From Psychology to Tech: Alli Jerger's Story of Growth

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Welcome to the Women in Tech podcast series, brought to you by Wisconsin Tech month.

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This series is all about shining a light on the women who are driving change and breaking barriers in tech.

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Each episode is about celebrating their journeys, successes, and the impact they're making in our industry.

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Let's hear their stories.

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How did you start your journey in tech?

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I think, like many of my generation, I kind of stumbled into technology.

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Back in the day, there weren't it degrees, really.

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You didn't go to school for it, and so you really sort of fell into it.

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I didn't go to school for it.

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My bachelor's was in psychology with adult education philosophy.

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So great liberal arts education to be able to balance all that.

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But I'd been working with technology since I was a kid.

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I had like a Vic 20 and a Commodore 64 and a trash 80, and I had all of those things growing up because my parents were into technology.

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So when I started to look at what can I do with a bachelor's in psychology?

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Well, you can go back to school and become a psychologist.

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Which didn't really interest me, was always staring at my computer, and I went, oh, well, maybe I should do something with that.

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So I ended up starting into training, and I did it training because I love technology and I love sharing my love with technology, and I wanted to teach people how to use it.

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And then I ended up leveraging that into consulting, and I really focused in on technology adoption.

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So it is no good if no one actually uses it.

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Companies spend all kinds of money on it implementations, and if no one uses it, it's a complete waste of time.

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So really it was.

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I stumbled and I fell into this great thing that I've made an incredibly awesome career out of.

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What has your experience been like as a woman in this space?

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I'll admit it's been challenging at times, but it's also all I've ever known.

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So I don't really know anything different than to be in this challenging space.

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I always had to prove that I knew something.

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I can give you countless examples of others in my that I worked with.

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I would say something and they would say, well, I don't think that's right.

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And then I'd have to prove it.

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I'd have to prove I was right sometimes in front of customers, because they were undermining me in front of customers.

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I was in consulting, and it was really, really frustrating.

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On the other hand, I was also really lucky, and I had some great mentors throughout my time in it, and I've been able to go to them and say, okay, how do I handle this situation?

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Because this can't continue.

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And there's been times where I just had to suck it up, I mean, and deal with it because I wasn't going to change the behavior of everyone around me.

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This remains a male dominated industry.

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It's getting better.

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It's one of the things I'm working to try to change.

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And it just.

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It just takes time, and it takes determination, and you have to grow a thick skin, and you have to be willing to challenge the status quo.

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But I also didn't realize how incredibly demoralizing and exhausting it was to live in that every single day when you go to work.

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Until I landed someplace where they just assumed I was competent.

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And it was like a complete shock to be someplace where I walk into a meeting and it was even about something I didn't know a whole lot about.

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And they just assumed that if I didn't know, I would go and find out and everything would be fine.

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And I went home that day and I called up a friend and I said, you wouldn't believe what happened today, because she also works in it, and she struggles with this every day.

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And so I am lucky every single day that I landed where I did, where that competence is just assumed.

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But I still run into people.

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I run into students.

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I work at a technical college, and I run into students who question sometimes, which is always interesting, what do you.

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Love most about being in the tech industry?

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It's always changing.

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Nothing stays the same.

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We are right now living in a time of extreme technology change, right?

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AI hit like a bomb about two years ago, right?

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All of a sudden.

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I mean, AI is not new.

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It's been around since the: 1950

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We've been using it in every parts of our day.

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I still remember how creeped out I was when I got in my car and Google told me I was going someplace.

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I'm like, how did it know, right?

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But we've been living with it all our time.

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But then chat, GPT released this thing, and all of a sudden, everything changed.

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And so we're just living in this crazy time.

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And just before that, we had Covid, right?

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Which is hard to believe.

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That's been, like, five years ago.

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But we had Covid, and that changed how we interfaced with technology.

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And we, you know, we look at podcasts and how it exploded when we started to look at Covid, and how do we consume information?

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And it's just an incredible space.

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So it's constantly changing.

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Sometimes it feels like we're chasing a train, and we're hoping to catch that thing before it goes off the tracks.

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But it's so much fun and it's so challenging every single day.

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There's just never a dull day.

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And so if that's the kind of world you love to live in, what's not to love about being in tech?

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What advice would you give someone entering the tech space today?

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Be flexible.

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Don't get stuck on what you think you need to do.

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Say yes.

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See what happens.

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If you're lucky, you'll land someplace like I did.

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Wherever the culture is.

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Actually, it's okay to fail.

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We're told every day by our president it's okay to fail.

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Just don't burn down a building.

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So that gives us the space to innovate and to take risks.

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So say yes.

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You just never know what's going to happen.

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If you don't say yes, nothing's going to change.

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And you're never going to get the opportunities to really grow and see what's out there and explore new spaces and.

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And do things that have never been done before.

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I've been lucky enough in my career that I've been part of a couple of firsts in the world because I said yes.

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Didn't know what I was doing, didn't know what I was going to get into.

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It was a little scary.

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But by saying yes, I got the opportunity to do amazing things and to change people's lives.

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And there's nothing better than that.

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So if people want to learn more about you, to get in touch to say hi, how can they do that?

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Easiest way to do that is LinkedIn always works.

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You know, there's only one of me on LinkedIn.

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Guarantee it.

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And so, Alijerger on LinkedIn, you can find me.

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You can also email me at work.

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It's ajurgerctc.edu.

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but either one of those ways is always the best way to get in touch with me.

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And I'm happy to talk to anyone about technology.

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And that's it for today's episode of the women in tech series.

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A big thank you to our guests for sharing her story and inspiring us all.

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Make sure you check out all of the amazing things that are happening during Wisconsin tech month.

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There is so much to discover, from workshops to panels to networking events.

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Stay connected with our incredible community of tech leaders and innovators throughout the month of October.

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Thanks for listening.