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Faculty Highlight: Agatha Owora

Agatha Owora joins our Computer Science faculty.

  • published: 2021/02/15

Name: Agatha Owora
Hometown/State (Provence)/Country: Kampala, Uganda

Welcome to IS&T! Can you tell us a little bit about your area of expertise and the classes you’ll be teaching?

Currently teaching Computer Science Principles, Introduction to Computer Science 1 and 2, and Introduction to C Programming. In the future, I hope to develop a game design class.

When did you realize what you wanted to do? Any role models help you on your path?

I knew I wanted to grow in academia in my final semester of my master’s degree. Role model is Prophet Elvis Mbonye.

As an undergrad/graduate student, what were your major stepping stones to guide your career trajectory to where you are now?

In my final year as an undergraduate Physics student, I got to work on a project that was meant to get a GPS SCINDA system to retrieve data and display it in a manner that made further analysis easy. My advisor then, Dr. Tadeo Ssenyonga, saw how easy programming was for me and offered to have me work on more projects. This is where my passion for Computer Science came from. I found it amazing how I could write code to simplify Mathematical and Physics computations. So, when opportunity came for me to pursue further education, I knew Computer Science was the way to go.

Tell us a little bit about IS&T! What’s a typical day look like for you?

I have joined during the COVID era, so I’m only teaching online classes for the spring semester. A typical day for me is checking emails, canvas, and preparing course content for my classes.

What major advice do you have for students as they navigate their own career paths?

It is okay not knowing what you want to do when you start out. I remember being frustrated a few times as a student when I had classmates who knew what they wanted to do in their careers while I was just trying to figure out my path. The one thing I did was give 100% to everything that was placed before me. As time went by, I discovered I was more passionate about Computer Science and teaching and so I pursued that further. You might be worried that you are wasting time doing other things that might not align to your true destiny, but I can guarantee you, nothing is ever wasted. With time, a situation or event will show up that will require you to use the past knowledge or experience you thought was of no use. Everything that you encounter in your life is preparing you for what is ahead, so be in the moment, take it all in, learn and ask questions, because you will need all that to be excellent in the future task already aligned for you to do.

Anything else you want us to know about you?

Some things are better left mysterious 😊