B.S. Information Management and Technology ‘12
If you want an IT education like no other, and you’ve come to SU’s iSchool, you’re in the right place at the right time. I learned about everything from systems analysis to databases to social media. But even beyond the class offerings, the iSchool encourages you to chase opportunities and take chances. And there’s really nothing better than that. I can’t thank the iSchool enough for the opportunities it has given me to shine throughout my years here.
Here are a few of the cool initiatives and collaborations that I participated in:
Common Ground is an initiative between the iSchool and the School of Visual and Performing Arts, which paired an application development class that I was in, with a design class from VPA. We were placed into teams of half coders/half designers with the goal of building a mobile web app for a campus client. We were challenged to apply technologies we had not used before, like jQuery Mobile and JSON, and started coding from scratch. At the end of the class, we showcased our apps and my team even won an award for its final product.
The MLB.com College Challenge is a competition that challenges teams of students to come up with an idea for an innovative product or service for MLB.com’s offerings. It was a crazy 24-hour idea fest for students, featuring a lot of whiteboards, diagrams, and wire framing to build out our idea. But at the end of it all, my team had an idea, a presentation, and a mock up ready for the judges. My team wound up coming in 1st place, and won a trip to NYC to tour the MLB.com studios.
#140cuse is a social media conference that highlights and proves the power of the real-time web. Part of a national #140 conference series, the iSchool is the first educational institute to host a regional conference, and was attended by more than 600 students and community members. Speakers came from a host of different fields from higher education, to healthcare, to MLB.com, to NASA. At the conference’s inaugural year, I got to listen to powerful presentations, tweet until my phone ran out of batteries, and have digital as well as face to face conversations with some very interesting personalities.
These initiatives added an incredibly unique layer on top of my education. They are just a few examples of how the iSchool truly aspires for innovation.
During my time at SU I developed an interest in web development and design and was able to get hands-on experience with two organizations on campus. I interned at Professor Jeff Rubin’s company SIDEARM Sports and I served as the web director of our student radio station, Z89 Radio. If you want to do something at the iSchool and SU, you won’t have to look too hard.
After graduation I will be working at MLB.com in NYC. If you want to reach out and talk iSchool or anything else, I welcome alumni, current, or prospective students to contact me at bromy@syr.edu or hit me up at @bro_my.