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From full-time mum to data specialist

May 1, 2019

Lisa and her eight-year-old son Jacob make a great team.

Lisa Rennie’s first start at EIT goes back ten years. Before Lisa enrolled in the School of Computing last year, she had already completed a Bachelor in Business Studies and a Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Accounting in 2009.

For seven years Lisa put her family first, her eight-year-old son Jacob and niece Cassidy who lives with the family. As she was making the decision on coming back into the workforce, Lisa thought she needed to upskill. She knew that she wouldn’t do well through distance learning. The Graduate Diploma in Information Technology, however, was right up her alley. “I thought it would be a nice match to my previous experience.”

Lisa says, she treated studying like a nine-to-five-job. She organised everything around her time on campus and studied in the library, not to be disturbed. “I was probably the oldest student but I had a mission.”

“Programming was my biggest challenge, as I was missing background knowledge. But the lecturer’s teaching style and their attitude made it actually quite easy to understand.”

During the summer holidays Lisa started a paid internship at Mr Apple as a business intelligence data analyst, which resulted in a casual contract. “In a nutshell, it’s all about visualising numbers and figures to make them easier to understand,” Lisa says.

Lisa is enjoying the pay-off now. “We eat out a lot with the family, bike to school every day, play a lot of board games and I train Taekwondo with my son Jacob.” Aside from her business commitments, Lisa teaches swimming, which she started to do when Jacob was one.  

“It is a huge confidence boost to see that even as a 40-year-old woman you can still change your career,” says Lisa.