August 4, 2022
Every month, we have the opportunity to share our star students, people who have stood out during their time in our Get Into IT program!
Our first student of the month of July is Kashish Sawnani, from our cybersecurity cohort. Kashish joins us with a diverse background, having earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce and a diploma in Montessori teacher training! She started her career as a pre-primary school teacher driven by a love of working with young children. After having a child of her own Kashish decided to take a break from teaching in order to dedicate her attention to her own family. Now, after wanting to get back to work, she decided to challenge herself and pursue something new by going into cybersecurity.
A jump from teaching to cybersecurity might seem unusual, so we asked why cybersecurity – she said: “I was always interested in IT careers and when I found this course through social media, I realized that it was a good opportunity to finally get into IT.” So far the experience has been a good one. Kashish enjoys being given the opportunity to experiment with many different things and learn it all from an entry level perspective – making it easy to grasp.
“I never thought I would be able to do this but this program has given me the opportunity to do so” says Kashish.
And finally, when asked what her dream job would be she said: “I would love to be a cybersecurity analyst because my interest in cybersecurity has grown a lot through this course. This is also a job which is really important as cybercrimes have been increasing a lot and it is also fairly new, so you get to continue to grow and learn.”
Congratulations on being our student of the month in cybersecurity, Kashish!
Our second student of the month, joining us from IT Support, is Daniel Gehrken. Daniel has always spent time around computers and is taking full advantage of the opportunity to learn more about a profession that he has been interested in for some time. Taking on opportunities as they come really does speak to Daniel’s character. He is legally blind with Macular Degeneration and when asked why he took an interest in IT Support he shared: “It is a profession that largely supports visual accommodations. Working from my own computer space, I can adjust everything to fit my own needs without having to worry about stepping on anyone else’s toes.”
So far Daniel has found the material learned in the Get Into IT courses to be personally useful. He has been using his new knowledge to repair his own computer and keeping tabs on how he can help others in his life.
Daniel has enjoyed his hardware course the most, since he has always enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together. Going forward he would like to work in online IT support.
Congratulations to our hardworking program participants!
If you would like to reach out to Kashish to get to know her or talk about a potential new opportunity you can find her at Kashish.sawnani@gmail.com and to contact Daniel find him at danielghrkn@gmail.com