PACE Offers Undergrads Real-World Professional Experience

If you’re looking for a win-win program, look no farther than the Professional Apprenticeship and Career Enhancement program at UMass Boston—PACE to those in the know. The brainchild of former interim chancellor Katherine Newman, the program is a way for freshman and sophomore students to gain real-world, professional experience early in their college careers.

That’s one win. John Mazzarella, manager of training, communications, and marketing in IT Ed Tech and Learning Commons, identified the second win. “One of the things I like about the program is the idea that any full-time employee can become a student supervisor,” said Mazzarella. “This is a great opportunity for a non-manager who wants managerial experience.”

PACE apprentices can apply for positions on campus in a field that interests them or explore other options. The idea is, wherever they serve, these students will be challenged in ways similar to challenges they will face in their professional lives.

Isa Almeida is a graphic designer pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in biology at UMass Boston, having earned her first in graphic design in Brazil. She worked with Mazzarella to support various marketing and communications projects related to IT services and is grateful for her PACE experience.

“My tasks involved learning the visual requirements of the IT office, designing various projects, and illustrating IT subproducts,” she said. “John always had some very insightful suggestions for my work and helped me grow as a student and graphic designer.”

Apprentice Prabin Tamang is equally grateful for the PACE program and the guidance of his supervisor, Alison Murray, senior information security specialist. Charged with helping to analyze threats, discover vulnerabilities, and track remediation, Prabin said, “I’m learning a lot about security in an organizational setting. Alison met with me via Zoom every week to assign tasks or answer questions.”

Sayed Chowdhury is supervised by Scott Gilbert, senior network engineer. Chowdhury is tasked with assisting campus network engineer staff with the design, maintenance, documentation, and troubleshooting enterprise ethernet networks. An IT major, Sayed said, “I’m learning a lot about the necessity of having a well-planned enterprise network, its design, and its operations. Participation in the PACE program is helping me to understand my academic and course materials better.”

So successful has PACE been that UMB is not only continuing the program this fall, but also expanding it. Mazzarella said that IT is “taking advantage of this expansion by retaining our existing positions and adding two more.”

Supervised by Marla Filoso, system administrator, Tung Duong will work as Office365 system administrative assistant, working with account lifecycle, active directory, and data reconciliation.

Mentored by Apurva Mehta, associate chief information officer, Sam Hartman will act as UMass Boston’s online program coordinator working with the Instructional Design eLearning team to help faculty teach online effectively and easily.

Judging from the comments of the current apprentices, the PACE program is meeting its objective to give students the opportunity to augment what they learn in the classroom with a real-world professional experience.

Congratulations Guneeti Sharma!

IT is proud to congratulate grad student Guneeti Sharma, who recently received the prestigious Master of Science in Business Analytics Prize for Academic Distinction, presented to her during the 2020 Virtual Honors Convocation Ceremony. Marla Filoso, systems administrator and Sharma’s supervisor, appreciated her enthusiasm. “Guneeti often came into the office excited with a new idea, a new twist because of something discussed in her classes, knowing it could help us too,” she said. “Working in a role within the Systems group as a data analyst, Guneeti was an integral component in assisting with the automation of much of the daily tasks, helping to streamline operations… Her attention to detail and technical acumen serves her well and will make her an ideal candidate for employment opportunities in the future,” said Brian Forbes, director of Systems.

Student Leadership Awards

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. And certainly, during the unanticipated COVID-19 lockdown, plenty of folk have found lots of creative ways to rethink the old ways of doing things. Gone in-person celebrations of yesteryear; here, for a while, virtual affairs. And that’s where creativity reigns supreme.

Salina Allen-Sharpp, executive assistant to Vice Chancellor and CIO Raymond Lefebvre, is one of those creative folks, and IT’s Student Leadership Awards is one of these virtual affairs that recognized and thanked IT’s student workers “for all they help us to accomplish,” said Allen-Sharpp.

“Our in-person celebration attracts around 60 staff members, and I’m thrilled to report a virtual audience of between 55 and 64 staffers,” she said. “Everyone was excited to see each other, and the students were so appreciative, all expressing how they love working for IT.”

Day One: students received a personalized video from their supervisors, thanking and congratulating them for their accomplishments. Day Two followed with the presentation of a badge recognizing their achievements. Digital badges are awarded in educational and professional industries to mark an accomplishment or newly learned skill and can be displayed on a LinkedIn profile, social media, or resume.

Day Three: all of IT’s student employees received a certificate of appreciation. Additionally, each of the nine departments within IT presented a Student Leadership Award acknowledging efforts and accomplishments above and beyond the norm. In addition to a certificate of appreciation, the nine student employees selected to receive the IT Student Leadership Award also received a letter of reference along with a special “IT Student Leadership Badge.”

“Events like the student leadership awards celebration speak to us as a family,” said Allen-Sharpp. “In this case, we let the students know they arevalued, and they appreciated it.”

Student Leadership Award Recipients

Kidist Girmay Jenish Nitinbhai Gandhi Shawn Reardon Jared Shah Joshua Tendo Guneeti Sharma Lara Kheireddine Olabode George Igandan Birva Sevek