Luke Jesen, Jr. is a current student at Riverside City College (California) studying IT / Cyber Security. He’s also an apprentice with SystemGo IT as a technical engineer.
Jensen was always tinkering with his computer—troubleshooting and fixing it. His transition to an apprenticeship was eye-opening. Although he was confident in his ability and knowledge with computers, he found it a lot to take in once he was actually at the job. Understanding all the different software was one challenge he tackled by spending some hours outside the job to understand how to navigate and properly utilize the software.
All the new tools were exciting but complex and required time for Jensen to adapt to the environment. Once he settled in, he grew in comfort and confidence, appreciating how many resources are out there and how important it is to continue to learn them. Jensen says he was surprised at his progress and began to feel that he was contributing to the team by easing the workload while enhancing the overall community and culture of the workplace.
Jensen credits his coursework from Riverside City College and mentorship there for helping him land his job and perform it so well. He also relied on Network Kinection, an apprenticeship intermediary, which reached out to him on multiple occasions to check in on my progress and provide him with an apprentice kit.
Jensen’s advice for future apprentices would be to focus on learning well, not fast.