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 Upside Down Curriculum completely changed my expectation of college learning.  Growing up, I had heard stories of students trodding through two years of general education before learning anything related to their major, and I was not looking forward to that.  But at Champlain, I was able to get experience in my major immediately, enabling me to achieve internships and scholarships early into my college career.

I enjoy the overall learning experience of my major classes.  My professors are so knowledgeable, enabling us to learn from not only books and slides, but also from first-hand accounts and experiences. Add that to the top condition lab environments, and ready access to expensive forensic tools and you have the perfect recipe for success.

My professors have been absolutely AMAZING in their willingness to help me succeed.  My tech professors are knowledgeable and always willing to help out of the classroom, and my Core professors are always willing to listen when I need someone to talk to.

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.