Student Spotlight: Christina Shafer
Christina is originally from Sunnyvale where she currently lives with her husband and two teenage children. Christina has a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from University of California Davis and worked for Lockheed Martin for 10 years. During her time at Lockheed Christina first worked as a satellite orbit analyst and then as a web application developer. In 2006, when Christina’s youngest child was born, she embarked on the profession of motherhood as a stay-at-home mom.
What I appreciate most about OMSCS is the variety of classes offered and the level of experience that both instructors and students bring to the program and their willingness to pass on their knowledge.
As Christina’s children grew older, she began considering reentering the workforce and reflected on what it would take to do so. She worried that because she did not have a formal Computer Science degree and limited experience in recent years, that it would affect her ability to reenter the workforce in the competitive job market. Thus, this encouraged her to start taking Computer Science courses at her local college which inspired her decision to complete a Computer Science master’s degree. This brought her to the OMSCS program at Georgia Tech which she ultimately decided on attending because “it was completely online with asynchronous lectures which meant I could work around my family’s schedule. Additionally, the Computing Systems specialization matched up with the content I hoped to learn and the cost to complete the degree fit within our family’s budget.” When asked what her favorite aspect of OMSCS was, beyond the affordability and the flexibility of online learning, Christina answered that “What I appreciate most about OMSCS is the variety of classes offered and the level of experience that both instructors and students bring to the program and their willingness to pass on their knowledge.” Christina enjoys all the courses offered but her absolute favorite part of the courses is both the projects and the Slack Channel interactions because they “provide comedic relief as well as helpful class information and can give me insight into the personalities of TAs and classmates.”
[Course projects and Slack] provide comedic relief as well as helpful class information and can give me insight into the personalities of TAs and classmates.
If Christina would consider another discipline other than Computer Science it would be one that focuses on languages, particularly Swedish. One fun fact about Christina is that she was present at the 1989 World Series game between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck! Now that is one incredible story to tell!
We are proud to announce that Christina will begin working with Microsoft as a Software Engineer after she graduates this Spring!