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I entered college to get a Human Geography B.A. and go on to get my PhD. After realizing this meant I must leave my home area and my family(I live in a major US

by zeku 6y ago

I entered college to get a Human Geography B.A. and go on to get my PhD. After realizing this meant I must leave my home area and my family(I live in a major US Metro but not one of the biiiig ones) AND the only jobs were Professor or Think Tank(very cool, very walled garden and I went to a state school) I decided to switch to Physical Geography B.S. My curriculum had 3 GIS classes and a Remote sensing class among other physical geo classes. After almost finishing this degree I realized it would leave me with only GIS Tech and hopefully GIS analyst positions to have which is a smallish market and might get "automated away". Also it doesn't pay super great and I was worried about my prospects if I didn't like it. So I dug bag in and also got my B.S. in Computer Science. I wanted to be that Geospatially focused programmer. So I graduate with my B.S. in Geography and another in CS. I get interviews with a couple of random defense contracts and directly for federal government, but I turn them down because honestly I don't want my work going to wars I might not agree with and I would need to leave my family. I also happened to get an interview at ESRI for fun when I still was deciding if I should leave my metro or not and they laughed at me because I didn't have an internship--something that is very common in Toronto, LA, NYC, but not common in my mid-US metro CS scene. So I now have a nice programming career solving "big data" problems completely away from geospatial, because the industry is tiny. I don't really know where I was going with this but this industry lacks opportunities for programmers compared to all the other stuff they could be doing. I'm someone who put years into wanting to break into the industry and do the tech work, if I wasn't the prime candidate for a junior geospatial programmer role then I don't know who is and the industry still couldn't get me in it.

maw 6y ago
> the only jobs were Professor or Think Tank Mostly offtopic: I initially misread that as "Professor of Think Tank" and I immediately understood it to mean something within the disciplines of military affairs, macroeconomics, some areas of law, a few others. This actually seems like an interestingly useful grouping, possibly more so than "STEM."
vharuck 6y ago
The disconnect is from one of the beliefs listed in the Twitter thread: "There is no 'geospatial industry,' only industries with spatial problems." I'm a statistician with a state health department and do some GIS work. If I were more skilled with geospatial analysis, there's no doubt the decision makers I work with would be delighted. If somebody wants to use GIS skills, they should keep an eye on IT or analysis roles. They might not specifically ask for it, but you can still sell it in the interview if it'll help solve their problems. If you're hoping to make the big bucks or work on cutting edge problems, then staying local will be difficult.

by zeku 6y ago

maw 6y ago

> the only jobs were Professor or Think Tank Mostly offtopic: I initially misread that as "Professor of Think Tank" and I immediately understood it to mean something within the disciplines of military affairs, macroeconomics, some areas of law, a few others. This actually seems like an interestingly useful grouping, possibly more so than "STEM."

vharuck 6y ago

The disconnect is from one of the beliefs listed in the Twitter thread: "There is no 'geospatial industry,' only industries with spatial problems." I'm a statistician with a state health department and do some GIS work. If I were more skilled with geospatial analysis, there's no doubt the decision makers I work with would be delighted. If somebody wants to use GIS skills, they should keep an eye on IT or analysis roles. They might not specifically ask for it, but you can still sell it in the interview if it'll help solve their problems. If you're hoping to make the big bucks or work on cutting edge problems, then staying local will be difficult.