Heather Le, BBA 2006
|
IT Intern, USAA
Many companies wish MIS majors grew from trees; Heather Le is definitely a red apple. The daughter of a CPA/MBA mother and a father with Masters degrees in both computer sciences and electrical engineering, Heather grew up with a strong sense of business and technology. During her elementary school days, Heather's uncle gave her family the gift of a computer. One year at Christmas, another uncle got a call from a company that had lost their pigs. Their server had crashed and they literally didn't know where their pigs were! Heather's uncle spent a week fixing their internal systems, secured the server so it wouldn't crash again, and found the missing pigs. From playing SkiFree and Rodents' Revenge to listening to success stories of computers saving pigs, Heather's appreciation for technology was fostered at a young age.
At UT, Heather began college as a computer science major. After a year, she opted for the more communicative and group-oriented atmosphere of McCombs, and transferred into the MIS Program. She believes that "MIS majors are an essential bridge between the coders and business people-culture, ideas, everything."
Since she would be studying abroad in Hong Kong during spring internship recruiting, Heather interviewed with a few companies and found her place with USAA. The hard-working, ambitious, and group-oriented culture appealed to her, so she began working both internally and with USAA's investment and mortgages branches.
With a mentor guiding her, Heather chose projects involving coding, website development, vendor and staff meetings, database creation, and forecasting. She really enjoyed watching the design and development of large-scale projects where she got experience with just about every dimension of a product's actualization. After her summer at USAA, she realized that she would miss her internship because it was "not feeling like it was work. It was great seeing what I was capable of doing while working with inspirational people."
Heather differentiates the MIS curriculum from computer science in that "coding is something anyone can learn. The business school is great at teaching us to communicate and work with other people." Along with building interpersonal skills, Heather advises MIS students to (1) find what they value, (2) be ambitious and try new things, and (3) be well-rounded and not just study all the time. She suggests, "Show that you're passionate about something." Studying abroad is also something Heather would recommend to any student, as her experience at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology changed her life. "College is the only time to get to do something crazy like this, and you find out more about yourself."
During her academic career, Heather recalls Professor John Mote as one of the smartest professors she's ever had. "He knows what he's talking about, and he's someone I would like to emulate on an intellectual level." Currently, she enjoys Tim Ruefli's MIS 375 Strategic Information Technology Management class. "Professor Ruefli is smart, fun, interesting, and has a lot of real-world experience. He's easy to talk to and offers lots of guidance to students."
After her last two semesters, Heather plans to learn as much as she can about industry by working at several companies. She hopes to start her own international consulting firm in ten years that will allow her to travel, explore, and help companies.
While not in classes and interviews, Heather can be found at Alpha Sigma Rho events, or Vietnamese Student Association and National Society of Collegiate Scholars meetings. She enjoys attending concerts, being outdoors, hanging out at Mozart's, and cheering from the stands at UT football games.
