Tess Gardner’s balancing of her Bulldog life is a masterclass in hard work and high-speed problem solving
There is a distinct contrast between the focused silence of Louisiana Tech’s new Security Operations Center and the roar of Joe Aillet Stadium on a Saturday night. Tess Gardner lives for both.
In the dim light of the Security Operations Center (SOC), Gardner is one of the University’s first lines of cyber defense, a student watchdog scanning for threats in a sea of data. On the field, she is the center of attention, a feature twirler executing moves with grace while the crowd’s eyes track the flash of her baton. While the environments couldn’t be more different, Gardner approaches them with the same mindset: precision, performance, and propensity to never back down from a challenge.
A junior Computer Science major with a concentration in Cybersecurity, Gardner embodies the University’s push to maximize human potential. While she balances a difficult major with a demanding athletic commitment, she is also finding the synergy at the nexus of art and logic.
Gardner’s journey to Ruston began in Birmingham, Ala., with the realization that she was wired a little differently than her peers.
“My passion for computer science actually started in eighth grade,” Gardner said. “I took a computer class, and we learned some very basic block coding. Everyone around me hated it. They just took it because they had to, but I realized I really enjoyed it.”
Her classmates groaned at the demands and requirements of the course, but Gardner saw an opportunity. She connected with the material and the teacher, realizing early on that if she loved the work that others found tedious, she had found her calling.
“I love problem solving,” she explained. “Coding is just a big puzzle to me. I love being presented with a problem where, even if the method is subjective, there is a concrete solution at the end. There’s one right answer but different ways to get to it.”
The same year she discovered code, she began to explore a focus on twirling. But unlike many collegiate twirlers who begin their training as toddlers, Gardner was late to the game. She watched a high school halftime show as a middle schooler and decided, almost on a whim, that she had to be part of it. The realization that she was years behind the competition didn’t deter her; it only fueled her. She took on lessons and joined the junior varsity team with the sole goal of becoming part of the high school majorette line. Soon after realizing that goal, she refused to rest on her laurels and became a co-captain of the team by her junior year. She spent the COVID-19 lockdown in her backyard, practicing every day, compressing years of training into months of repetition. She couldn’t be stopped.
It was a specific and unique combination — a top-tier Computer Science program and a renowned marching band that offered the individuality and artistic expression of a feature twirler position — that drew her across state lines to Louisiana Tech.
She felt the same thing in Ruston that tens of thousands of Bulldogs before her have felt.
“I toured campus, and immediately, it just felt like home,” Gardner said. “Here, I feel seen and heard. It was the best of two worlds that really mattered to me.”
Since arriving at Tech, Gardner has gone beyond her curriculum and immersed herself in the practical application of her field. She is part of the inaugural cohort of student workers in the University’s SOC. On-campus student worker positions cover a vast spectrum of duties, but Gardner’s is special, because it’s already a critical component of Tech’s IT infrastructure.
“The value is learning real world firsthand experience about cyber security,” said Louisiana Tech CIO Tom Hoover. “The second part of that is protecting the University, its assets, and its data. It is a perfect combination.”
Gardner and her peers monitor the on-campus network for “security events,” like potential malware or a suspicious case of mass downloads, that could signal a cyberattack.
“We are doing real, hands-on cybersecurity,” she said. “It’s our job to decide whether an event is a legitimate threat or if it’s benign. We investigate, we look for red flags, and if we find them, we escalate them. I love it because I feel like we are making a true difference. We’re actually protecting the campus.”
We are doing real, hands-on cybersecurity. It’s our job to decide whether an event is a legitimate threat or if it’s benign. We investigate, we look for red flags, and if we find them, we escalate them. I love it because I feel like we are making a true difference. We’re actually protecting the campus.”
– TESS GARDNER
Being able to get her hands dirty with the real-world stakes of cyber defense has solidified her passion for the industry. It has also highlighted a parallel between her work in the classroom and her work with the baton. Both require a resilience that goes beyond simple talent.
In the world of feature twirling, perfection is the goal, but recovery is the reality.
“Twirling is a very mental sport,” Gardner explained. “You can go into practice and drop a trick that you’ve caught 10,000 times. You have to sit back and reframe the way you think. You rely on affirmation. But more than that, it’s about recovery. If you have a drop during a show, do you let it ruin the rest of the routine? Or do you accept it and keep going like it didn’t happen?”
The lesson that the error matters less than the response has bled into her academic life. Managing a chaotic schedule leaves little room for downtime, and Gardner leans on her ability to reset and refocus. She admits that the balance and the standard of always being her best is difficult. Between her place in Alpha Chi Omega sorority, regular trips to the campus Cybersecurity Applied Innovation Laboratory, and the physical toll of practice, free time is a rarity. She often sacrifices weekends back home with her family to ensure she is prepared for the next exam.
But for Gardner, the sacrifice is the point. She is driven by a desire to prove to herself that she can handle the workload, that she can master the puzzle.
“I’m proud of myself,” she said, reflecting on the “shy” freshman version of herself who arrived on campus three years ago. “I’ve branched out. I’ve earned opportunities like the SOC position that I never could have foreseen. It does get harder, but I look forward to it. I want to establish a full-time career in cybersecurity, maybe working for the government, and I know this is the path to get there.”
As she looks toward her senior year and a planned master’s degree at Tech, Gardner is, in many ways, still that eighth grader working twice as hard to catch the trick. She is still the student in the computer lab, finding joy in the problems that stump everyone else.
And she knows that if she has the right code and the right mindset, she’ll always find a way to land on her feet.