Senior Elizabeth O’Hara is headed to Villanova University this fall with a full tuition scholarship to pursue her master’s degree in software engineering.
The computer science and graphic design double major’s ultimate goal is to focus on accessibility.
“I want to develop software so no matter if someone has cognitive, motor or visual impairments, they can use the software and successfully navigate the web,” she says.
O’Hara’s work with Rider’s Unified Sports Club, an organization where students play a variety of sports with Special Olympics athletes, has inspired her career goals. She has been a member of the club all four years and served as president for two.
O’Hara is the fifth and final one of her siblings to attend Rider. She came to the University with no background in computer science. In fact, she originally enrolled as a health science major, but decided to pursue her interests in math and design.
“That was really one of the biggest reasons I chose Rider, the fact that I could personalize my education and get both majors in there,” she says.
O’Hara credits the faculty, particularly Dr. Md Liakat Ali, in the computer science program for helping her build her confidence in the unfamiliar field. As a woman pursuing a STEM career, she says she has had to learn to accept that failure is part of the process and that it is not a deterrent to success.
“I built up my confidence in an area where I really wasn’t sure about yet,” she says. “Especially with women in STEM-related or technology fields, sometimes they lack the confidence and are not always accepting of failure. With computer science and coding, you have to fail. A little semicolon is the reason sometimes between your code working or your code breaking, and it’s really frustrating. It’s not a major that you can be perfect in all the time. Once I got my footing in the program, I was really able to thrive after that.”
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