Spring 2024 Grads Talk Skills & Certs

Q: What made you choose UMGC for your degree?

MELISSA F.: I chose UMGC because of the flexibility. I work a full-time job, and I'm a wife and mother. I also have a business, so UMGC just kind of fit in my schedule, where I can take classes at my convenience. So, whether it was late at night or early in the morning, I was able to get in and do the coursework.

ASHTON S.: I currently live in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I started out at North Carolina A&T. I chose to transfer to UMGC because I heard of the applied technology degree, and I was really looking for something that was interdisciplinary, because my interests are very multifaceted. I wanted to be part of a program that allowed me to put all my interests into one degree, and I had heard that applied technology was UMGC's newest interdisciplinary technology degree, and so it was a win-win for me.

DONUNSHAE B.: I had been out of school for about four years, and I just felt like I wanted to have more in my portfolio to be able to offer to employers. Since I knew I wasn't going to have the time to commute, I decided on UMGC because the online classes that were offered in the program just felt like a good fit for me. It was also extremely affordable. And, it ended up working out well because I was able to get my new position as a result of the work I was doing within the strategic communications program.  

ARKIE T.: I had a friend who graduated in 2020 from UMGC. He did his master's in cybersecurity management and policy, and he pointed me in this direction. So, looking at where things are going in terms of computing—people leaving on-premise and going to the cloud—I wanted to study cloud computing, and I felt like UMGC’s graduate program was the best choice.

Q: What types of skills did you acquire in your program, and how have they helped you in your career?

MELISSA F.: As far as the skills I learned here from my psychology major, I learned that psychology kind of works with any area of interest that you go into. Right now, I work in HR and payroll, so my psychology degree will work well in that position. When employees have concerns about different things, or I’m even just helping an employee through a difficult situation, I feel like my degree, with everything that I've learned here at UMGC, has equipped me for that.

ASHTON S.: Taking into consideration everything I've learned in my applied technology undergrad program at UMGC and all the interpersonal skills and life skills that I've had to experience while getting my degree, I now feel very well prepared going into my next steps. I'm thankful that I was able to get to this moment.

DONUNSHAE B.: There were lots of skills that I learned—even some things that I didn't anticipate, such as getting a deeper knowledge of Excel, lots of group projects, learning how to delegate roles and responsibilities, and really being a little more assertive with my communications. It also helped me to strengthen my leadership skills within the program. I ended up taking the lead within a lot of our group projects, which in my opinion, really has made me successful in the role that I have now.

ARKIE T.: One big difference with UMGC for me was that they don't just prepare you to be a cloud architect or cloud engineer. You are fully immersed from a business perspective. For some of my courses I could easily have felt like, "Why am I even doing this? I could just go do AWS and Microsoft Azure and still know how to compute.” But at UMGC I felt like I got much more, because they were focused on the C-level kind of stuff—decision-making at the corporate level. 

Q: Why did you decide to go for your certificate, and what have been the benefits?

MELISSA F.: I got my clinical mental health certificate at UMGC while I was pursuing my bachelor's degree, and that helps me because now I can work inside a mental health facility. I can't actually provide therapy, but at least I'm working in the trade I want to get into. I do art now, so I would like to work where I can provide art services within a mental health setting. So, my certificate allows me to do that.

ASHTON S.: My advisor told me I could pick up a certificate by completing just a little bit of coursework. I chose project management because I knew that, moving forward throughout my career, I would need that skillset—being able to start and complete projects successfully and to make sure that all the people on my team were conducting things accordingly. So, it just made sense that project management would be my next move. It also helped in my interview, because I was able to talk about what project management meant and how I would use it in the field.

DONUNSHAE B.: Getting my master’s and my certificate both in strategic communications was an interesting decision. I think it was because, when I first spoke with somebody at UMGC, I told them about my interest in furthering my education in strategic comms, and they were like, "Hey, it's actually kind of a better collaboration if you just mingle both of the programs together." So that's why I ended up just doing them jointly. Now I feel like I'm more equipped—more empowered to be able to go out and search for different roles—like I'm able to conquer the next thing.