 Jamie Shea, is a single mother of three school-aged children and an Intranet Web developer in Washington. An Intranet is a website that is private and internal to a company or organization (i.e., it's inaccessible to the public). She had worked most of her life in clerical administrative positions and spent eight years as a promotions coordinator at a TV station. "This was a dead-end job, and I decided I needed to take myself and my career more seriously," says Jamie. "I had very little college education but had an interest in the Web, both artistically and technically."
After taking a career transition course for two weeks, which consisted of a lot of testing and discussions of career paths, Jamie felt that everything pointed to reinventing herself as a Web designer. She enrolled in a Webmaster technology program, securing every form of assistance she could to make ends meet while going to school full-time. She even worked part-time as part of a Student Work Study.
"Within the first quarter of my studies, I was able to start freelancing Web work," recounts Jamie. "In the third quarter, I landed a paid internship at a software company working on their intranet. By the end of my internship ... I had established myself at this company and proven my skills well enough that I was able to propose a full-time position. I am now on full-time contract slated to go full-time permanent and making three times what I ever was able to as an administrative assistant."
Skills Jamie has learned include HTML, DHTML, JavaScript, perl, hardware and networking knowledge, PhotoShop, UNIX - all gained from her one-year certificate Webmaster Program at Bellingham Technical College. "Years of administrative skills helped me with organizing my work flow and in setting production goals," adds Jamie.
She believes that the writing and editing experience she gained while working at the TV station has helped her create Web content, not to mention the PR experience and communication skills she developed while there. Also, desktop publishing and art skills that she acquired independently over the years have helped her with Web page layout as well as shaping her design sense.
According to Jamie, "The Internet has changed my lifestyle substantially. But even better, I love the work! I've never enjoyed a job as much as this. It challenges me - both left and right brain - as well as allows me to use the people skills that I've gained from over twenty-plus years of working." |
