To Diversify Staffs, Some Employers Drop Degree Requirements

Emily Knowles sits outside her apartment in Watertown, Mass. Knowles has some college credits but no degree and works as a quality assurance analyst at Ovia Health, a Boston-based digital company that serves people who are starting families. “This is something that I never thought would be possible,” Knowles said. (Meredith Nierman/GBH News)

Inside her apartment in Watertown on a recent afternoon, Emily Knowles met with her software development team remotely, testing apps to make sure they work the way they’re supposed to.

Knowles, a quality assurance analyst, is bi-racial — a daughter of Black and white immigrants who never went to college. She’s working in tech — a field dominated by highly-educated white and Asian men.

“This is something that I never thought would be possible,” she said.

That’s, in part, because the 23-year-old has some college credits but not a degree.

Before she landed her job with Ovia Health, a Boston-based digital company that serves people who are starting families with fertility, pregnancy and parenting, Knowles was working as an aide at an elementary school. After attending a software boot camp, though, she said her dream was to work in tech.

“I was always just like, ‘I would never be able to do that. I do not have the mental capacity to think in that way,’” she said. “But as I kept being offered opportunities to advance in a tech world without a degree, I just kind of kept taking them.”

Read the rest of the story at GBH’s website.