{"id":61253,"date":"2019-11-07T16:32:16","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T21:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=61253"},"modified":"2025-09-30T10:19:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T14:19:18","slug":"fall-convocation-carleton-staffer-gets-graduate-degree","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/fall-convocation-carleton-staffer-gets-graduate-degree\/","title":{"rendered":"Fall Convocation: Carleton Staffer Gets Graduate Degree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Fall Convocation: Carleton Staffer Gets Graduate Degree\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Since 2011, Eddie Villarta has been a Carleton University employee, working in the Information Technology Services<\/a> (ITS) Department as a network services manager. Now he\u2019s also a graduate, with a Master of Engineering in Technology Innovation Management<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villarta\u2019s journey to Carleton and through graduate school had their challenges and rewards. Immigrating from the Philippines in 2004, Villarta always wanted to tackle a master\u2019s degree, but with a busy life that included full-time work, family life (a wife and two sons now aged 14 and 22) and volunteer commitments, the idea stayed on the back burner. But in 2016, attending a TED talk sparked inspiration to enrol as a part-time student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partway through his first term, Villarta faced a new challenge when his father became ill with cancer back in the Philippines. Villarta went home a couple of times (his father eventually passed away) and says he\u2019s grateful his professors gave him extensions and support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eddie Villarta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy professors would email while I was in the Philippines saying: \u2018Don’t even think about your studies right now or anything besides your dad.\u2019 I really appreciated that, they were very understanding,\u201d he says, adding that his boss Bruce Clemmer has also been very supportive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that he\u2019s finished his degree, Villarta is putting it to use right away. He is creating a cybersecurity startup with some friends and he\u2019s also teaching a course on software design at Carleton\u2019s School of Information Technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCompleting my master\u2019s degree gave me the confidence to ask about opportunities and start teaching,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villarta also made several friends in the program and says the return to the classroom refreshed his big-picture thinking about his field and he\u2019s looking forward to developing transformational network technology innovation at Carleton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWork is very task driven, but as a student you get to analyze more and your professors give you new ideas and perspectives,\u201d says Villarta, adding that he gained insights from international students he had as classmates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villarta says his advice for others embarking on part-time studies includes being careful with time management (he gave up some of his volunteer work to take on the program) and prioritizing schoolwork. And just to keep going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBe very determined because it\u2019s not an easy thing to do. Never give up.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since 2011, Eddie Villarta has been a Carleton University employee, working in the Information Technology Services (ITS) Department as a network services manager. Now he\u2019s also a graduate, with a Master of Engineering in Technology Innovation Management. Villarta\u2019s journey to Carleton and through graduate school had their challenges and rewards. Immigrating from the Philippines in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":61255,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[25],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-61253","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-student-experience"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/61253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/61253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97925,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/61253\/revisions\/97925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=61253"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=61253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}