Am I an IT Professional?

Information Technology has made its successful entry in all parts of our society. It may be in education, communication, military and defense, governance, banking and finance, and even in gaming and entertainment. This is not possible without the unending support from IT professionals. But just one question, if all of these people will be given an award, are we one of those who will receive the said credit? This implies with this question:

Are you an IT Professional?

This is question is very easy to answer. And my answer would be "Yes of course"...

How can you prove that you are an IT Professional?

Unlike with the previous, this question i think is a tough one. Proving something is not that simple. You may provide a list of supports that will strengthen your claim.

Now, I will try to prove my claim that "I am an IT Professional". Let us see if I can get that award.

Erica of Textwriters.Net, asked the following questions:

1. What is being professional?
2. Do you think you measure up?
3. What separates a professional from an amateur?

She also stated the following views:

• if one was paid for something regularly, one was professional. Something followed for a hobby, or for fun, and not paid, was considered amateur.
• The dictionary definition of ‘professional’ is “…engaging in an activity as means of a livelihood. Extremely competent in a job. A person who conducts his business in a field also pursued by amateurs. A person who engages in an activity with great competence.”
• To sum up, it would seem that being categorized as professional means showing you have that rarest of commodities, common sense, and then, actually using it. Another major part is being adult, being considerate towards other people, and demonstrating self-control. No-one said it was easy, but it is definitely something worth striving for if you wish to be seen as a true professional, in a sea of amateurs.
  

A professional is a person in a profession which requires certain types of skilled work requiring formal training or education, or in sports, a sportsmen or sportswomen who derive income by participating in competitive sports (Wikipedia)

For me, being a professional is not on the salary we have but how competence we are in a specific field. To become an IT professional, the minimum requirement is that you are know and somehow expert of something that is related, of course, with the field. The most important is that you contribute to the development of your profession, in my field, Information Technology. Being a graduate of an IT course, say BS Computer Science, is not a guarantee to be an IT professional, because theres a lot of IT course graduates who are not really working in their fields. Yes you graduated and yes you have the knowledge, but how can you apply all the stuff in your mind. Good for us that we are somehow closer to our main line of work. We apply what we know, we learned what we should learn, we contribute the development of IT in our society, and of course, salary will follow. Then I can say that "I am an IT professional".

But as the technology evolves and new inventions and technologies are born, criteria of being an IT professional becomes demanding. Through continuous update will surely help us to stay with this profession... We can do this... We can also claim that award...

God bless you all...