{"id":445,"date":"2021-01-13T23:00:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T23:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/?p=445"},"modified":"2021-01-13T23:04:33","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T23:04:33","slug":"alumni-profile-michael-andersen-b-s-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/2021\/01\/13\/alumni-profile-michael-andersen-b-s-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Profile: Michael Andersen, B.S. ’20"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Michael<\/a>

Michael Anderson, B.S. ’20, Applied Information Technology<\/p><\/div>\n

written by Kristi Moore<\/em><\/p>\n

Michael Andersen<\/strong> started 2020 with one goal clearly in mind\u2014he was going to graduate.<\/p>\n

After six years at The University of Baltimore, he knew he took his time, but he is proud, nonetheless, because of everything he learned and the opportunities he discovered along the way to his December graduation.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years ago, I was on the verge of failing, had a terrible GPA, didn\u2019t want to go to class, didn\u2019t want to do anything and now here I am and it\u2019s just incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a first-generation college student, Michael had trouble transitioning to the pace of college in his first year at The University of Baltimore. He says he kept digging himself a hole without realizing its depth. Then he was put on academic probation and with support from staff and faculty, Michael started turning things around.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, for me, digging myself out of that hole was a great experience for myself. I learned a lot about confidence and getting yourself back into it, but just getting out of it in the first place and being able to graduate at all has been incredible,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Changing his major to Applied Information Technology, the program from which he would eventually graduate, helped Michael find a passion he was excited to pursue. His father works in IT support and Michael decided to follow his example.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really helped me shape my love of technology,\u201d Michael says. \u201cHe helped me build my first computer a couple of years ago and ever since then, it snowballed into this wanting to do more with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his last year of college, Michael joined the AstroBees<\/a>, a team of students from the University\u2019s design and technology programs invited to be part of a national competition called NASA S.U.I.T.S. (Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students). Participating students gain engineering design experience while imagining and creating technology that can support NASA\u2019s astronauts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just expanding on the classes, where if you weren\u2019t participating in this project, you wouldn\u2019t necessarily get that experience,\u201d Michael says. \u201cI think experience in today\u2019s world is the biggest thing you can have on a resume. And getting the opportunity to get feedback from NASA engineers is incredible in and of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

written by Kristi Moore Michael Andersen started 2020 with one goal clearly in mind\u2014he was going to graduate. After six years at The University of Baltimore, he knew he took his time, but he is proud, nonetheless, because of everything he learned and the opportunities he discovered along the way to his December graduation. \u201cTwo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":530,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/530"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/casblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}