“I have a bit of a varied background,” said Katie, a returning Calbright graduate from the Bay Area. “Right out of high school I was very interested in tech, and I really wanted to go into web design and development, but it was still sort of a new field at that point, and I really wasn’t interested in the math heavy, engineering side of it. So I ended up sticking with what was comfortable and going into child care.”
She worked as a preschool teacher and administrator, got an associates degree but didn’t complete a bachelors, then she started a family. Katie remained in the workforce as a mother of two, but after welcoming her third child, “it just made more sense to stay home. So I took a career break.”
Now that her kids are in middle and high school, “it seemed like a great time to focus more on myself and my own career again. I ended up exploring tech.”
Katherine doesn’t remember how she heard about Calbright, but she knows why she was interested.
“The fact that it’s free makes it affordable, which was definitely a huge plus!” she said. “I didn’t want to go back to a university and have to get into more student loan debt and things like that. Calbright’s cost factor, along with the flexibility and it being remote learning, was all huge for me.”
She considered enrolling in the IT Support program, but her experiences with tech – including an apprenticeship at IBM – convinced her that she thrived when working with people in tech in addition to with technology itself. “That’s a fun opportunity for me.”
So she enrolled in Calbright’s CRM Platform Administration program, which equips students to use Salesforce software to help companies manage their relationships and communication. For Katie, it represented the best of both worlds.
Studying at Calbright, she said, “was great. I really liked how much of the program was hands-on. It wasn’t so much sitting in a classroom, listening to lectures, it was following through with tutorials and hands-on stuff.”
Calbright courses are flexibly paced; students can study on their own schedules, and while every program is designed to be finished in less than a year, students can decide how quickly or slowly they want to proceed with the courses.
“I set a pretty intense pace for myself,” Katie said. “I wanted to get the certificate quickly. I also have ADHD, which was part of the reason I didn’t have a great experience with college in the past. Because Calbright’s self-paced, it allows me to hyperfocus. When I’m really interested in something then I just like to go-go-go, so I really liked that I could spend hours at a time getting in the material. At a traditional college I would lose interest in a topic as a week went by, waiting on a professor to respond or make the next assignment.”
As a result, Katie finished her program in just a few months. It was such a great experience that she decided to enroll in a second certificate program, studying Project Management at Calbright.
Once again, she set a fast pace for herself, and once again she successfully completed her program in just a few months. “I really liked the content,” she said. “And with my background, Project Management seems like what I want to pursue as a career now.”
She also really enjoyed the community she found at Calbright.
“It is hard to connect with people online when everyone has different schedules,” Katie said, “but I’ve really enjoyed getting to know other students. I really like that there are activities. The game nights are fun, and the fact that they have so many opportunities to sign up for meetings and workshops, whether it’s on building a better resume or networking for jobs or whatever. Everyone has been super friendly.”
Katie re-enrolled for one more certificate, this time in Data Analysis, which will complete the skill-set she wants to have when she looks for jobs. “I feel that Data Analysis, along with CRM and Project Management skills, really round out my expertise,” she said. “I’ll be able to enter data, analyze data, and then manage projects based on that data, and that really sounds great.”
She also ran for Calbright’s student government, and was elected Vice President. In many ways, Calbright has become her educational home. Asked what keeps her coming back to Calbright, Katie says, “They keep offering new programs! I’m going to keep coming back as long as you’ll have me.”
