Maurice, of Fremont, always wanted a career in tech, but was getting by working in the landscaping industry for 10 years. “You know that when you get comfortable in a place it’s hard to want to start over,” he said.
When his wife became pregnant with their first child, “the fire got put in me to make a change,” he said. “I realized: If I’m going to do something different, it’s going to be now. I’m not going to put the family through a career change while my kid is growing up. I want to have started in the tech industry, even if I’m not yet where I want to be, so I don’t have to take as much time and attention away from my family.”
He started looking at online colleges, “and then I started looking at the cost,” he said, laughing. “Even schools that give you vouchers, you’re still paying at minimum five grand a semester.”
Calbright was different. “At first, when I saw an ad for Calbright, it was like ‘it’s too good to be true!’ But when I looked further and found out what Calbright was doing, I was like ‘who would pass this up?’”
At Calbright he didn’t just learn valuable technical skills, he worked with the Career Services program to help make his resume rise to the top of the pile.
“They don’t really beat around the bush,” Maurice said. “They’re like ‘we use this method because we know that this is what makes people hireable as soon as possible.’ I would say the help from my instructors and from career services was gold.”
Today Maurice has a new job, in IT, that he’s excited about.
He describes Calbright as “a one stop shop for whatever course you’re going for. Don’t be afraid! I was just a beginner, and once I trusted the process it all came together and I learned so much.”
