In honor of Women’s History Month, we are proud to feature CSN-Honoree Karen Ahern, Professor & Networking Program Director – Computing & Information Technology Department – College of Southern Nevada for her work in paving the way for females in the IT Industry.
Karen Ahern – Professor & Networking Program Director -Computing & Information Technology Dept. – College of Southern Nevada (00:09) The biggest impact I would like to make for my students is I want them to realize their full potential and understand that as long as they have a work ethic and focus that they can achieve, they can take on the careers that might have seemed inaccessible before, like technology for example. I mean, there’s a lot of opportunities out there, and I just want them to have a great life.
Tajza Eddings – Student – College of Southern Nevada (00:33) I think she deserves to be featured during Women’s History Month because she’s a very passionate and dedicated woman. And as a result, she’s been very successful. And I think that other women can look up to her story and pull or take inspiration from it.
Naser Heravi – Chair – Computing & Information Technology Dept. – College of Southern Nevada (00:47) Karen makes an impact on her students by being a positive role model, by setting good standards, by respecting their opinions, and making sure that they know that she truly cares about their success here at CSN.
TE (1:03) I would say the way she teaches is what I enjoy most about her classes. I’m a very hands-on student. I like to see it up close and personal. I like to touch components, and so I feel like she does a very good job of like integrating different learning styles into her lecture.
KA (1:17) We have a lot of students here that are first generation college students. They come from a really diverse background. So it’s great when they don’t realize that they can learn technology and be a computer technician or a systems admin.
NH (1:31) Her passion for teaching and a part of the industry. It’s really important because she paves the way for students success. So her leading style, her teaching style makes her uniquely qualified to to have positive impact on a student’s success.
TE (1:54) She’s definitely impacted me by way of the knowledge and guidance she brings more than just her being a professor. She’s also a mentor. And so I’m able to, you know, ask her about certain things related to my personal goals, and she’s able to give me like tips or advice about how I should move to be successful.
KA (2:13) I enjoy the students appreciation. They’re very they come in very eager to learn, and they kind of look to me to guide them. And it’s really nice that all of the things that I’ve learned over my 15 year plus career in information technology before I became a professor, I can pass that experience down to them.
NH (2:33) Unfortunately, in the it industry, there is a lack of female students. So it’s really important to bring that perspective of female students into our courses and our programs. So it’s really important to, to have someone a good advocate for having more female recruits in our I.T programs.
TE (2:57) So this is my last semester here. I see us, and I do have an internship with Cisco lined up for the summer in San Francisco, which Karen did help me get. So I’m very thankful to her for that.
KA (3:09) It’s very important for girls and women to pursue this field because technology is everywhere and it needs to be designed and managed with input from our entire community. And half of our community is female. So that is it’s really important that all of those really smart females out there are aware that this is a career field.
