Mariah Arnold, ’17

Mariah Arnold, ’17, knew she wanted more out of life than the low-paying service jobs she worked as a teenager. To make it happen, she skillfully forged a path as a computer science major in Seattle University’s College of Science and Engineering that helped her land a job right out of college with one of Seattle’s top technology companies, F5 Networks.

F5 bills itself as the “product family (that) blends software and hardware to help you inspect and control all traffic that passes through your network—ensuring apps are fast, available and secure.”

Arnold works in the team-based world of cybersecurity. “We work with other teams in the company to search for bugs,” she says. “A lot of what I do involves investigating to see if we are vulnerable to a hack.”

As a former transfer student, Arnold chose Seattle U for its small class size and the reputation of the college’s computer science program. She appreciated that the college and university “really value what transfer students have to offer.”

Arnold was offered a full-time job at F5 following a summer internship with the company. She believes a Seattle U graduate-level elective she took as an undergraduate set her apart from the competition. “I was the only one they interviewed who knew those things. If I hadn’t taken that class I wouldn’t have got that internship.”