Education

Masters of Science, Computer Science and Engineering

Santa Clara University, Graduate School of Engineering, 2017

Some might say I did my degrees in the wrong order…. and they’d be right. Starting with a non-technical degree and then having the epiphany that you love working with engineers and diving deep into technical products is not the most ideal order of operations.

Within 6 months of working with engineers of all types - from bioengineers to electrical to civil and computer - I knew that these were my people. I also knew that my skills and passions lay adjacent to being a practicing engineer. But in order to serve a technical team well - even in a non-technical capacity - I would need to know my stuff.

So, I did a year of technical prerequisites to apply for the graduate engineering program, and then began 2 years of learning how to code in C, make sure packets weren’t lost, and debug Verilog. (The latter of which can kindly go fly a kite.)

The masters restructured how I think fundamentally; the flow of my thoughts and how I frame problems will never be the same. I also came away from the masters with:

• a deep appreciation for how stunningly complex even simple implementation decisions can be,

• an informed domain graph for knowing how to classify technical problems and ask the right questions, and

• a firmly held belief that all of my teachers were lying to me and computation is in fact made possible by microscopic elves and not a repeated layering of logic on top of ‘on/off.’

Bachelors of Commerce, Business Management (Minor in Middle Eastern Foreign Policy)

Santa Clara University, Leavey School of Business, 2012 (Cum Laude)

My management degree was a solid, neutral foundation of skills and knowledge upon which I could grow. That’s the genteel way of saying that when I started my degree, I had no &$*%ing idea what I wanted to do with my life.

Upon reflection, I had a few important things going for me. First was a genuine curiosity about - well, basically everything. While this generalist nature is a double edged sword that - if unfettered - can lend to unfocused direction, it served as a fire for me to take obscure classes and venture outside of the core curriculum. This led me to uncovering new passions, and resulted in my getting a minor in Middle Eastern Foreign Policy.

Another factor I had going in my favor was an engrained ‘Filter 0,’ which served as a starting point for whittling the 360 degrees of possible career directions down to a more manageable set. This filter was (at the risk of sounding like a bleeding heart millennial) the knowledge that I wanted to do something that had a tangible positive impact on society. Throughout my career thus far, I’ve managed to stay true to this filter and found roles that serve this need to varying degrees.