Student Letters to Corliss
Chris.Apostal@abbott.com
If you could step back 7 years, I was part of the team that did
modem and PCMCIA card testing for Johnson control. It was fascinating for me because I had no idea what a modem or
PCMCIA card were. I wanted to thank you
for making the project current, exciting and educational. Some professors don't
have a chance to teach applied knowledge.
Some fall into the abyss and forget their target audience. Well, I really wanted to say is thank
you. After graduation, I continued with
the profession that got me through college (construction). I wanted to use my degree, so I found a
position at my grade school (and another local grade school) as a computer
instructor 2 days a week. With the
flexible workweek I was able to build my own house from concrete to drywall.
The expense for the house ran high and with a new boy on the way,
I found myself looking for the “real” job.
I am now at Abbott in Abbott Park Lake County Illinois. I started with a title of programmer but was
doing Technical writing for validating software due to FDA requirements. Once again, I'm in a position that I have no
idea what I'm doing ... what validation is or how does Abbott do business. It reminded me of being in your class.
As an instructor, I am curious on the future of my students so I would like to tell you... I'm doing
well.
Matt Brumbaugh (mbrumbaugh@yahoo.com)
Thought I would keep in touch and let you know that I've left the
consulting world to start a software company.
The company, Axeleration, is focused on software and services addressing
Human Capital Management. I know that's
a mouthful - in regular language we assist clients in determining how to
evaluate people based on competencies and then have the software solution that
allows them to evaluate employees against those competencies. In the near future the software is focused
on streamlining the performance appraisal cycle but eventually we hope to have
the software solution to allow companies to recruit, promote, and staff
internally based on competency models.
Catherine Henke (cdhenke@northco.net)
Hello there. I thought I'd
drop you a line now that things have settled down.
I started a new job on the 10th with ICM Corp. down on 5th and
Oklahoma. Ironically, it wasn't a job
that was posted anywhere: I found out about it through a friend who worked in
customer service. I had, as a “last
ditch” effort to find a job, sent out my resume to my friends and family
saying, “Pass this around.” Until I
sent it, it hadn't clicked with her that they were hiring in their IT
department and that I might be interested.
They called me that same afternoon to set up an interview time and I had
the job within a week. So, I guess the
moral of the story is networking is key.
I was brought on as an IS/Web Specialist, meaning I do a little
bit of everything, from tech support to web and graphics design. Primarily, I will be the Webmaster for the
company, including all internet graphics design. The first thing they sat me down to do was analyze their static
pages and see if I could reduce the load-time.
They couldn't figure out why, on a dial-up, it was taking at least 5
*MINUTES* to load the page. If you go
to www.catalog-sales.com and look at the rollovers, you can see the image flip
goes to the front page of the catalog in question. The problem was, whoever designed this page had the image rolling
over to the *FULL* sized catalog cover: no scaling or sizing down was
done. I reduced the load time from 5
minutes to about 1 minute by resizing the images and reducing the quality to
50%. They also had a jpeg of a picture
of the building that had been faded as the wallpaper that was about 60K in size
that they were loading. I suggested
just going to the plain light yellow background, if the president of the
company wasn't attached to the look. He
came out and gave the go-ahead to change it and complimented me on my insight
and I replied “Well, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Sometimes simpler is better.”
That isn't the only mantra I've repeated, either. I was just given a software-testing project
today and he said, “I don't really want to tell you how to do this. I just want you to sit down and.” “Try to
break it?”
Michael J. O'Brien (obrienmj@voyager.net)
It has come to pass that I am now back to being a contributing
member of society: yes, I am
employed! Believe it or not, I have
convinced an organization that I can add some value to their infrastructure.
The company is Datex-Ohmeda (http://www.datex-ohmeda.com). The North American headquarters is located
in Madison, with the parent company (Instrumentarium Corporation) HQ in
Helsinki, Finland. I will be
responsible for the North American Information Management (IM) department,
primarily located in Madison.
Datex-Ohmeda operates globally, and is a leader in the manufacture
and distribution of critical care patient monitors, networked systems for
anesthesia, intensive care units and sub-acute care, as well as anesthesia
machines, ventilators, drug delivery systems, supplies and accessories. Datex-Ohmeda also supplies care information
systems in partnership with Deio, which is a sister company located in
Maryland. The company is publicly
traded (INMRY on the NASDAQ in the US).
Probably more information than you wanted to know!
I want to thank you for your encouragement and support during my
job search. If there is any way I can
begin to repay your help, please do not hesitate to let me know. When I get settled in the first week of
November, I will drop you a note with my new email address.
Julie Susnik Siever (tjsiever@excelonline.com)
I have been married 10 years. My husband Tom and I have three
wonderful children. I have been working
at AQS (a commercial insurance software company) for 12 years as a computer
programmer. I am a Senior Systems Team
Leader and Senior Systems Analyst. I am
a part of the interviewing team for new hires.
I then train all new computer programmers hired at AQS.
Chunhua Zhao (czhao82@hotmail.com)
I really appreciate your instruction and
helps during my study at MSCS. I miss
Marquette very much.
As you know, I moved to LA and started my
job search after I obtained my Master degree in May. Till now, I got a job
offer from L.A Care as a programmer analyst II. Your web design course and the
volunteer teaching assistance work provide me with valuable experience. I
learned the business logic from this course.
Next Monday, I will start my new career. I
am very happy to get this job. It will allow me to really use my skills to make
contribution. (It requires Java, DBMS, OO design, Oracle, HTML, VB6.0).
Yanhua Zhang (yanhuaz@hotmail.com)
After graduating in May 2001, I took a two-month break and then
joined GE Medical Systems in Chicago. Before I leaving the Marquette campus, I
told you that I would communicate with you about my new job. I am sorry for not
contacting you earlier, because I am busy on a project at the company.
I started working for GE Medical Systems in Chicago in July. After
spending two weeks to familiar with the systems environment, I started
participating in a project, which is a part of the new imaging-processing
product of this company. I first reviewed the design documents as I learned
from your software design course at school. Then I started developing software
with Enterprise JavaBeans and JDBC. Although I felt kind of pressure when I
started to work on a real business project, but I am more confident about this
position. One thing I would mention that I learned a lot of problem solving
skills from your course and ITS Imaging project at Marquette. I would really
appreciate your effort on teaching and RA guidance extending to me.
Please keep in touch and hope to have a chance to see you again in
a near future.
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Newsletter is written by students and faculty for almuni of the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI USA 53201-1881