No, we don’t mean in a clichéd, hacker-sitting-in-a-dark-basement sort of way. That’s so 1998. We hate to break it to you, but if you’ve jumped on Houseparty or Zoom just once in the past six months, you’re a tech person.  

If you take pride in tracking and recording your 10,101 steps a day, you’re a tech person. Ordered Uber Eats? Clicked-and-collected from Bunnings? Paid a friend with just their mobile number? Sorry, but you’re just going to have to own up to what you are.  

Guilty of being tech heads (and they have no idea). Credit: Courtesy of Uber

So, why is it when people talk about tech pervading the jobs of the future, we glaze over, freak out or shut down? Is it because we flash forwards to being forced to code, failing miserably, losing our job, not making rent, then selling our organs to androids masquerading as humans in a Bladerunner-esque nightmare? We do love a good bit of catastrophic thinking.  

But we’re going to put this to you – it’s not about having to know what sq=lambda n:int(“.join(map(lambda x:str(int(x)**2), list(str(n))))) means. Seriously, put that keyboard away and stop abusing close parentheses. It’s actually about a little bit of learning that will make work (and life) easier down the track. 

Tech is like salt. It’s in Everything, Everyone Everywhere Does. And if you’re looking to dish yourself up a new career, you’d best pick courses that are well-seasoned with it.  

If this makes you nostalgic, you’re a tech head. Credit: Courtesy of Apple

We’ll be direct. We’re Swinburne University of Technology, because, yes, we excel at IT and engineering, but also because everything we teach has sprinkles and pinches of that all-too-important ingredient for future career fireworks. To make things easy, we’ve put together a ‘best of’ list for your consideration. 

Flirting with the algorithm

We’ll start with the Diploma of Social Media Marketing. If you know what’s going to get you likes, and have shamelessly used your pet Irish terrier for exactly that purpose, congratulations, you’re halfway there. It means you already understand the fickle minds of your ‘audience’ … a term you’ll soon become familiar with. 

That’s the hard part. Learning the tools and platforms (the tech) is easy, if you just make a start. It’s like a crossword puzzle (regular not cryptic) – once you figure out one answer, the rest falls into place. In the end, the tech is only there to help you do what you do, at scale.  

If you’ve even heard of a Walkman, you’re pretty much a tech head too. Also, this sort of photo would blow up on social media for its retro value. Credit: Courtesy of SONY 

Next stop, biohacking

Not an obvious one to most, but health and tech have been the best of friends since before MSN Messenger, if you even remember that. Think about all the machines we use to visualise the inside of a human body. There’s no better way to learn the difference between aorta and ventricle than to hold up an augmented reality heart in class or use virtual reality to explore how your thigh bone is connected to your hip bone. 

And that’s exactly how you’ll study if you pick a nursing or health diploma or certificate at Swinburne. Trust us, using tech in these courses is more like playing Candy Crush than it is trying to find the command line on your computer. 

Whether it was a laser disc, Game Boy or iPod, we all remember feeling pride in ownership. That’s ‘cause we’re all tech people at heart. Credit: Courtesy of Apple 

The whole motherboard

Fact – when it comes to engineering, you’ll be using fancy kit on the job. Which is why you need to arrive already knowing your way around it. From the get go, our courses will have you designing and demo-ing your ideas in augmented reality. You’ll program industrial-sized robots and integrate them into automated systems (no mere Lego Technic here, thank you very much). Plus, you’ll get to work on industry briefs and solving them in project teams … just like you would in work life. 

And when it comes to choice, our options have options. Pick from our buffet of advanced diplomas and associate degrees, in specialisations ranging from Building Information Modelling to Industry 4.0 advanced manufacturing and cloud technologies. These are the fields advancing stuff like 3D visualisations, chore automation and Amazon’s Alexa; saving us time and headspace for all the other things we’d rather be doing. 

Now this is taking it too far. Credit: Courtesy of technabob.com

So, you see, tech is really just a means to an end ... a glorious future where we spend our time solving the big problems in the universe, innovating and most importantly, with each other, doing human things, like talk. And if that’s what being a tech head means, sign us up.

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