First group of Early IT students to graduate from UC

Dweik, an alumnus of Springboro High School in Springboro, Ohio, has accepted a full-time job at Siemens, an industrial manufacturing company, where he’ll use his education in information technology to help support one of the multinational company’s products.

“I feel like I was much better prepared for postgraduate success than maybe if I went to a different school where I didn’t do as many co-ops,” Dweik said. “Having those five mandatory co-ops was extremely beneficial for my postgraduate success.”

Dweik’s first two co-ops were with Cincinnati Insurance Company then he had a co-op at Cintas, a Fortune 500 company that designs, manufactures and implements corporate identity programs and uniforms among its services.

His fourth and fifth co-ops both were with Siemens, which led to a full-time job offer.

“I’ve worked on a lot of things from back end, more systems type of work where I’m working with SQL [Structured Query Language], with servers, to more front end like e-commerce support,” Dweik said.

Having so much co-op experience exposed Dweik to a wide variety of experiences within the IT field. Along with that experience, Dweik said, the support of his professors at UC and the School of Information Technology (SoIT) faculty was a key part of his professional development.

“All throughout my college experience, if I ever needed help with anything, there was always somebody there to help me out,” he said.

Dweik is proud to be one of the first UC graduates from the Early IT program and expects it to continue to grow as technology advances.

"What initially drew me to pursue IT was that I realized the internet and computers are not going to go away,” he said. “It’s only going to grow more advanced. Playing a part in the advancement of technology is something that really interested me."

Otten, an alumnus of Archbishop Moeller High School in Cincinnati, credited the Early IT program, his two years at regional campus UC Blue Ash and the affordability of UC for helping him to earn his degree without any debt.

“It’s saved me a lot of money,” he said. “UC is pretty affordable compared to other colleges.”

Otten began his IT education in high school at the recommendation of his dad. He filled what would have been his study hall time with Early IT classes.

“It wasn’t as difficult as I thought,” he said. “I thought it was going to be super hard. It was challenging, but it was pretty fun. I felt smarter because I was still in high school taking college classes.”

After graduating from high school, Otten enrolled in UC Blue Ash and spent two years at the regional campus before transferring to the main campus. His time at UC Blue Ash helped him save money without sacrificing the quality of his education.

Otten worked to pay his way through college, and he's had an internship since October 2021 at Ameritas, a company that offers insurance, employee benefits and financial services. Working in Java development, Otten has enjoyed his work experience at Ameritas and seeing how people respond to problems that arise.

“I’ve been able to see how a lot of different projects function inside of a company,” he said.

Otten has studied software development within the UC IT program and hopes to advance in his career and become a lead developer. His education has provided a good base on how to learn programming languages and how to stay up to date, he said.

“It mixed the STEM fields and creativity perfectly for me,” Otten said about why he enjoys IT. “It’s constantly changing so there’s always stuff to learn. It’s not the same thing for your entire career. It’s going to change every year, so it’s always new and fresh.”

When Williamsburg High School in Williamsburg, Ohio, announced a partnership with UC for the Early IT program, King knew it was the perfect opportunity to explore the field of information technology.

“There’s zero downside,” King said of starting college classes while he was in high school. “The absolute worst-case scenario is you take some classes you don’t end up liking then you still can choose a different major when you get to college.”

King enjoyed his Early IT classes and continued his studies at UC. While he went into the game development and simulation concentration, the experiences provided to him helped King refine his career goals further.

At UC, King had multiple co-ops in software development and found that he enjoyed that aspect of information technology. He’s accepted a full-time job in software development.

“UC has been really awesome in setting me up for future success with the co-op program,” King said. “And all of my professors have been very willing to give me advice or just help me out with anything I’ve asked them.”

King enjoys seeing the real-world impact of his work in IT and likes that he’s gotten to meet many people from a variety of backgrounds.

“Something I really like about IT is I get to be around a diverse work environment,” he said. “I get to be around different people who don’t look and talk just like me every day. I work with people from South America, Latin America, Europe. It’s just a wide variety, which is nice. I get to interact and meet with a ton of different people.”

King enjoyed his time at UC and has convinced his sister to enroll at the university. He encourages anyone who’s considering the Early IT program to reach out to the staff at UC.

“Anybody who has any confusion should reach out to [IT associate director of academics] Alana Calhoun because she’s an amazing person, she helped me figure out what I want to do in high school and made everything a lot easier and less stressful,” King said.

With a passion for leadership roles, Manchaiah knew she wanted to earn her MBA to help her achieve that goal. To make it a reality, she decided being able to complete her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the same time was more practical than having to return to school later.

“I knew if I were in the work field and had to come back to school, it would definitely be much more of a challenge,” she said.

To complete her MBA in an accelerated time frame, Manchaiah has averaged 18 credit hours most semesters for the past two years. Some of the master’s classes were half-semester classes, which she said helped reduce the workload prior to the end of the semesters.

The Early IT program also accelerated her education, allowing her to complete some college courses while she was still in high school.

“With the Early IT program, I was able to get a taste of college while still in high school, understand how classes are set up and set me up for success in freshman year and beyond,” she said. “I wasn't coming in completely blind. I had already taken several college courses.”

At UC, Manchaiah focused on the software development concentration within the School of IT. However, through co-op experiences, she's become passionate about data and business analytics. As a result, she has accepted a full-time job offer in data analytics and business analytics at Great American Insurance Group.

“SoIT and co-op experiences definitely helped prepare me for this role,” Manchaiah said. “I got to generate business reports and visualizations using data visualization tools like Tableau and Power BI. Furthermore, exposure to professional workplace environments has helped me understand the nuances and skills essential to succeed.”

Manchaiah has been able to complete her studies at an accelerated pace thanks to the tremendous support and counseling she’s received at UC.

“Everyone at UC has been incredibly helpful,” she said. “Even before I started at UC, the people in charge of the Early IT program were always responsive and incredibly helpful in initiating, planning and creating a tentative curriculum for me. I've had an enlightening and memorable experience at UC, and the Early IT program prepared me to succeed against all odds.”