Cisco Networking Academy – Debbie Gomez, a “born and bred” Texan, went from being a full-time mother of three children to a student at Collin County Community College, and you could be forgiven for thinking it was a chance to slow down a little. 

Getting involved and helping people, on the other hand, appears to be in Debbie’s DNA. Debbie spent her summers in Mexico as a student, studying Spanish from local children and teaching them English in exchange. It should come as no surprise that when she decided to attend college, she went all-in. 

Debbie’s initial pick was IT because she had heard about the high demand for cybersecurity expertise in the news. “I’m not looking for a job, I’m looking for a career,” she said. “When I enrolled at Collin College I started as a cybersecurity major, but after taking some NetAcad classes I realized that I’m really fond of the blinking lights—the routers and the switches—so much so that I changed my major to computer networking.” 

“During my first semester at Women Rock-IT, I met a lot of women in the industry, and one thing I really liked is that they get to travel and work.” “I’d like to have that opportunity,” she says. 

Debbie discovered when she initially started IT Essentials that many of the participants had prior experience that she lacked. “Almost everybody that starts in tech has some type of background in technology,” she said.

“They’d most likely built a computer.” I didn’t. I’d never worked with a computer before. “So, in order to keep up with the pace of the class and spend more time on the equipment, I decided I needed something to play with at home,” she explains. She posted a notice in her neighborhood app asking if anyone had any donated equipment. “I didn’t care if it worked or not, I just needed to break it apart.” 

Cisco Networking Academy

According to Patrick Evans, Discipline Lead – Computer Networking Program, Collin County Community College, the response was likely so large because the Dallas area is a tech hub, with numerous familiar tech businesses and even a large Cisco Customer Experience Center on the same road as one of Collin College’s campuses. 

Debbie began with the equipment in her garage and asked classmates to come over and participate, eventually forming the Computer Science and Engineering Club with the help of Professor Evans. 

Debbie was part of the Dream Team at Cisco Live in Las Vegas in June 2023, on top of looking after her family, studying, operating the club, and a few of internships. 

The Dream Team is made up of five Networking Academy students chosen from around the Americas to assist Cisco engineers in setting up and maintaining the network at the event. 

“It was awesome to learn from the network engineers,” she said. “I’m grateful Professor Evans taught me how to patch cables…It came in useful because the other Dream Team members had never done anything like that before. As a result, I ended up showing them how to connect an RG45 to a cable!” 

Debbie has also finished the pre-apprenticeship part of the Cisco CX Apprenticeship Program, as if she wasn’t already involved. She obtained the necessary CCNA certification and is now self-studying for the DevNet certification. DevNet is a prerequisite for the second stage, which consists of six months of full-time paid work as a Technical Consulting Engineer inside Cisco’s Customer Experience group. “My dream career is to work for Cisco,” she said. 

Meanwhile, she’s prepared to take CCNP, her final Collin College class before graduating in the spring of 2024. 

Debbie dismisses the enormous number of events she has participated in since returning to school with ease: “I’m from Texas,” she declares, “go big or go home!” 

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