Ashley was working at the San Jose Marriott and in the Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management program when she was temporarily laid off due to the COVID pandemic. During this time, she started thinking of working toward a more sustainable career path. She noticed that people who were working in tech and tech support were still employed and getting paid well. Ashley figured this was a good time to start taking classes. She saw an email about CS 71 and went to a presentation, leading to her taking many classes.

“Taking classes has opened a lot of doors for me and I’ve learned a lot,” says Ashley.

She has taken programming and networking classes and plans to continue to work toward earning several certificates. With the faculty’s help, she has a job at Apple as a specialist answering customer’s questions and providing technical assistance. For the future, she is working toward gaining an internship with Apple Corporate.