Victoria Rodriguez's Path Traveled

Victoria Rodriguez

Title

Sr. Programmer/Analyst

Subject Area

  • Application Architecture
  • Data Architecture
  • Data Science and Data Management
  • Technical Project Management

 

What prompted you to chose your career path, and when did the door first open?

I began pursuing my bachelor's in CS simply because I excelled in the mandatory CS101 course and my terrific professor (Dr. Mary Courtney, Pace U) suggested I take the level 2 course.

In my third year of playing soccer at college, I had a sports injury that caused me to sit out for a season and enabled me to play for a fifth year. At the time, I was working the front desk at the Seidenberg Schoool of CSIS and reporting to the dean of the school, with whom I had a great relationship. Because of the fact I'd taken a full course load for my first three years, I was ahead in credits and Dean Bernice Houle suggested I take advantage of my fifth year of support from athletics and enroll in a five year combined degree program so I would earn my MS in IS. I took her advice and also took an internship working a helpdesk position that I found through career services on campus. While working at the helpdesk at the NYC Law Dept, a former teammate of mine contacted me about an internship in HRIS at Pace which was meant to become a full-time position.

It was explained to me that the position was heavily data-focused and I'd need to learn HR business processes. At first, I was apprehensive of both of these notions but I've always felt that a step in the right direction was better than standing still! When I finished my MS, my boss at Pace took me on as a FT HRIS Analyst and that was the start of my career. Because Pace was a Banner school, I received a LinkedIn notification recommending a position in IT at St. Johns University building Banner Integrations - another step in the right direction.

Possible career paths based on Victoria's subject area:

  • Lead Programmer
  • Director
  • VP

What are a few networking events, channels you'd recommend?

Victoria's Picks: more resources & materials to help get you to the next step...

  • Career Services

What certificates or degrees do you recommend for someone pursuing a career in IT?

  • Computer Science
  • Information Systems
  • Data Mining

Victoria's recommended getting started courses (online or in-person):

  • Anything!