B.B.A. Management Information Systems

The following is an email that I wrote to the MIS Department Head, Dr. Richard Watson, regarding an article that I read in the Atlanta Business Chronicle about MIS students:

Hello Dr. Watson,

Salutations! My name is Daniel Fowler, and I graduated from the MIS program last year. Now I work for the Terry College as a web developer in the Office of Marketing & Communications.

This morning I was introduced to an article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle entitled “Universities lure students back to IT,” which is being published next week as a front-page headline. I’m certain you know about this article, since you are quoted within, and upon reading it, I was motivated to action and contacted Nicole Lechene in the UGA Career Center. We are scheduling a meeting to discuss strategies for taking advantage of the market shortage of people... well… people like me.

You see, my undergraduate experience with company recruiters was not at all similar to the recruiting experiences that are highlighted by the article as common among most MIS students. I was not attracted to the things that campus recruiters had to say about the jobs that they were looking to fill, because despite the major being marketed as “a business degree focused on IT rather than an IT degree focused on business” (Tian Ross), it all sounded to me like entry-level software development and at least two years of coding. I don’t have experience with many of the programming languages listed in their job descriptions, and because of these things I became lax in my participation with SMIS and other MIS-driven opportunities, feeling as though I had too many hours under my belt to swap to Marketing or Telecommunications... Not that I even wanted to move away from MIS, because my passion for business and technology still thrived.

After graduating I struggled on my own to find the kind of companies that the ABC article heralds – ones that seem to welcome an MIS graduate with open arms. Six months later I was finally offered this contract-position as a temporary full-time staff member. But listening to the article, it proclaims that there are so many companies out there, of many varieties, just waiting for an applicant to come along that possesses the diverse skills and business prowess of an MIS grad. I’m just skeptical based on past experiences that these companies all want to lure me into a cubicle with an entry-level computer and a B.B.A. screensaver, so to speak. Instead, I desire to be what I feel like I’ve been trained to be: a problem-solver and businessman, not a troubleshooter and developer.

I apologize for this lengthy message and the anticlimactic ending, but what advice would you offer to someone like me as I prepare to sit down with a career consultant next week? Please respond at your convenience; I’m in no hurry and value your wisdom a great deal. Thank you in advance for your time.

Daniel Fowler