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How many of you have fallen into a GIS career without a degree?

EllieHakariAK

Hello everyone! I thought it would be fun to talk about how you ended up in a GIS career when it's not something you went to school for.

I personally worked a low-level job in an office where engineering/geology things were happening. Over time, I was asked to learn how to use ArcMap to accomodate various use-cases within the office. I was doing GIS work before I even knew what GIS was! That was close to a decade ago now and I just got to go to my first Esri UC in San Diego last month. I am also now in a GIS-specific role within my organization.

With all of these things on my mind, I wanted to hear from the rest of you as far as how you ended up here. I don't think many high schoolers have geospatial anything on their minds when heading to college, so... How did we become such a large community?

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JesseCloutier

Great topic, @EllieHakariAK! It's awesome you got to attend User Conference last month—if you make it again next year, be sure to stop by our Esri Community booth to say 'hi.' Our team always has a presence there and would love to catch up a bit.

Your story about more-or-less falling into GIS reminds me of a another member of ours, @BrandonA_CDPH, whom we featured in a recent article. Feel encouraged to check it out if you haven't already: Esri Community Member Spotlight: Brandon Adcock

BrandonA_CDPH

Yes, as Jesse pointed out, I too had a "non-GIS" route to my GIS role. In short, my schooling is in microbiology. I used maps but didn't really have a clue what GIS was in school. I wandered through biotech and taught high school for a time. Then, I sort of fell into my current team in foodborne illness outbreaks (wait, where's the GIS?) We were using maps and there was some basic use of ArcMap, but nobody really dedicated to using and improving GIS skills. I saw the geospatial data we were collecting and realized it was really cool and we could be doing some powerful stuff with it. So, between field work and investigations, I taught (continue to teach) myself GIS. When the opportunity comes up, I take a class here and there, but largely self taught. It was total chance that I even got my first job in this Unit and even stranger that I found and have honed in on GIS.

I look forward to hearing other "origin stories" of us unlikely GIS superheroes. 👨‍💻

JA7

I got a degree in criminal justice and realized I liked studying criminal justice but not working in the field. So I got a masters in Information Systems Security because I felt that could be a doable transition without having to completely start over career wise. After I graduated I worked for a large government agency in a position that allowed me to rotate through various offices for 3 years. I randomly stumbled on a documentary on how maps are made and thought to myself 'I like maps.'

The next day at work, I looked to see if we had a GIS office. They did, and I cold called the office asking if they would take me in. In my interview I told them 'I know nothing about GIS but I want to learn.'

I ended up finagling that six month diversity tour into a permanent position and was there for 3 years before coming to Esri.

You never know where you'll end up if you're open to new experiences and willing to get out of your comfort zone.

EllieHakariAK

Jesse,

Thank you for sharing! Brandon's story is awesome. I love reading about how GIS has opened doors for organizations to quickly and efficiently complete their work. It is a GAME CHANGER. The story was also rather relevant to my own life right now. I am pregnant, and my husband has been fretting a lot over what I eat due to risks such as listeria. That's why pregnant women aren't supposed to eat things like deli meats, hot dogs, sushi, certain vegetables, etc. I shared Brandon's story and said "See! People are looking out for me, and they're doing it with GIS!" 😊

I look forward to hearing more of the unique ways people have utilized GIS in their organizations. Thank you for taking the time to highlight them!

Ellie

EllieHakariAK

Brandon,

I loved reading your story because it shows how relevant GIS is in nearly every industry! The applications are endless, and your group is lucky they hired someone innovative like yourself. I imagine the introduction of GIS applications allowed for incredible growth as far as the ability to track outbreaks. And because of you, other people have now gotten pulled into GIS as well!

I also love that you refer to us as "GIS Superheroes". I was just telling my husband the other day that GIS is like a superpower because, as mentioned previously, it has so many applications. I feel like in the future we could see GIS careers become as prominent as engineering is today, with more interest from students as they enter college.

EOCWD_GIS

Travel! That’s how I got turned onto the GIS path. In the `90s I was doing a two-month backpacking trip through Europe. This was before I had any college level computer or Geography courses. And it was before the aid of smart phones and readily available mobile, personal computers. So, I was armed with paper maps, museum and cultural locations, travel guides, contact information, bus and train schedules and handwritten spreadsheets… I was doing GIS without computers and I was my first client 😁. After my trip and when I enrolled in my first Geography class I realized, “holy smokes! I was doing GIS in Europe!” The rest is history…. and doing GIS with computers is much more fun 😉.

ThomasHoman

Hi @EllieHakariAK!

GIS is the universal connector because nearly everything we do has context of spatial relevance in some fashion or another and every project can likely benefit from a map or spatial analysis.

I came to GIS from the IT side of the world as a DBA manager. We had a data table (streets under Public Works maintenance) that needed visual context and validation for length. They gave me a GPS unit and put me out in the field for 4 months to drive every road in the County. With that information I did some cleanup and brought this back into the system. This work identified a number of streets that had problems.

Like you I was not aware of GIS prior and did all the work in custom written VBA for AutoCAD Map. PC Arc/INFO and ArcView 3 were out at the time but I had a comfort level already in AutoCAD so didn't look to change. I never looked back. Now I am the GIS supervisor for the County I work in and touch everything including IT.

Circling back to my roots, I took the IT port map and added office information/phone extensions by knowing the phone MAC addresses and finding them on the network to correlate to an office number. Now in case of an emergency event adjacent offices can be contacted directly. I have my building done and working to bring more in. Indoors is not part of our Small Gov ELA so I am building the interiors the old fashioned way.

Respectfully

Tom

CathyKnight

Hi! Thought I would jump in on this. I have a pretty similar story @EllieHakariAK, I have been working for a small local government as an administrator when out Town Engineer really started to push for creating a GIS for our utilities. We worked through much resistance with a previous director who did not see the value, hired a consultant and got some of the paper maps converted to make a skeleton GIS. Now we have a new director who does see the value and has encouraged me to take classes, I have made connections with some other local GIS folks and most of my position is no focused on perfecting and growing the GIS. I have even rolled out a few iPads to our crew for view only maps in the field. The love it! I am working on making inspection forms and such with field maps so they can make real time edit and updates themselves.

So I am still taking classes and webinars on my own, googling a lot and asking my peers when I need to, but I love it and learn new things everyday with it. When I went to school we still had print atlases for Social Studies and I had never heard of GIS.

Thanks for the great topic, I like to hear about other people like me who moved into GIS in unconventional ways.

loum

My degree was in microwave engineering. I did a lot of coding so ended up as IT infrastructure guy who did a lot automation. One day, my supervisor asked me to support ArcGIS which just upgraded to 10.1. From that moment I fell in love with GIS. Now I am doing anything related to GIS, from Infrastructure, Custom Applications (frontend with JavaScript to backend with java, python), database to data science. ArcGIS bring joys but sometimes sorrow, lol.

jcarlson

I got a GIS minor in school, but to be frank, nothing from my undergrad experience has actually been useful to me in my professional life since. I "fell into" GIS simply by taking an interest in the technology and reaching out to others to see if I could help them use GIS in their work. And also by not shying away from a bit of Python!

I landed my current job because of some familiarity with legal descriptions and plats, things not really taught in typical GIS courses anymore, but which I was exposed to by initiating a project with my university's archives. Since then, my position has continued to morph into more "developer" stuff, again, mostly because of taking initiative in the things I find interesting.

OscarGaleas

My degree is in Business Administration but somehow stumbled upon a GIS position. I enjoy data analysis and how it can be used to answer questions and create proactive solutions to everyday problems.

kcarr

I have a BS in English/Journalism about as far from GIS as you can get. Graduated college and went into graphic design. Somewhere along the way I got a job doing data analysis for sewer systems so I had a basic idea of how sewer systems worked. Went back into graphics design, learned HTML and how to create web pages using notepad (the horror!). Heard about a job in 1999 for a "desktop specialist" at a water/sewer utility. Applied thinking it was something to do with maps, sewer and graphic design. Technically it is. I am now a GIS Analyst and moved our department from paper maps to Portal and ArcGIS online. Always striving to learn new things!

JesseCloutier

Be sure to check our our newest Esri Community Member Spotlight featuring Ellie Hakari, which in many ways was born out of this inspiring conversation a number of you contributed to!

EllieHakariAK

Thank you @JesseCloutier and @BriannaEttley! You both did an incredible job capturing my GIS journey and getting it out there. My hope is that people can connect with my story in the same way so many people have connected here on this post. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's responses and look forward to future discussions!

RonaldHaug

Hi Ellie,

Thank you for sharing your work bio and for the wonderful member spotlight you got. I am envious you got to attend the 2023 Users Conference this year. I am grateful esri was kind enough to let me watch all the recorded video workshops, though.

I got into GIS because I went back to college after my children were out of college to get a forestry degree. I was required to take two GIS classes, basic and remote sensing. One thing led to another and I took three more semester long classes after graduating to get a GIS Certificate. The last class I took, Cartography, was probably the most important because it provided me with fundamental mapmaking design principles. It's important because it's independent of the software program one uses.

Most of the resource specialists I work with had about the same level of GIS experience I did before I pursued the GIS certificate. We all made mediocre maps.

Asking people about GIS experience in job interviews is about where the question about Excel experience was a decade before. Interviewers are like "Do you have GIS experience?" and you say "Yes!" But come on! GIS is a huge field, and it's constantly evolving. It's like playing music. If you want to be any good, you have to do it all the time. I like doing it because it helps keep my mind sharp, and believe you me, I need all the help I can get in that department.

Our group now has a Teams chat so if anyone has a GIS conundrum, they can send up a flare for help. We also meet once a week in the conference room to discuss each others maps and collaborate. It's nice and I recommend it to other practitioners of the craft. I also recommend people take the training esri offers to learn more and keep your saws sharp. https://www.esri.com/training/arcgis-online-training/

EllieHakariAK

Hey Ronald,

Love everything about your comment! Especially the part about GIS experience being like Excel experience in the past. There are so many different facets of GIS that you can have an interest or specialize in. I think this causes a lot of confusion when it comes to non-GIS management. They may have ideas about what GIS is, but those ideas can completely conflict with what it actually is to you. Also makes communicating ideas difficult haha.

The Teams chat is awesome! We have something similar here in AKDOT&PF, although it was created by all out AutoCAD folks. They just sort of pulled us in (no complaints!). Most of the meetings and discussions are CAD-focused, but once a month they host a GIS meeting to answer questions and demonstrate new GIS projects that are going on. I love that people are beginning to build a community within our organization. When I first started, and even up until recently, GIS employees were incredibly siloed and had no one to talk with about their work.

I'm glad you've found GIS as it sounds like it's something you're passionate about! Looking forward to seeing you around Esri Community. 🙂

TierraMontgomery

I stared with a Computer Science background. Had to leave school to take care of my grandparents. Then went on to an Information Technology degree and took a chance at applying for a GIS Technician role.

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