From Admin Assistant to Sr. Director to Professor – How Karen Ahern Navigated Her Tech Career | Ep 016

Episode Information Show Notes In this episode of Career Downloads, host Manuel Martinez sits down with Karen Ahern, Professor and Networking Program Director at the College of Southern Nevada, who shares her inspiring journey through the technology industry. From her unexpected start as a computer lab assistant to becoming a Senior Director of Technology Services, and ultimately finding her calling in education, Karen’s story demonstrates how being open to opportunities can lead to a fulfilling career in technology. Guest: Karen Ahern Current Role: Professor, Computing and Information Technology Department, College of Southern Nevada Focus Areas: Networking, Cloud Systems Administration, Infrastructure, and Systems Administration Episode Highlights: How a chance conversation led Karen into technology without any prior tech background The importance of being willing to take on tasks others avoid Transitioning from technical roles to leadership positions Managing imposter syndrome while advancing in career The value of emotional intelligence in technology careers Why lateral career moves can lead to unexpected growth Securing and managing National Science Foundation grants The transition from corporate IT to education Key Insights: Finding and leveraging mentorship opportunities Building confidence through continuous learning Balancing technical expertise with people skills Managing teams and expectations in IT leadership Creating opportunities through networking The importance of being uncomfortable for growth Career Advice Highlights: Be open to tasks others avoid – it can lead to specialization Don’t let imposter syndrome hold you back from opportunities Sometimes a pay cut for the right opportunity can lead to greater rewards Network consistently, even when comfortable in your current role Consider lateral moves for skill development Be patient with yourself and others while learning Resources Mentioned: CompTIA A+ Certification Management Information Systems degree programs Society of Information Managers National Science Foundation grants Connect with Karen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-ahern-88805523/ Follow Career Downloads: Website: https://careerdownloads.com YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@careerdownloads X/Twitter https://twitter.com/@careerdownloads TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@careerdownloads LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/career-downloads Instagram https://www.instagram.com/careerdownloads FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/people/Career-Downloads/61561144531249 #CareerDownloads #TechCareers #WomenInTech #TechnologyLeadership #CareerDevelopment #ITEducation #TechMentorship #CloudComputing #HigherEducation #CareerAdvice Transcription Manuel: Welcome everybody, my name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads where basically each episode I hit the refresh button and bring on a different guest to learn more about their experience, their background and really how they manage their career over time with the goal to really help you understand and pick up different techniques that you can use to be able to manage your own career. So for today’s episode I have with me Karen Ahern. So Karen we have worked together in the past and even currently so she used to be one of my directors when I worked for higher education and then eventually she moved into a teaching role where she became a program director and then kind of brought me on to be a part-time faculty instructor. So with that let’s welcome Karen. Karen: Thanks for having me. Manuel: No thanks, thanks for coming on and when I was kind of looking at your background so I know that you’ve spent basically your entire career within higher education but within that you’ve done a number of different positions, you’ve kind of moved around a little bit and one of the things that was really interesting to me was kind of how you came and again you’ll be able to help fill in the gap for me is when you got out of college you always kind of went into a role almost right away. Karen: Right. Manuel: So then just real quick can you just tell me what your current position is and I know I said you know program director but if you can tell me exactly what the position is and kind of what are your like overall responsibilities? Karen: Sure so right now I’m a professor in the Computing and Information Technology department at College of Southern Nevada so I’m also the Networking Program Director so I oversee the program direction for our Cisco networking degree and now our Cloud Systems Administration degree so and people’s entryway into IT careers you know we have Cyber Security, Software Development but I kind of focus over the Infrastructure and Sys Admin, Desktop, User Support type roles right now so I do that and you know provide I run our advisory committee I pull together people like yourself professionals from the industry and to provide input and host events and things like that to connect students to jobs to good paying IT jobs. Manuel: That’s awesome so now that we kind of know where you’re at and what you’re doing. You mind going back and just kind of give us a little bit of background it doesn’t have to be extensive but just kind of where you grew up and eventually what got you interested in technology. Whether you know I touched on it kind of already gave people sneak peek that you did go to college so just kind of what drove you towards that route. Karen: Yeah so it was kind of an accident because I didn’t grow up playing with computers or tinkering around like a lot of women. You know we I went to dance class I played soccer I did but I was pretty open-minded and I really had no idea what I wanted to do so if you’re practical you think well I’ll go get a Business degree and then figure it out from there so I ended up I was working at Bank of America in their call center I went to UNLV and CSN and it just happened when I was 19 years old my dad had a colleague whose wife worked actually she worked at CSN as a Software Asset Manager and she was just happened to ask me one day what are you gonna what are you gonna do with your life and I’m like I don’t know I’m just gonna get a business degree so she she basically took it upon herself to say no. Do you do you like computers? I’m like well okay. She goes okay well you’re gonna major in she goes there’s a Management Information Systems major that you can do at UNLV here’s the pathway and by the way we need part-time computer lab assistant so you can come work at the college and I was at attending CSN at the time. So she almost kind of set me up and so I had no better idea and I always felt like you should be flexible when you’re not sure of your direction. So that’s how I ended up kind of on the pathway I worked in the computer lab and started you know took that business and IT. I knew I didn’t want to I probably didn’t want to be a Computer Science major at the time so that seemed like a happy medium in the business school. So I ended up going that direction. Manuel: Nice and that’s good to it’s something that a lot of people don’t talk about is trying to find a mentor and it looks like you found one almost by accident. Karen: Yeah, yeah for my dad I was really fortunate I wouldn’t even be here. I wouldn’t have made it. I wouldn’t have thought of IT. I would never even thought of it if she hadn’t mentioned it so. Manuel: And then so she kind of set you on that path and as you started to kind of learn more about working in the computer lab getting at least. I get is it’s some experience or at least exposure let’s call it exposure. And during that exposure, did you start to gain more of an interest in it and say okay hey I do like technology or this is something I can see a career in or was it just like well I’ll I’ll try it and see what happens. Karen: Yeah at first it was kind of a I didn’t really know I because I didn’t know much about the field at all so I just kind of you know worked in the lab and ended up you know working around people that were fixing the computers imaging the machines and PCs and I thought well that’s kind of interesting but I was still very part-time student I was working you know at a at Albertson’s grocery store I I was still kind of very part-time and I was into Irish dancing at the time so I was doing that as well but then what happened is my when I turned 21 my father passed away so suddenly I had to pay help my mom pay the mortgage so that kind of you know you all of a sudden you got to work full time so I started talking to the computer lab manager there I said hey can I get some more hours and he said sure and by the way I started helping them out with you know rolling PCs around plug and crossover cables and imaging PCs and some of that old-school stuff doing you know running around with floppy disks doing BIOS updates you know real old-school stuff and then after a while I didn’t really have a lot of experience but after a little while they said well you don’t have a lot of experience yet but we have this Administrative Assistant job open but it’s full-time so I sa