Amrita

From Guyana, South America, where she was born, to California, where she lived before moving to Maryland, Amrita Assim has learned to recognize an opportunity when she sees one, which brought her to Howard Community College. Amrita became an apprentice with the college’s Information Technology Apprenticeship Program for the chance to work at AT&T as a skilled IT specialist.

“It’s a great way to get your foot in the door of a company,” she said. “If I didn’t get accepted to work as an apprentice, I don’t think I would’ve found a job. A lot of people struggle to get into a company, so it’s a great opportunity. I would encourage anyone to enter the apprenticeship program.”

The Information Technology Apprenticeship Program at Howard Community College allows Amrita to work for an income while attending classes and earning IT certifications and a government security clearance. Students can become IT field support specialists, network field support specialists or information systems security specialists in two-to-four years.

At AT&T, Amrita provides virtual desktop computer support to customers, and at Howard Community College, she takes classes in managing and maintaining computers, networking and cybersecurity. As one of her first class projects, Amrita worked with classmates to build a device using a credit card-sized computer called a Raspberry Pi.

“We came together as a team to see what we could build,” she said. “I built a webcam, where you can remotely use a camera in a web browser. I like that we were all together as students. We were communicating. That was a great experience. We figured it out as a team.”

Amrita, who holds an associate degree in business from a community college in California, enrolled in Howard Community College in 2017.

“Howard Community College is great. The professors are all awesome. They’re helpful. I come from a previous college in a different state, but Howard Community College is really good. I’ve had great experiences so far,” Amrita said. “My favorite class was introduction to networking. That’s one of the first classes I took. It was challenging, but we had a lot of fun learning the materials and all those wonderful things.”

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