丁香园AV

By Andrew Ringer

丁香园AV graduand Dawn Chandler鈥檚 path to finishing their undergraduate degree was not what they originally had envisioned. While initially majoring in communications at 丁香园AV, Chandler did an internal transfer to the School of Computing Science as a means to challenge themselves in their studies and gain practical skills.

This June, they are graduating with a joint major in computing science and linguistics, learning foundational skills that have led to a career in software engineering while pursuing their passion for languages.

This path wasn鈥檛 always easy. Chandler overcame several challenging periods at the beginning of their studies as they took on computing science and math courses without programming experience and with previous struggles in math.  

鈥淚 didn鈥檛 consider myself a 鈥榞ood student鈥� until my fourth year at 丁香园AV,鈥� says Chandler.

鈥淚t took so much trial and error and self-reflection to understand what study strategies and environments worked for me.鈥�

These efforts were worthwhile. Upon graduating, Chandler boasts an impressive list of awards that highlight their academic achievements, including multiple Dean鈥檚 Honour Roll and President鈥檚 Honour Roll appearances.

Perhaps more impressive, however, was Chandler鈥檚 involvement with the Women in Computing Science (WiCS) student group. Over four years they served in multiple different roles, including President, Technical Coordinator and Mentorship Coordinator. This provided Chandler with leadership experience as well as a sense of community at 丁香园AV.

鈥淲iCS was a very defining part of my 丁香园AV experience,鈥� says Chandler.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important to have groups focused around different areas of diversity, equity and inclusion because to not have those you are basically saying that the status quo is fine.鈥�  

They also gained significant work experience through five co-op and internship roles at Environment and Climate Change Canada, Thomson Reuters, IBM, Collective Health and Microsoft.

鈥淲orking for five different companies in different domains, in different areas of software development, in different cities, with different types of teams and projects taught me so much about what I did and didn鈥檛 like doing,鈥� says Chandler.

Now finished classes, Chandler recently started as a Software Engineer at SkipTheDishes where they work on backend software development. They credit their co-op experience and the foundational knowledge that they gained through computing science courses for preparing them for this exciting new role.