About me

When I was in school, the hardest part of the paper was the first paragraph.  I always found that if I just jumped in, I could get going.  So, here goes.

My name is Libby G. Bradford.  I work in the Computer Science Department at Virginia Tech.  I have a BM in Music Education, an MA in Music, and an MS in English.  How did I end up working with computer science students?  The short answer is that I did academic advising during grad school.  It was a big step out of my comfort zone, but I "fell into" a career that I really enjoyed.  I love the university environment and helping students.  When I started looking for my first full-time job after college, I looked at the universities in the area.  I ended up in the Registrar's Office at Virginia Tech and then, two years later, moved to the Computer Science Department.

During my 15+ years with CS@VT, I've had the opportunity to learn and try a lot of things.  Several things that stood out early on:

1. As a discipline, CS has a lot of work to do in diversifying the pipeline.  Diversity in terms of many things: gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic backgrounds, etc.
2. The pipeline itself needs to be much larger, to be able to fill the many job openings in technology.  These job openings are plentiful and well-paying.  See the Bureau of Labor Statistics for all kinds of numbers on careers, projected job openings, and salary info.
3. My own background coming out of high school would have made me very competitive to enter the College of Engineering at VT.  In my case, no one ever suggested that as a possibility.  

Every now and then I wonder "what if?"  What if I had tried engineering and what about current students who could make really good engineers and computer scientists, but haven't been encouraged to consider it?  There are a lot of really good students who could do well in engineering, but who is going to encourage them? 

Hopefully, I am.