Student Spotlight - Hope Ridder

Tell me a little bit about yourself. 

Hi! I’m Hope, I’m 21 years old, and I'm currently working as an Infrastructure Operations Engineer for a big retailer. This position is sometimes called a systems engineer. What I do for my company is design, integrate and manage complex and proprietary systems throughout their entire life cycle. I started EvCC’s IT program in 2017 and have been working in IT for about two and a half years. I'm currently working from home due to the pandemic.

Why did you choose to attend EvCC?

I had heard good things about EvCC’s IT program and professors and decided to go in one day to talk to an advisor and decide if it was right for me. I bumped into (IT instructor) Ryan Masinelli in the hallway (unaware that it was the first day of classes) and was in IT 101, 15 minutes later, with a full time schedule.

What are your educational and career plans?

I was recently just promoted into my engineer role, so my short term plans are to finish training and exploring a more coding/automation focused position. Depending on how I feel about this side of IT, I may also focus more on becoming a network administrator.

What program are you pursuing?

The program I pursued is the Information Technology ATA degree, with the network focus.

What interested you about that program? 

I’ve always been very interested in computers and video games, but had no idea how any of that actually worked. After getting into my first few courses, I started to realize I was super interested in everything I was doing, and couldn’t figure out why some people would complain about difficulty or homework. I was in the right spot for sure.

How do you think the skills you learned at EvCC are helping you reach your goals?

IT can be very hard to put into practice after just learning in a classroom. The curriculum at EvCC has many hands-on labs, so I was able to absorb all the information.

Describe the best experience you've had at EvCC. 

I think my favorite experience at EvCC has to be when I accidentally bumped into my advisor on the first day of classes and ended up in IT 101 in 15 minutes. I’ve always been a spontaneous person, so ‘accidentally’ ending up where I was already considering going, was a cool experience.

What was your favorite class project?

My favorite class project was creating domains, completely through the cloud, and presenting them to the class. I worked on it an entire quarter. Seeing something that I created from scratch actually work was such a cool feeling.

Who has helped you succeed at EvCC? What did that person do to help you?

Ryan Masinelli really helped me through my entire EvCC career. Ryan came up to me one day during the summer quarter, asking if I would consider taking a service desk intern position at a corporate retailer, and I have worked my way up to Infrastructure Operations Engineer. Going from my first day of classes, asking Ryan what command prompt was, to reaching my position in two years will always amaze me.

What advice do you have for new students? 

Your professors aren’t scary, computer experts. They know everyone starts from somewhere and they really do care about your well being and career, so try to reach out and form that relationship with them. Also, pay attention to what you’re doing in your labs; they matter.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

A few of my coworkers have also gone to EvCC. If we interview someone coming from the EvCC IT program, we always ask who their favorite professor was because each one of them impacted our lives so much. We always enjoy hearing their stories about their favorite teachers and projects.