Her Story
About Laura
I've been in the IT field for about 8-9 years now, and I currently work as a Level 2 help desk consultant, a position I've held for nearly 2 years. In my role, I handle quite a lot of different things - everything from vendor management and endpoint management to normal break-fix issues, software-related fixes, and hardware-related fixes. I also do networking work, including racking and unracking IT equipment and troubleshooting networks, plus a lot of conference room equipment support. Really, I do a little bit of everything. My journey into IT started because I've always kind of taken a liking to it, being the family IT person. That evolved when I got a job in my small high school's IT department fixing Chromebooks, and I really liked the hardware end of things. I took various self-study classes including Cisco courses and dabbled in many different areas - networking, cybersecurity, 3D printing and design, app design, and even coding - until I figured out where I wanted to go with my IT career, because it is so broad. I settled on cybersecurity because it was something that was super fun and super intriguing for me. I started my college classes while still in high school and graduated a semester early, earning my associate's degree in cybersecurity in 2023. That's currently the road I'm trying to go with my career, though a lot of what I know comes from on-site experience, which has been my biggest teacher.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Laura
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would attribute my success to hard work and perseverance. Despite when things get difficult, I continue to push forward and fight for my seat at the table, fight for those things I want out of life. I also credit the support system I ended up developing a little bit later on during college, which has been really important to me.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was to never settle. Always shoot for more, always shoot for better, and continue to better yourself in addition to that. Because bettering yourself and bettering your career is going to get you somewhere. Being stagnant in just the place you're at and just kind of accepting that this is all you're ever going to be is just going to make you miserable and upset. Continuing to better yourself in any way, shape, or form is what's going to take people far.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Honestly, just keep going. Just keep fighting for it. Keep expanding yourself and continuing to learn as much as you possibly can. And like I said, never settle. Never settle. There's always more and bigger and better out there. Also, don't be hard on yourself when you're learning. That was a big learning curve I had to overcome - being hard on myself for things I wasn't perfecting right away. That can be a pretty big thing that can deter you, thinking you can't do it.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge in my field right now is that there aren't many women. It's a very male-dominated field, unfortunately. So I think going forward, I'd absolutely love to see more women in IT, whether that's in roles like I am in now, or in network administration, end user administration, programming - anything IT-related. I feel like there's just not enough women representation in the field. It can be a very interesting and fun field, but some people do make it incredibly hard at times.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are maintaining professionalism and being humble, while also wanting to better other people. I've taken on a couple of people within my career and taught them everything I know for them to go on and do bigger and better things with their lives. For me, that's super fulfilling - bettering others. Adaptability would be another big value for me as well.
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