Tina Arms is a native Austinite and a student at ACC. She decided to return to school and to figure out what to do for the rest of her life after starting a family at a young age. This led Tina to take a giant step after her youngest child left for college allowing her to discover her love for science when she took a biology class on a whim and a chemistry course as a favor where she completely fell in love with being in a lab. A true passion of Tina’s is learning new things and Biotech is such an interesting industry where the technology is constantly evolving and a perfect fit for Tina. What Tina loves most about ACC are the professors and staff because she has had the good fortune to have had some really great professors and tutors who have been extremely encouraging and inspiring. Once she receives her associates degree from ACC, Tina’s dream job would be to do research in a cell culture lab at one of the innovative biotech companies here in Austin.
A native Texan, Elizabeth (Liz) Hampton, was born and raised around the DFW Metroplex recently moved to Austin to attend ACC where she hopes to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 2020. She originally went to school to be a carpenter for theatrical productions but ultimately decided to go into Biochemistry when she was encouraged to take an intro to a Biotech course in order to network and maybe get a job. Liz’s favorite thing about ACC is the Highland Campus especially after moving from a neighborhood that was experiencing the fallout of an old, dying and eyesore of a mall. Seeing how ACC has turned Highland into a newly renovated center of learning really raises the bar for how cities could be handling growth issues. Liz’s dream job will involve helping people through scientific research. Her current goal with her education is to one day participate in researching new, affordable medications and treatments for those people going through the worst science has yet to cure.
Benjamin (Ben) Martin moved to Austin in 2012 from Corpus Christi. He was raised, along with his brother and sister, by a single mother who always believed in the importance of education. After 8 years of working in the tech industry, he decided to do something completely and totally different and started cooking as a profession. Cooking generated a passion for him to discover himself that he began experimenting with foods and drinks during his off time. Ben began to wonder if there were any jobs that would pay him to experiment after researching, he found plenty of jobs with almost all of them as being science related. Returning back to school, Ben began his journey in science with the goal of working in the field of genetics. For Ben, ACC’s teachers and faculty members definitely support the students by helping students to achieve their goals/ideas and making sure that the student is not alone. Ben doesn’t have a dream job but what he believes in is having goals which are important in malleability because the only thing a person can be certain of is that nothing is certain. Whenever obstacles come your way, have the ability to just roll with it because you can find yourself in rewarding and challenging opportunities you never expected.