Student Experience: Angela Warr

“My mom was living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit — members of my family lost a total of 14 homes and four businesses. After losing everything, my mom, who was a middle school teacher, came to live with me in Carrollton. I was working in corporate America and traveling all the time, but I wanted to spend more time with her. 

“I had been teaching math at Richland as an adjunct instructor for a couple of years and had decided to take some of their Multimedia classes, really just for personal enrichment. I learned a lot about theory but also got great career advice. I learned how to do projects on time, the team effort it takes to get a multimedia project to completion, and all the while I was learning from the best people in the area. 

“With a background in computer science, I had learned HTML coding from scratch on the programming side, but in my Multimedia classes, I learned how to use Flash and Photoshop. It was a form of therapy for me, learning a different technology. I went to Richland in the evenings, not because I was looking for a job at the time, but to stay abreast of technology. 

“But when my mom started looking for a teaching job here, I decided that I would, too. I went to a job fair and was offered jobs at two schools, one teaching math and one teaching technology. I was coming out of the technology corporate world, so I decided to take that. 

“I love teaching and showing others how to think through problems. I love to do career planning with students, helping them to know what courses to take and work skills to acquire. They need to be good communicators, good writers and know how to work with all kinds of people.

“I take students from my high school multimedia classes to Richland’s fair and all through their computer labs. Richland has one of the best multimedia programs in the area or maybe even the country, and I always recommend it to my students.” 

Angela Warr earned a Multimedia Developer certificate from Richland in 1998. She had previously earned a bachelor’s degree with dual majors in math and computer science from Xavier University in New Orleans and completed part of a master’s certification program in software systems engineering from the University of California-San Diego before moving to Dallas to work for Raytheon.

While working at Raytheon, she was chosen as one of 20 software engineers to participate in an on-site master’s program through the University of Texas’ College of Engineering and through that program earned a master’s degree in software and systems engineering.

In the summer of 2009, she served as a teacher in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) program offered at the UT-Dallas campus through the National Science Foundation, retraining teachers to teach in those subject areas. Through a grant from that program, she began earning an additional master’s degree in math education.

She serves as chair of the Irving ISD’s Career and Technology STEM Advisory Board, supported by companies such as Verizon and Hewlett-Packard, with the goal of encouraging more students to pursue career opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math. Formerly a senior software engineer for Nortel, Raytheon and NEC, as well as having served in software sales for AT&T, she has taught computer multimedia animation technology (CMAT) at Irving’s Nimitz High School since 2006; she also teaches engineering classes.

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