High-tech careers

Got a knack for technology, a soft spot for software? Then consider these high-tech careers.

Computer animator
Remember the movie Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius? “We created that,” says Jeremy Totel, a computer animator for DNA Productions. Totel, a 1997 graduate of the Art Institute of Phoenix, worked on lighting and special effects for the Academy Award-nominated film. “We added the color lights and shadows and any special effects that are needed,” Totel says. “All the pretty stuff.”
Inspired in part by Star Wars, Totel decided to study animation art and design at college. He took classes in drawing, basic design, reference design, digital video, storytelling, presentation and photography. Those classes gave him the tools for creating and accenting characters. “If we want to build a new character for Jimmy, say we want him to have a baby sister,” he says, “there’s not a button to push that gives you a baby sister.” Instead, it’s up to various departments to create the character from scratch.
The modeling department sculpts the character into a 3-D figure. Another department paints texture onto the character, giving it depth. Yet another group will animate the character in the scene in which it belongs. Then, Totel gets the animated character to add lighting and special effects to it. Totel spends a typical day making “map” paintings of 3-D images to use as scene backgrounds. These paintings are usually nature pictures, such as snow, clouds and water. Map paintings lessen the work for other artists; once they have snow, for example, the artists won’t have to recreate an entire picture to add a new background.
Totel also cleans up shots for other artists. Other fields to consider include special-effects artistry, graphic design or video post production. Animators can work in commercial production companies, animation studios, advertising agencies or video production companies. “The more medias you can experiment with and the more you can learn about art history, the better off you’ll be,” Totel says.

Web site developer
When Gale Wilson-Steele was developing a searchable Internet database in 1996, her conversations centered around design, marketing, software…and whether or not the Internet was there to stay.
Wilson-Steele is now CEO of MedSeek, a company that offers software that manages physician databases and helps hospitals develop interactive Web sites that allow patients to make appointments, e-mail doctors and eventually access their medical records online.
To be successful in the high-tech industry, Wilson-Steele says it takes a willingness to keep learning. “The technology we’re using today is not the same as we were using five years ago,” she says. “In technology, you very much have to be willing to embrace new things and invest yourself. Find the book, resources or person to help you. It’s about educating yourself.”
One way you can start educating yourself about the high-tech industry is to start playing with programming now. But don’t get too discouraged if your programs don’t work as you’d hoped. Trial and error is what makes Wilson-Steele’s industry grow. It’s also one of the more frustrating things about a high-tech world. “There are times when you seem to take one step backwards for every two you take forward,” she says. “Such as creating an application you think is going to work, and when you build it, finding that it doesn’t work very well when a bunch of people are using it at once.”

Network security administrator
“Our graduates have run the gamut of high-tech jobs, from network administrator and help desk support to senior IT vice president or security manager,” says Rick Lawless, president of Cyberschool.com, which grants college diplomas and certifications in the information technology (IT) field. Network administrators keep a corporation’s entire communication system running. That includes computers, phone systems, high-speed data connections, satellites, home offices, e-mail and even cell phones. You can prepare for an IT career by attending college and/or earning certifications in specific areas, such as network security. Security administrators protect a company’s network from internal and external harm, such as viruses, negligent employees or malicious hackers. IT security will become even more crucial as governments continue to develop systems to pay bills, renew licenses and pay taxes online. After all, citizens want to make sure their personal and financial information is secure. Development of these e-services means companies have to purchase equipment, maintain it and hire staff. And that can translate into jobs for you. Robotics engineer “When people think about robots, they think about Commander Data from Star Trek,” says Tom Allen, who works in a biologically inspired robotics lab at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “But that’s not state of the art. State of the art is what we’re doing.”
Allen is developing a robot to navigate Martian terrain. If it doesn’t get to Mars, the robot can be used in military reconnaissance or to search for survivors after disasters like the World Trade Center collapse. His robot, a contraption named “Whegs,” is modeled after the anatomy of a cockroach. Why a cockroach? They can crawl over anything, and they’re nearly impossible to squish. “We study biological entities, then we attempt to use the things that we can learn and apply them to robotic systems so that we can get superior locomotion and behaviors out of our robots,” Allen says. Most robots are actually stationary—an arm that holds a spray can and paints cars, for example. But no matter what your robot does, be prepared to use a lot of calculus to make it work. You’ll take classes in dynamics and physics, too. “The science behind robotics is what makes it all work,” Allen says. “Once you have that knowledge, then you can start being creative. And that’s where it gets interesting.”

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