Renee Blackshear’s to start with expertise with personal computers and technological innovation was in junior significant college, producing a program that created a virtual robot do leaping jacks on the display. By the time she was utilizing a computer to structure a yearbook in substantial university, she was hooked on all the items she could do with technological know-how.
She enrolled at Texas Point out Technical School and attained her diploma in Computer Networking and Systems Administration, which she now teaches at the college.
“I was like, this is wherever I need to have to be mainly because this is getting my desire and really like of technologies and making it get the job done, constructing networks and allowing for people to do items,” Blackshear mentioned. “I just fell in really like.”
Following also earning a degree in what is now TSTC’s World wide web Layout and Progress system, Blackshear went on to go after a bachelor’s degree at Texas A&M University in networking and protection. She is at this time doing the job on her master’s diploma.
“I just can’t quit discovering,” Blackshear claimed. “I just love anything about computers.”
When she was a scholar at TSTC, her instructors formed the teacher she wanted to grow to be.
“I want to be that teacher learners are at ease speaking to,” Blackshear mentioned. “I want to be empathetic to my learners. I want to perform with them. My occupation is to aid them be effective. If I have to have to demonstrate it with Legos, I’ll make clear it with Legos. Whatever it usually takes.”
Blackshear can also leverage her knowledge doing the job in the marketplace to give learners serious-existence examples of situations — such as currently being a female in a male-dominated industry.
“There’s nonetheless gender bias — you have to bring in your self-assurance and assurance,” she claimed. “I don’t care that I’m a female. I’ll climb up the ladder and start functioning network drops. I’ll scrape my arms on these server rails way too. I’ll crawl all around on the floor. I can do it just as very good as you can. Observe me. You have to have that good mindset and just maintain on rolling. Really don’t let anyone get you down.”
All round, personal computer networking can be for everyone, Blackshear mentioned. It is a industry that is all about developing and bettering relationships among equipment and programs.
“Stick with it, no subject what,” she reported about tips she would give future pupils seeking to enter the field. “Just maintain going. Study each and every working day.”
TSTC gives online education to earn an Affiliate of Used Science diploma in Computer Networking and Methods Administration and an innovative specialized certification in Cloud Computing. The application is aspect of TSTC’s Functionality-Dependent Education and learning, offering learners a self-directed and adaptable way to quickly-keep track of their coaching.
In Texas, computer system community assist professionals can get paid an typical once-a-year income of $70,950, according to onetonline.org, which tasks such positions to improve in the point out by 17% by means of 2028.
During the month of March, TSTC is honoring women of all ages in heritage and on its campuses who operate to make strides in the STEM (science, know-how, engineering and mathematics) fields every single day.
Discover much more about TSTC at tstc.edu.