Ron Statt, Alumnus
In the late ’90s, I found myself moving from New York to North Carolina. Part of my goal in moving was to complete my Masters degree. I had started a program similar to MALS in New York, but the move would make completing that program impossible.
I was encouraged to learn about the MALS program because it enabled me to truly focus on areas that were important to me both personally and professionally. In my case, I wanted to focus on both business and computer science. The flexibility of the program has complemented my career at SAS Institute. I’ve been involved in various positions from technical writing to project management to user interface design to personnel management.
MALS helped introduce me to a number of different courses and professors that I might not have achieved with a traditional Masters program. Interestingly, I recall working on a user interface design for a software program geared toward older adults in one of my courses. I now manage a group of creative User Experience designers and Visual Designers. This early experience opened me up to this area of software interface design and helped introduce me to concepts that I would later work with on a daily basis.
With MALS, I believe that students can keep their options open, which can set them up to explore different job and career opportunities. I also believe that the program requires students to communicate using different formats, which is another key to success in many careers.