From Jurassic Park To Online Accounting

From Jurassic Park To Online Accounting

Seeing the movie Jurassic Park helped inspire a young woman to enter the IT industry.

“Funny enough, I watched the movie Jurassic Park and there was a female character who used computers to lock all the doors and save people from the dinosaurs,” says Patricia Ramsden, 2016 WelTec IT graduate. “Ever since I was quite young, I've enjoyed using and playing on computers.”

Patricia has recently joined the booming Wellington technology industry, taking up a role at accountancy software developer Xero.

The Bachelor of Information Technology graduate completed a double major in both networking and information assurance and security.

“I quite liked the variety and the two majors worked together really well,” says Patricia, who joined Xero's graduate programme as a security specialist.

“At Xero we care about our customers and work to make sure everything's safe,” Patricia says. “I love working here; it's just amazing. Xero's a great company and all of us on the graduate programme are looked after extremely well.”

Siobhan Warren Xerox’s Graduate Experience Manager is overseeing Patricia’s introduction to the Xero team, "We're always looking for great talent at Xero, so we were really excited to have Patricia join our Grad Programme after completing her qualification with WelTec. She's a real asset to our Security team and we look forward to helping her grow and develop in her role."

Patricia is one of more than 550 students celebrating their success at WelTec's graduation ceremonies this week in Wellington and Auckland. There is a significant skills shortage in information technology, both locally and throughout New Zealand, something that WelTec is working hard to address.

“A lot of us are going into the ICT industry and in all sorts of different areas. It's a great thing to have those contacts which we made during our time studying at WelTec,” says Patricia.

“I met heaps of really interesting people at WelTec and did my final year IT project with an international student from Pakistan. We investigated moving an intranet into the cloud and using a solution that was scaleable, robust and fault tolerant. We got the opportunity to try new technologies like AWS, a cloud technology. Now, I'm at Xero, which is centred around cloud computing.”

During her studies, Patricia worked part-time at Telco Technology Services as a network auditor and designer, as well as a computer technician with Geeks on Wheels.

“WelTec is a great place and quite flexible,” she says, “and I had some truly excellent tutors. They were informative, knowledgeable and really went the extra mile to help students out.”

Mick Jays Head of WelTec’s School of Business and IT says, “The ICT sector is continuing to grow rapidly in Wellington. There are many job opportunities for qualified people and we are delighted with the success our graduates enjoy in securing employment in this dynamic industry.”

ENDS

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