My “IT” Start – Through the Eyes of a Student

So I had something else written for this section, but after reading what my student worker TJ wrote about me for his class assignment, I was floored 😁. He had to interview someone in his Communications class and craft a paper describing his learning. I am so honored by his paper that I will share it with you.😊 He did a great job documenting my journey; I greatly appreciate him. Thank you, TJ!

  1. From Section 8 to Digital Real Estate
  2. Fighting Through A Storm
  3. Finding Her Purpose
  4. Stepping Out On Faith
  5. Changing Your Mindset

From Section 8 to Digital Real Estate

Interviewed and Written By TJ Morgan, an STLCC Student Worker   

With a red hoodie, joggers, and Kermit the Frog socks, Mea Hampton makes her rounds to each staff member and says good morning. She cracks a couple of jokes and makes everyone feel loved and appreciated. Mea takes her IT Senior management experience with great joy. A woman who went from having nothing to receiving numerous awards and certifications seeks to teach what she has learned as an instructor and a manager.   

Fighting Through A Storm

Mea was at bedrock. She lost her job at Hertz and was a single mother on Section 8 and welfare; she had little means to care for her two children. Mea says, “Even though it supported my family’s basic needs and I greatly appreciated it, I never grew comfortable with the system. After dealing with slum lords and going homeless a couple of times, I felt we were always at risk of losing our homes. I started to see it as a stair-step system only meant to help me as I grew.” A system is just a method of doing something. Mea needed to survive, so instead of dwelling on her current situation, she created her system and made plans to get off assistance. 

What set Mea apart was that she knew she had to create her path. Equipped with only her family and a few friends, she dipped into the technology realm. It started while she was attending college and working with a used computer. Mea would take it apart when her computer was down and force herself to learn how it worked and troubleshoot any issues because she couldn’t afford to pay to fix her device. 

She eventually signed up to participate in a Business Technology Training (BTT) Program hosted by St. Louis Community College—Workforce Development Group to further her knowledge. The BTT program helps low-income and unemployed individuals gain the business and technical skills they need to become more marketable to the workforce. Mea was positively identified as a “tenacious sponge” and graduated with honors at the top of her class.  

Afterward, she volunteered her time to be a guest speaker to share her story with future classes.

Mea noted, “I have always been a lifelong learner, which helped drive me to learn technology.” Her experiences with learning IT have led her to pursue various fields, from website creation to small business consulting.

Mea made her way through, trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Something always lingered, though, and that was teaching. “Teaching makes me happy,” Mea said. It helps me to empower others and learn new ways to support them.” 

Finding Her Purpose

Teaching and sharing her story gave Mea purpose, and she discovered she could connect with people. “I have always been a caring person,” Mea reflected, realizing that her passion for learning, caring, and wanting to see others succeed made her the fantastic teacher and manager she is.    

According to Meahampton.com, after volunteering as a speaker for the BTT program, “Mea became a business technology trainer in that program and others from 2015-2019 at St. Louis Community College.” She then moved on to “becoming a senior manager of campus IT & adjunct professor of IS.” While teaching, she realized “that the students were not passing the test and having a hard time understanding the content.”

Mea recapped, “That bothered me because I felt they needed more. Technology is a scary topic, especially to minorities who usually would not give it a second glance because it always seemed too complicated or unimportant. “Besides teaching, this need inspired Mea to create video courses for anyone who wants to understand technology and the IT world.

Her vision is to create more than a class but to help people internalize the content. “I used to be afraid of technology,” Mea commented, “most minority groups are.” From the outside looking in, she always felt like she was not smart enough or that the field was not friendly to females in tech support or IT leadership. She still feared technology while teaching about it and working in the industry. To overcome this fear, she did what she knew best; she tuned into her lifelong learning skills and immersed herself in learning technology and IT service management.    

Stepping Out On Faith

Pew Research Center found that “the majority of STEM workers in the U.S. are White(69%), followed by Asians (13%), Black (9%), and Hispanics (7%).” These facts are what inspire Mea in a big way. She says, “I know how it feels to have people tell you, you cannot make it because of your skin, circumstances, and what you have done. That took a toll, but I had my parents, my biggest cheerleaders, to encourage me to go on.” With every new certification she got, her parents celebrated with her.

At one point, Mea said, “There was a point where I wanted to give up. It was hard to find a job, and my self-employment attempts were not doing so well. My father called a week before he passed and told me a long story about himself and how he gave up his dream to be a professional football player because of his parents’ fear. He said, “Don’t give up, Mea, and just step out on faith.” Mea never told her father she was considering giving up, but he knew. Once he passed away, she knew that she had to keep moving forward no matter what. 

If Mea could talk to a group of students, she would say, “What do you do when you’re down? Do you dwell on it? Or do you get up? It is okay to mourn, but what you do after is up to you.” She said, “If I listened to everyone telling me I couldn’t, I would not be here today.” Mea didn’t take no for an answer. She knew her dreams and desires would not come to fruition if she gave up and gave in.   

Changing Your Mindset

“I had to learn how to work on a team,” Mea explained while adjusting to becoming a manager. Mea oversees multiple campus technology budgets and a IT and media workers team. “What gets me up in the morning (outside my family) is looking forward to working with my staff and students.” Mea treats her staff like family. From student workers to the networking guru, Mea

connects and gets to know each staff member. She creates an atmosphere that marries work and fun.  She creates an atmosphere that marries work and fun. With their help and support, she learned how to grow as a leader and delegate tasks. “This was an adjustment from what I was used to. At first, I was still in survival mode and had to escape that mindset.” 

Mea reflected. Mindset is a crucial part of Mea’s character. “I can choose to think negatively when bad things happen and wallow in pity, or I can say okay yes, this happened now what are we going to do,” she proclaimed. Mindset is one of the key factors that brought Mea to learn to appreciate herself. “To be honest, I did not appreciate myself,” she vocalized, “I just recently allowed myself to look at my old awards and say, wow, good job, Mea, you made it.

Allowing myself to acknowledge my success brought me to this point in life. It brought me full circle to realize this is what I want to do.” Mea knows teaching and leadership are the keys to changing students’ lives. This dream isn’t just limited to students; Mea wants to share this passion with anyone who will listen.   

A quotation that helps explain Mea’s story might be, “A lack of knowledge creates fear. Seeking knowledge creates courage” (Swanepoel); this is genuinely Mea’s story. She forged her path and moved forward even when the chaos around her said otherwise. Mea embraced who she was and overcame fears and adversity to obtain her goals. Those fears she had turned out to be the key she needed to unlock her future.

Mea encourages minorities and students to push through challenges and adversity, break down barriers, and forge a path.  When asked if she could say one thing to students, she said, “Life is what you make of it.” One day, Mea seeks to write a book about her life and her journey in IT, and the title would be “From Section 8 to Digital Real Estate – The Mea Hampton Story.” 

Works Cited 

Hampton, Mea. Mea M. Hampton, https://meahampton.com/.  

Mea Hampton. Personal interview. 15 October 2021.