I figured out I wanted to work in tech when I was in high school, where I qualified for FBLA nationals and around the same time built my own gaming computer. Gaming definitely brought me deeper into the field through setting up servers, creating bots, and learning how things work together. Going into college, I took computer science courses which were engaging but not as meaningful to me as the things I had done on my own time. This revelation led me to major in Information Technology Infrastructure instead of Computer Science at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

As I grew more knowledgeable in the topic, I realized that security is the most important piece. You can have the most efficient network, but it will fail without proper security. Security ensures that things run smoothly. That realization is what led me to pursue my M.S. in Information Science and Technology at UW-Milwaukee this fall. Long term, I want to be the person designing systems that implement security from the get-go so that they don't need lots of extra work after the fact. Currently I am looking for roles that will put me on that trajectory.