Soldato
IT is misunderstood. When someone asks me what I do - I mean for a living - I tend to reply with just "I'm in IT". That's because my actual job title is meaningless to anyone that is not in IT themselves to understand what it entails. Therefore I just "work in IT". That response satisfies 99% of people that ask because they have no interest in knowing any more. The only people that would tend to ask for more info, are those that have experience in IT roles themselves.
People tend to still see IT as fixing computers. Oh you know about computers...can you fix my laptop? Can you tell me a good laptop or tablet to buy? Little do they know what you actually do on a day to day basis and that actually, no, you don't know what a good laptop to buy is without researching the latest ones yourself either, despite that you might work daily on highly technical things.
When my kids ask me what I actually do all day at work...I mean it is genuinely hard to explain without them getting bored within 10 seconds. I think it is this unwillingness to learn...this lack of interest or desire that really has been the death blow to IT. It's because it's all around us by now. 5 year olds using phones/tablets daily...tech is all around us and is taken for granted. As has already been said, IT is not a mystery worth learning anymore because the focus is not what these machines and technology can do, it's more about what can I consume right now and how does it give me an instant fix in delivering content. People can't really see past that. "If you've been working with computers for so many years, aren't they all fixed yet?". Genuine question raised to me. It's because IT again is seen as devices which are made to do stuff, and if they don't, they get fixed. IT is so much more obviously.
The courses at GCSE level from what I have heard of my local schools teaching my kid, are terrible. Literally how to use office apps and not a lot else. It's no wonder they don't take them. They have a very bad rep. Same as when I was at school. I think it varies a lot. The better ones are where you learn actual programming.
I like this. My dad worked for Logica and then CGI for more or less his whole career, so he was basically an IT project manager. He's alright with computers, but my knowledge exceeded his when I was about 13. That always tickled me because he was always "in IT."
Ah well