This summer IT-oLogy has had the opportunity to work with many great interns, each with their own sets of interests, skills, and goals. We are happy to introduce them to the blog and hope that the information technology community will welcome them as talented students and future IT professionals. Introducing our third “Meet the IT-oLogy Interns” feature, Tucker Ervin!
Name: Tucker Ervin
Age: 17
School: Homeschooled
When did you first get interested in IT? How?
I became interested with IT at an early age because I wanted to know how my dad, who worked at company that worked on sound systems, TVs, etcetera, could make all this stuff work together. He taught me quite a lot of what I know, such as wiring systems together, troubleshooting computers, and building computers.
How did you find out about IT-oLogy?
I was actually introduced to IT-oLogy around a year ago by a good friend, whose mother thought it sounded like a fun time for all of us. He, my brother, and I started going to the Cyber Saturdays, and we’ve been there pretty much every month since. It was a fun time indeed.
What parts of IT are you interested in? Why?
I’m mostly interested in programming and physical computing for one reason: robots. Designing, building, and programming robots is my dream. Without programming or physical computing I could not build robots, so IT was an obvious place to start for me.
Why do you think IT is important?
I think IT is important because technology permeates every facet of our lives. If you don’t know how to interact with this technology, you are basically powerless in today’s society. IT helps us understand and better interact with the technology. That makes it pretty important in my eyes.
Who has helped you get involved in IT?
As I said before, my dad was the one who introduced me, helped me along, and encouraged me into doing what I enjoy, but several other people have helped me as well. My mom bought me books on programming, drove me to IT-oLogy quite a lot, and bugged me into finding what I enjoy doing and making it my job. Jon Bartschi and Heather Bauer helped get me an internship and let me mess around with some of the cool stuff we have here at IT-oLogy. Quite a few other people have encouraged me to just do what I love doing, and IT is just that.
How does IT affect your day to day life?
Well, over the course of the day I have access to no less than three computers sitting in my room and a smartphone I carry everywhere. IT has helped me learn how to better use those things for my purposes. Especially since at least one of those computers likes to give me slack every other week or so. If I didn’t know how to fix those bloody things, I would eventually end up with three broken computers and a broken smartphone, which is a sad state to be in.
Where would you like to work someday? In what position?
My dream job would be owner of my own robotics company, but it doesn’t really matter to me where I work. As long I get to build really cool robots, I don’t care where it is.
What are your plans for after high school?
I plan to either double major in Electrical and Computer engineering with possibly a minor in Mechanical Engineering or major in Mechatronics. It all depends on which college – hopefully some place like MIT or CAL-TECH – I go to and what programs they have.