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

[EH_Alaska]

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?

[JesseCloutier]

Great topic, @EH_Alaska! 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

[EH_Alaska]

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

[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. 👨‍💻

[EH_Alaska]

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.

[JenniferAcunto]

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. 

[MrRamonG]

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 @EH_Alaska!

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 @EH_Alaska, 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.