Dear 20-Year-Old Deborah,
Hi there! Yep, you’re doing that thing – you’re writing that letter to your 20-year-old self. But you’re doing it as part of a good cause. There’s this thing called T-SQL Tuesday, which is a monthly blog party in the SQL Server community where someone brings up a topic and everyone blogs about it. This letter is in response to Mohammad Darab (b|t), who is hosting this month. (Thanks for hosting, Mohammad!) He’s the one who had the topic of writing your 20-year old self. You can read all about it on his blog if you want to know more.
So this means a couple of things. First, you have a blog! You don’t write posts as often as you want. But think about it – with your love of books and wanting to know more about editing and publishing, it’s kind of up your alley.
The second part is that you’ve taken an unexpected turn careerwise. You know how you want nothing to do with math and science right now? Surprise! You’re a techie working with databases – Microsoft SQL Server to be specific. You work with computers. Go math & science! The funnier thing is summer temp job you had last year pulling data into ACT! in order to create mail marketing campaigns actually was the start of what your career turns out to be. Who knew?
Before you panic that you are wasting your time studying English and History and try to remember where the COSI department is, just stop. What you love about bringing those two subjects together is the same thing that you love about working with databases and working with the programmers on their applications. You love understanding and seeing the history and how it affects the literature and your understanding of it. With databases, it’s understanding the context of data in the larger picture of what’s going on around it. And you still manage to find ways to bring your love of English and history into what you’re doing – from the idea of a project for your blog to how you pull together your presentations.
Mohammad asked that we give some advice or words of encouragement. So here’s what I have for you – not just in your career but in everything you decide to pursue:
- First, trust yourself. You have really good instincts so listen to them.
- Second, it’s OK to have ambitions. You’re very aware of wanting to give everyone a fair shake, which is a good thing. You will also invest yourself in the projects that you work on and take ownership and pride in your work. But you have things you want to do as well. Remember not to let being fair to everyone or your commitment to a project or two mean that you put yourself on hold or lock yourself in a position where you can’t move forward.
- Third, you have permission to act on your instincts and ambitions. There are all sorts of articles that talk about how women wait for permission to move ahead or take risks or ask for projects, etc. So we end up holding ourselves back because someone else will come along and take them without asking or waiting. Looking back, I know that you will do this along the way in your life. So I want to give you permission not only to be trust your instincts and have ambition, but to use them and move yourself forward. Find your opportunities or make them yourself. Most importantly, don’t be scared to go after what you want.
Even as I give this advice, I can’t tell you that it’s still easier said than done. It’s still something I’m trying to do, which is why I think it’s worthwhile and why I want to pass it on.
At 20 years old, I don’t know if we ever really have an idea of how life will go or even where we want it to go. Some people knew they wanted to go to law school or med school or graduate school but that was never you. And that’s OK. This career as a database profession just finds you and it really suits you.
I don’t want to tell you too much of what’s happens between now and then. (You saw Back to the Future, you know what happens.) But you don’t have to worry because things fall into place. Enjoy the journey you’re on.
Love, Not 20-Year-Old Deborah
Deb the DBA 