“I have been a Jill-of-all-trades the majority of my life,” Deborah said. She’s been a nursing assistant, a buyer for businesses. She’s travelled around the country as a singer. She’s a mother of three, and a grandmother of five. She’s a high school dropout who got her GED later in life, and then went to college because she wanted her children to be proud of her. Today, she’s working in retail as a merchandise developer.
She’s also a Calbright Data Analysis student and president of the student government.
“I love the program and I love what I do, and I’m going to keep reinventing myself as I go along,” she said. “I’ve always been what you might call a non-traditional student, but you just don’t stop learning. You never stop learning.”
Deborah enrolled at Calbright because she wants to advance in her career and Calbright’s programs are extremely relevant to the California job market.
“I was in a training program through my job, graduated from it, and decided I wanted to get more knowledge as a business development manager,” she said. “I was looking at Calbright online, saw the different programs, and said ‘Oh! I can use that! And it’s free for California residents! I’ve got to take advantage of this!’”
She went into the Data Analysis program “because my supervisor loves sending me reports with charts and numbers and things like that, and I want to understand it all.”
She finds the program helpful and the lessons accessible.
“There’s a lot of things that I am learning that I did not know go along with being a data analyst,” Deborah said. “I’m glad that the way the program is structured, it gives you small bites instead of giving you everything and saying ‘here you go, get this done,’ the way a traditional program would.”
Deborah’s also enjoying the Calbright community, the connections it creates, and the opportunities it provides. “There’s a lot of opportunity for leadership here,” she said. “I’ve been on a couple of committees since I’ve been here, and I enjoy the ability to speak on what I know and what I’d like to learn as well.”
She thought, “I’d be the last person to get involved with things like that,” but she found that joining efforts to support her fellow students “made my leadership skills stronger,” so she jumped in.
“It’s been a great experience,” Deborah said. “I expect a lot more California residents to take advantage of Calbright. It will be bursting at the seams once more people know about it. It’s a wonderful experience.”
