Meet Some of Our Computer & Digital Forensics Students

My professors at Champlain break down barriers and are very open to questions. I call them by their first name, and really get to know them. We have small class sizes, and it's nice to have the professor build a classroom community that is unique in each class.

I am a member of the Champlain Womxn in Technology club. It's a really awesome community here at Champlain. Along with having fun and doing interesting tech-related activities, we also host professional nights where we build resumes and prepare for conferences. 

I am also currently the Chief Technology Officer of the Champlain student-led nonprofit Techdren: Technology for Children. Our main purpose is to help students in the Tanzanian archipelago who have technological aspirations, just like we do, access that technology. I really enjoy our mission and working with a team of like-minded people to complete it.

The best thing about living on campus is that there is always something to do! There is an event on campus most days of the week. 

Plus, it's easy to get to know other people! I made friends my first week here, we are really close-knit. From working on campus, being a Resident Assistant, being involved on campus, and all my classes, I will usually see someone I know no matter where I am.

I chose Champlain because the Digital Forensics major, which interested me more than anything else I'd seen at other schools. I've always been interested in computers, and since I want to go into law enforcement after college, Computer & Digital Forensics was the logical move to make. I like Champlain's program because I get to take my major-specific classes early with the Upside-Down Curriculum. I wanted to go to one of the best schools in the country for my degree.

My major-specific classes and professors give me hands-on experience with topics I'll need when I enter the field. I've already done practical reports in my cybercrime, forensic science, and digital forensics classes. Instead of just hearing about methods and ideas, I'm actually applying them.

The University of Vermont's United States Army ROTC hosts students from other area schools, such as Champlain. The partnership allows us to participate in the program and experience a lot of interesting classes and hands-on training. It also provides great scholarship opportunities. I get to do a lot of things most other college students won't ever do, and I have the opportunity to serve my country in the military when I graduate.

The biggest thing I love about my program is the candid relationship we all have with each other. Professors don't hold back in telling you when you haven't done good work, but they also take every opportunity to congratulate and build you up when you do well. My classmates and I all cheer each other on so much when we get that job we wanted or get to speak at a big conference. I think that family aspect is something a lot of other schools miss out on.

The open-ended projects I've worked on in my Digital Forensics classes have been the most beneficial to me. Professors will often give us full investigations to perform, which have increased in difficulty throughout the years. They hand us an image of a system and tell us to figure out what's there and write a report on it. They don't hold your hand through it. This is what real life will look like for us as Digital Forensics Analysts, and I'm so thankful I've already had so much experience with it just at Champlain.

After graduation, I will be moving to South Carolina to work with the Department of Defense in a Digital Forensics and Cybersecurity position. I actually received the offer for this position as part of the Department of Defense Cybersecurity scholarship program at the end of my sophomore year, so I've known my after-graduation plans for almost two years now. 

Champlain is one of a limited number of colleges and universities across the US which offer this scholarship to students in our field. I'm beyond thankful to have been chosen for this scholarship along with a few of my classmates, and am really looking forward to starting my career in federal service. 

I’d always wanted to study Digital Forensics, I just didn't know it was an actual profession—as far as I knew, it was what detectives did. When it came time for the college application process, Champlain College has a good reputation in the industry. It was a no-brainer.

I love that The Leahy Center is a world-class laboratory that allows students to do ground-breaking research starting their first year here. I worked as a Security Operations Center Analyst, so if I messed something up, I had to start the whole project over because the evidence had been considered tampered with. It's not like in class: there are real consequences.

I was a Cyber Security intern at a small company called Boingo Wireless, which distributes Wi-Fi to major venues like airports and military bases. The director confronted me within the first week because I hadn't been asking questions during meetings, but was surprised when I told him I understood everything they were talking about. I ended up doing a lot more than I thought I would be, like handling their instant response and setting up security policies.

I like that you need an investigative mindset to solve a crime or figure out what happened in a digital or technical realm. I can use my past experiences with tech and computing to build narratives on different crimes that may have occurred.

I transferred to Champlain with a degree in Cybersecurity, but I was interested in the Digital Forensics field, and that's not something that's commonly offered. I kept Cybersecurity as my specialization. Those skills combined prepared me for my internship and helped me thrive.

I was an Information Security intern at Boehringer Ingelheim. It's a pharmaceutical company based out of Germany, and I worked in its Connecticut office doing an awareness project and a web security framework. I also have an internship lined up for this summer at a company called Mandiant, which does incident response. I'm looking to get as much experience as I can, especially with hands-on incident response, using the content I've learned in the classroom.