Before majoring in Computer Science at Montgomery County Community College, Sarah Wagner knew next to nothing about the program, let alone its job opportunities.

“I could turn a computer on,” she said, “but I had no experience with things like networking or databases.”

Today the Springfield Township High School graduate from Oreland credits the program for giving her the skills to land a DevOps Engineer position at Dexcom Inc., which develops continuous glucose monitoring technology for individuals living with diabetes.

“I don’t know if I would have made it to Dexcom,” she said, “if I hadn’t picked Montco as a school.”

Wagner transferred from a four-year institution to MCCC in the fall of 2018. After her first week on the Blue Bell Campus, she realized she’d made the right decision because she liked the smaller size campus and more personalized attention she received.

“It was the perfect campus for me,” she said.

As a Liberal Studies major at the time, one of her first required classes was an introductory Computer Science course with Computer Science Assistant Professor Jason Wertz. Wagner quickly made friends with many Computer Science majors in her class, and they formed a study group together, which helped her immensely to excel in the class. Those same friends convinced her to change her major.

“They said, ‘You had a good time with us, stick with it,’” said Wagner.

From there, Computer Science Professor Kendall Martin showed Wagner what she could do as a computer programmer and developer, and she began to really delve deeply into the major.

“Both Jason Wertz and Kendall Martin were what really drove me to Computer Science and enjoying coding,” she said. “It was a nice change of pace.”

Wagner enjoyed how after Martin’s classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, each of her classmates would head to the library study room together.

“We would talk about assignments, what we were coding, job interviews,” she said. “At Montco, it felt much more like people wanted to be a group. It was nice to be a part of something.”

Wagner graduated with her associate’s degree in December 2020. She was originally scheduled to complete her program the previous spring, but through MCCC’s Career Services, was invited to a presentation by Lockheed Martin to apply for the company’s Software Associate Degree Program.

SWAP is a “three-year development program designed to attract, develop and retain early-career technical professionals in software and cyber-related careers,” according to the company’s website. “Students are accepted into the program before they graduate with their associate degree to accelerate the clearance process and be ready to join Lockheed Martin after graduation.”

Wagner began working for the company in February 2021 and stayed on for a year before deciding to move to a smaller company to work as a junior developer. She worked there for about a year and a half. From there she decided she wanted to pursue her bachelor’s degree and enrolled online through Southern New Hampshire University. She’s scheduled to complete her degree in the summer of 2025.

In the meantime, as she looked for a new job, she thought about applying to Dexcom Inc. Wagner has Type 1 diabetes and uses the company’s products to track her blood sugar. After three interviews and several months of waiting, she landed the job and began working this past June.

“It’s really cool,” she said. “I have a lot to learn.  It’s a completely different skillset. I worked as a developer before. Here there are already development teams. They just need databases or servers spun up. It’s all based in the Cloud.”

That said, Wagner is falling back on lessons she learned in Dr. Martin’s classes.

“I hadn’t worked in the Cloud much, but during Kendall’s class she pushed us to just go and do it,” said Wagner. “Even if she hadn’t used a program before, no worries, we could explain it back to her later.”

MCCC gave Wagner the confidence to try new software and computer program languages, even if she’d never used them before.  

“I’ve done this before,” she said, “and I can do it again.”  

MCCC’s Computer Science program helped Wagner find a fulfilling career in the field. For students looking to transfer to a four-year institution to complete a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, an associate’s degree from MCCC can provide a solid foundation. In addition, there are numerous job opportunities in Computer Science, and workers in Montgomery County can earn an average salary of $102,513, according to a recent study by Lightcast. For more information about the Computer Science program, contact the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) department.