for things such as team work, collaboration, cloud computing, libraries etc. With an overarching goal of becoming a Front-End Developer I expect the course to effectively prepare me to ‘learn how to learn’. IT is such a large industry and there are so many avenues to explore that it would be impossible to cover it all in one life time let alone in one degree, however, I believe that if a person is equipped with the right skills and knows where to find the right tools, they will be able to build upon what they have learnt in a degree and be successful in the workplace and in life.