For those who don't know me, I'm Jordan from Chris' other sites (Aximsite, DellDJSite, IpaqHQ). Those of you from Aximsite probably know me better as "deftech."

Anyhow, I've been a member here since back when Chris first put this site together. Just now starting to participate more though, as the site is finally starting to grow a little.

I'm also a Univ. of Alabama student, and I'll be graduating this December with a degree in Management Information Systems and a minor in Computer Science.

Here's props to the MIS majors on the boards. I graduated May, 2003 from Ole Miss with an MIS degree. I'm going to start working on my Masters in CS in January.

From a MIS professional to a MIS student, here's a word of advice. I don't know if you've been able to meet some Software Engineers or Systems Analysts that are out there for real, but if you haven't, go spend a day with one of them and see what goes on out there. I just got a small picture of it right before I graduated. When I was hired as a Systems Analyst I found out what's really going on. It's a lot of hard work, and often it is very tense and stressful, but it is really very rewarding.

Good luck with your career!

Actually, our MIS program is set up to get us real work experience throughout our senior year of the program. To begin with, throughout the entire 4-year curriculum, we have great projects with a "real world" feel to them. Then during our senior-level classes, our MIS department actually gets companies to sponsor real projects that need to be done within their company. We get a lot of great work experience this way, including the interaction with corporate and project sponsors. It's also set up in a "real world" manner in the sense that the 2nd Year MIS-MBA students are our Project Managers. Just to name a few of the companies that we've done projects for: Proctor & Gamble, Russell Athletics, Home Depot, Georgia Pacific, Alabama DOT, Lithonia Lighting, Rohm and Haas, Protective Life. I've enjoyed every bit of it so far, and am looking forward to starting a career in this field after the new year.

Also, our faculty does a wonderful job of getting lots of companies to recruit students from our MIS program for internships and full-time positions. Our Information Management Society has meetings generally every Tuesday, with most meetings having a speaker from a large company. There are rarely students who do not have at least one job offer at the time of graduation.

Can you tell I like our program?

[I am a USC grad in MIS from way back in 86. Things have changed since then. The reason I stayed in computers for 18+ years is because of the "big picture" view of what is going on. Bit twiddling was not my forte. Now designing, developing new systems and exploring new technology is fun, IMHO. Seeing the end result of a new system or enhancing an existing system that solves a major problem is very rewarding and an nice ego trip to boot.

Good Luck!!

Definitely have to agree with you on that. Even while I'm still in school, it's amazing to see companies implementing systems that a group of "college kids" developed. Definitely a rewarding feeling.