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If 2008 was a year of digging myself out of a ditch at work, 2009 was a year of figuring out how to proceed on solid ground. I’ve worked as an Information Assurance engineer since I left JMU (two years, three months, and counting). When I started in the fall of 2007, I had to go on part-time medical leave for a month or two. However since I had just started in my position, I quickly fell behind my peers in skill and capability. After meeting with different levels of managers, I was given the choice to shape up or ship out. 2008 was spent digging out of that position.
Entering 2009, I was involved in a project that had me working late shifts and weekends. I worked in a very stressful (though temporary) situation and served as a single point of failure for a project. Thankfully, that work was more or less done by April and my responsibilites had begun to grow in other areas. I became the technical lead for a few small projects and served as a point-of-contact for support on a number of others. From June through August, I studied for the CISSP exam and, in late August, passed it on my first try. Once I accumulate four years of experience, I’ll be able to claim the full designation, but for now I am officially an Associate of ISC2. In the past month, I received a few small awards in recognition of my work throughout the year and I finally feel like I know how to perform well in my position. I need to become more forceful with my work and improve my communication skills, but I feel proud of my work this year. Happy with the work I’ve done though I know I can do better.
All that being said, I’m not sure that this is what I want to do with my career. One of the goals on my laundry list for the year was to figure out where my interests lie regarding my career. I had bits and pieces figured out, but I was having trouble putting it into words. So I started spitballing ideas into a Word document and, after about a month of emptying out my brain, weaved the pieces into something coherent. And although it’s just an idea at this point, I’m thankful that I have a better idea of what I want to do.
Basically, I want to create a method for organizing the internet. Ontologies represent content and how it relates to other pieces of content. So, if we can take a webpage’s content and break it down into its composite ontologies (by taking the text and breaking down what it means), then we can begin piecing together the information on the internet. This process is obviously easier said than done, but it’s a big enough problem and interesting enough that I’d like to make it a focus of my career.
Since my current work isn’t related to this field of study, I’ve been trying to figure out how I can bridge the gap between my current line of work and my desired career. From there I started thinking about the human brain, figuring that if the brain’s information processing activities can be mimicked, then I could piggyback off its logic (and I wouldn’t have to re-invent the wheel). Through my last roommate Mike, I met a girl named Wendy who is involved with the Neuroscience program at George Mason. She was kind enough to set up a meeting for me with her advisor, who provided me with an overview of GMU’s Neuroscience degrees: MA in Neuroscience (more biologically based) and an MA in Human Factors & Applied Cognition (both are psychology degrees).
I’m currently in the process of determining whether getting a Masters in the latter program would help with the problem I’m interested in. Additionally, I’m trying to figure out what jobs or companies are currently involved in this research to determine what I can do to get hands-on experience. This whole thing is a bit of a pipe dream, but I’m hoping I can turn my curiosities into something useful. In the meanwhile, I’ll keep trying to get better in my current line of work.
I’m interested in how the brain works, but I’m also interested in how we can determine “good” information and, if that’s possible, how we can make “good” decisions. Even if it couldn’t be used for all decisions, it appears that having a common body of knowledge (that is open for debate and improvement) could at least supplement our decision-making process. But what do we do when we don’t have good knowledge? And even if we have good knowledge, what do we do when we don’t make good decisions? What happens when we don’t know what we’re doing? Beyond whatever shape my career takes, those are the questions that move my mind right now.
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