"Demigods of Hungary"

 

Dear reader, in this week’s topic the task is to write about what an IT professional is in our home country. Since I am from Hungary, I will be talking about IT professionals in Hungary, more specifically the skills they have, their attitude and what people think about them.

Before starting my BSc at TalTech in Cyber Security, I was doing IT software development in Hungary. I only did 2 years of it before switching.

So, what is it like to study IT at a Hungarian university? It is rather complicated. The universities do not get as much money as in other countries, so the equipment is not the best, but we got everything that’s needed to do the tasks. The study plan is a bit out of date but in the end those who complete it will have a vast amount of knowledge about IT.

Let’s talk about the skills. Because of how the study plans are built most IT professionals know a bit about every part of IT even if their specialty is something different. Mathematics and logical algorithmic thinking are a must have that is paired with great programming skills. It is due to the fact that since the 1st semester, they have to make projects during the semester which are as close to a real-life task as it can be based on their current knowledge. Now where the drawbacks are is usually the attitude. At most universities they demand so much from them that they burn out, can only communicate with fellow IT professionals, and have little to no interest beside their wellbeing. Due to this attitude IT engineers or engineers in generals are viewed as depressed alcoholic jerks (fortunately this is not true most of the time but in some cases, it is). This stereotype is popular among other university students.

Now what the average Hungarian thinks of someone who works at a field of IT? Well basically they are viewed as a jack of all trades. If you work in IT, then you know everything and usually are asked to fix a PC or a phone or the Wi-Fi. Most people don’t know the difference between a software developer, a network engineer or someone who deals with computer architectures. They are one and the same in the eyes of the public. When they ask me what I study and I answer cyber security engineering I usually get the same answer, “I don’t know what that does but it sounds complicated, so good luck and we are proud of you”. As a lot of my friends, I am “the IT guy” home who they call for help if anything happens that is somewhat IT related.

To sum things up, in Hungary, IT professionals are smart hard-working people with a somewhat bad attituded, but regardless, they are seen as a demigod who can fix anything that is electronic with one touch.

Thank you for choosing my blog this week too.

Balint Adam,

3/23/2021