I’m curious why did you all chose GIS as a career, as is a “niche” field. It’s widely used but not much people know about it.
In my case I studied History & Geography and had to use GIS during one course. I really liked it and I also like to code, so I guessed GIS could be a career for me as I didn’t want to be a teacher back then.
I’m now finishing a GIS Maters and working as a GIS analyst, using python to automate routines. Is my first job in the field (started as an intern).
I sort of stumbled into it. I was medium computer-oriented as a kid, and I majored in Management Information Systems in college, which felt like a very broad, Jack-of-all-trades IT program. Little bit of networking, little bit of programming, little bit of database work, etc.
When I graduated the job market was terrible and I wound up getting a job in petroleum doing data entry and reporting, got hired away to do similar work for a smaller company, and got laid off and hired to a much larger company doing more of the same. I’m not sure when or how I got started in Arc, but the department I was in used Arc for lease mapping and I excelled at it, and now ~13 years later I’m one of three guys in our division’s GIS group under the IT department. I’d never heard of GIS before I started here and now I feel like I’m a fairly decent cartographer, data wrangler, and Python programmer.
I kinda feel like GIS chose me. :)