Claudia Nguyen

My special story:

My name is Claudia Nguyen and I am currently a senior majoring in ITI and minoring in DCIM. In terms of a career path, I am currently most interested in working as a computer network administrator. I have taken up a basic networking course, and have studied networking on my own for a few certifications, and I enjoy the kind of work and technology it involves. I am however also open to pursuing other specialties within the IT field, and having been taking up different internships to gain more experience and to expand my horizons. Currently, I am interning as the main Web Developer for a marketing company, so this has given me exposure to creating and maintaining eCommerce sites, and creating a website that is both easy to use and visually appealing. While web design is definitely something that has been fun and very interesting for me to do, I don't see myself pursuing a future in it. Previously, I worked at ADP as an Audio/Visual Specialist, where I was able to work with a variety of audio/visual hardware and software. It allowed me to work on technology that I would have otherwise have little exposure to, which was great because I learned a great deal of technical skills from it.

For the time being, I am also pursuing Level 1 technical support jobs, because I would like to be well-rounded in troubleshooting and fixing computers. It's not very common to find a woman working in the IT field, but I don't think that this should discourage any female that wants to pursue a technical career. Because of this, I am currently working as the secretary of Rutgers Women in ITI to create a strong support team for all of the women entering this field. Our group aims to empower women in the professional sector of technology and to educate members on the subject of gender and information technology. I am a strong believer in equal opportunity, and this belief has stretched into most of my extracurricular activities. Another hobby that I enjoy is dancing, and for 3 years I was part of Verse|One dance troupe, which is a Rutgers based non-auditioning dance team. The aim of Verse|One was to create a place and team where anyone could join and participate, regardless of their dance experience.

In terms of a Capstone project, I am actually quite interested in going into app development. I am an avid iOS jailbreaker, and am always looking for new and inventive ways of making my phone more convenient and useful, and because of this I believe that I can come up with some great application ideas to help the average user. Application development is great because anyone can think of an idea that could possibly change the ways that people utilize their phones. The possibilities are practically endless in this realm as well, which is also quite exciting for me.