UAA CIS Department produces high-demand MIS grads: award-winning students succeed with real-world projects.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION/ Telecom & Technology - University of Alaska Anchorage - Management Information Systems - Computer Information Systems

In April 2014, students from UAA (University of Alaska Anchorage) traveled south to Atlanta, Georgia, to participate in the Association of Information Technology Professionals' National Collegiate Conference, winning first place in two contests: Database Design, against sixty-eight other teams, and Web Project, which had nine finalists. The UAA students competed against universities such as Texas State, Purdue, BYU, and Missouri State; in total more than fifty universities and colleges were in attendance.

The Web Project that won was researched, designed, and implemented by a team of three students, Colleen Zink, William Taff, and Kaden Galvez.

"It was a phenomenal experience," says Taff, speaking of the conference. "It was great to see all of these different programs from around the nation and to compete against them--and to win, that was fairly great as well," he laughs. "You have schools such as Purdue, Texas, all of these large schools, and to go there and compare our skillsets that we were provided at UAA and to come out on top was really great."

It is, in fact, a testament to the instruction taking place through UAA's College of Business and Public Policy's Management Information Systems (MIS) degree program in its Computer Information Systems (CIS) Department, from which all three students have now graduated.

Zink and Taff work for ConocoPhillips, and Galvez is employed with Northern Aviation Services, where he's currently helping to implement SharePoint Online to the entire company. While many college graduates may struggle with placement after graduating, none of the members of this team had any problems. Galvez says he interviewed with Northern Aviation Services the Friday before graduation and ended up graduating with a full-time job.

Galvez says that Northern Aviation Services, in fact, has a history of hiring out of UAA's MIS program. "They always look at the MIS program for new interns to come through." His current IT director and manager are both UAA MIS alumni.

Grads in Demand

How is this program producing award-winning, highly sought-after graduates? Hands on learning.

All students who graduate from the program complete a final real-world project with an actual deliverable. Students spend three semesters developing this project, taking a different course each term.

Zink says the first course is analysis: "That's when we dig in and find out more about the as-is process of the business and how it can be improved. The second...