Natalie Vargas
Natalie Vargas
Natalie Vargas, 22, is a central-city success story. Over a year ago, she was accepted into the Inner-City Computer Stars (i.c.stars) training program where she spent an intense 16 weeks in technology training. Recognizing the need for greater diversity in the tech sector, i.c.stars helps companies fill the growing number of tech job openings. There is no tuition fee.
Program participants learn by building web-based applications to solve client problems. They also learn computer coding, business, and leadership instruction. For the i.c.stars program participants, corporate sponsors provide on-the-job experience and assistance in career goals. Two years ago, Molson Coors became a hands-on sponsor, and the result became an inspiring story about opportunity in the business world.
But let Natalie Vargas tell the story.
Tell me about your background, the neighborhood you grew up in, schools you attended, and your parents.
I grew up on the southside on West Becher not far from Historic Mitchell Street. I still live in that home with my family. I went to Forest Home Elementary, Wedgewood Middle School, and to Ronald Reagan High School. My parents are immigrants from Mexico, and they don’t speak much English. My mom works as a hotel housekeeper, and my dad is a mechanic at a tannery. I have two older brothers.
Your parents deserve a lot of credit for making a new life in our country of immigrants. Did you go to college?
Yes. After high school, I went to Marquette University as part of their nursing program. After the first semester, I switched over to the College of Engineering. I was a full-time student, and I was also working at a Chipotle restaurant. College was kind of tough to handle. There are not a lot of women in engineering. It was also kind of culture shock because I had gone to schools where kids mostly spoke Spanish, and we all lived in Hispanic neighborhoods. Then I found myself attending Marquette, a private Christian university where there weren’t many Hispanics.
How did you get involved with the Inner City Computer Stars and Molson Coors?
I never graduated from Marquette. I lasted two years because I couldn’t afford it anymore. I learned about the Inner City Computer Stars through an i.c.stars graduate who had also dropped out of college.
I understand i.c.stars is a 16 week curriculum, right? When did you start the program, and what was it like for you?
I started with i.c.stars in February of 2021. That was during COVID, so we were completely virtual. I was working at the computer 12 hours a day in the program. The first week, I was writing about the program, getting to know my team. And I was learning about how to computer code.
Over the 16 weeks, I was assigned many coding projects. But students are also assigned a main project, which is sponsored by one of our corporate mentors. My project mentor was from Molson Coors. We were required to deliver a final project to our mentors. I met with my mentor each week to show the progress of my work. In the last month, called “career month,” we meet with leaders of different companies, the goal being to get a job.
What was your project for Molson Coors?
I was involved in creating an internal tech portal, a site where employees learn more about their I.T. department: updates, the culture and people, and events the department puts on for different programs. I was trying to make the portal fun and engaging.
When you finished the i.c.stars program, did you then look for a job?
I was lucky enough that Molson Coors liked my final presentation. I got hired on by them to implement the project that my team worked on during i.c.stars. Currently, that project is part of the Molson Coors I.T. department. I am the Technical Architecture Intern, working in our SharePoint portal that improves employee interaction in 11 languages throughout the world. I am also back in college at UW Milwaukee.
You left nursing for the world of technology. Why do you like tech work?
I enjoy learning and a challenge. I like it when I get assigned something and I might not know where to start, but by the end of the week, I’d learned enough to teach someone else. A lot of people think of I.T. work as just you and your computer, but there is a social aspect because you are trying to come up with a technology solution and you need to talk to your users to understand their needs. This involves a lot of demonstrations and conversations.
What kind of jobs can an i.c.stars graduate get after finishing the program?
It’s a wide range. Some graduates become software engineers, cyber security analysts, data analysts, attend coding bootcamps. One person even became a claims adjuster.
What are your long-term goals for your own career?
Generally, for the long term, I’d like to give back to my community. I went to MPS schools my whole life, and there wasn’t any computer science classes. I’d like to bring computer science curriculums to our younger generation. That includes middle school and high school.
I understand that Molson Coors partners with Inner City Computer Stars. How does that work?
i.c.stars logo
In the past, Molson Coors has been a workshop sponsor where one of their representatives came in for an hour to explain what goes on in IT at the company. Now they are there throughout the whole cycle including coffee chats and resume reviews and interviews. Upon completion of the program, Molson Coors provides i.c.stars program graduates with on-the-job experience and mentorship. Recently, the head of emerging technology, Jonah Turner of Molson Coors, led a multi-city project for our i.c.stars alums from Milwaukee and Chicago. We came up with ideas for an interactive space that includes innovation and programming. It was really cool to watch what everyone came up with.
Jonah Turner is the Emerging Tech and Innovation Leader at Molson Coors. Working with students who have completed the i.c.stars program, Turner leads the emerging technology initiative. Molson Coors has partnered with i.c.stars since 2020 and has hired five graduates of the program into company IT roles. Dedicated to training young adults, i.c.stars started in Milwaukee in 1999. For more information visit: icstars.org.
