Module Introduction

Hi, my name is Victor Escobedo and I'm a corporate operations engineer.

I'm excited to spend the next few lessons with you before my colleague and

friend Jeon takes the reins and wraps up the rest of the lessons on the internet.

Before we dive in though, I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself.

My passion for IT began way back when I was nine years old, and

my dad brought home our first computer.

He was a mechanical engineer and

started using the computer to help him with his cat work. This was the first time I was exposed to computers and later realized you can install new software on it, including computer games.

As I tinkered with the computer, surely to my dad's dismay, I became more and

more interested in how it worked and eventually started to open up the case and

peek inside.

I found pieces that could be removed and even some that shouldn't,

learning through trial and error along the way.

I couldn't really explain what it was but

I just found the mechanics of how it all worked together so fascinating.

Looking back, these were the seeds that inspired my career.

But, you see where I grew up, going to college and

pursuing a career wasn't exactly talked about or heavily encouraged.

I'm a first generation Mexican American, and

there weren't a lot of people I knew pursuing a career in tech.

My friends and family were mostly worried about graduating high school and

making sure they had jobs, not really thinking about careers.

My school didn't have the resources to offer many technical classes and

even though my father was working in mechanical engineering,

computers were a tool to him like a mill, ruler, or a hammer.

My parents encouraged me to work hard and pursue computers but

they couldn't really give advice about college or a career in

tech to no real fault of their own, they just didn't have the necessary experience.

When I decided to go to college, I decided to try my hand at

computer science since it could feed my curiosity for

how computers worked at a more fundamental level.

I realized that having this foundational knowledge really allowed me to understand

some of the higher level concepts that were important in a career in tech.

So while in school, I took on my first IT job for local small company.

I've been working in IT now for 12 years,

with the last 7 years being here at Google.

I now work on managing deployment of large internal IT projects for the company.

Applying the knowledge I picked up over the years in my initial IT helpdesk roles

to make sure that I understand how I'm impacting our users and

various support teams.

Now that you know a little bit about me, let's dig into the internet.

The internet made it possible for us to connect with almost anyone in the world.

Before the internet, you had to use paper maps and

write down step by step directions to get where you wanted to go.

If you wanted to see what your friends were up to, you'd have to call them,

actually talk to them.

If you wanted to learn something new, you had to go to a library and

hope they have a book on the subject you wanted to learn.

People didn't really discover new restaurants unless they heard about it

from someone else or it was advertised.

There was no Yelp or other website that rates restaurants like we have today.

For some of us, life without the internet seems unimaginable, we get it,

it's become an integral part of our lives.

In the next few lessons, you'll be learning about what the internet is,

how it came to be, and how it has impacted us both in negative and positive ways.

Revision #2
Created 29 May 2023 10:31:20 by naruzkurai
Updated 29 May 2023 13:09:07 by naruzkurai