After graduating from Rutgers University with a BA in English, I began my professional life with a small consulting firm in the Washington, DC area. My job was a data analyst. I reviewed different types of documents such as grant proposals, government funding applications, progress reports, etc. for completeness and accuracy of data. If data was missing, or if there were any questions about the documents I made contact with the senders for clarification. I also did some data entry.

The job was alright but after a few months I began to feel restless. I did not think there were a lot of opportunities for advancement. So I enrolled in a local community college and took some computer programming courses. To my surprise I was quite good at programming and had an aptitude for it. The company I was working for won some new projects which had openings for computer programmers. I applied for one of the positions and got it. Thus I began my career in IT.