After taking classes on computer science in high school, Nathan Nye knew he wanted to pursue a college degree that incorporated business with computers. At the start of his college career here at UConn, Nathan visited HuskyTech for an issue with his computer, where he learned of the Management Information Systems (MIS) major.
For Nathan, he is intrigued by information technology because it is constantly changing and evolving. He said he is always learning something new in this field because the constant change forces him to keep up with new technologies and challenges.
“There are so many different ways to go about solving a problem with technology so it allows you to be creative in finding a solution,” Nathan said.
Nathan said that the UConn School of Business does a great job at allowing students to individualize their plans of study to reflect their personal interests, along with the business curriculum. He said that he enjoyed being able to take a variety of music and computer science courses because of his interests in audio and programming.
As a senior, Nathan has acquired a variety of internship experiences over the course of his time here at UConn. But unlike many MIS majors, Nathan’s internships have been primarily with small companies or startups.
Nathan said he believes that working for smaller companies was extremely beneficial for him, personally. He said that smaller companies can generally adapt to new technologies and change direction quicker. He liked the small business environment because it allowed him to work with cutting edge technologies and a diverse set of tasks each day.
In his most recent internship experience at COCC, Nathan worked on website configuration for various financial institutions.
“It was cool being able to say I worked on anything from configuration changes to sites where millions of dollars are transacted daily to helping potential clients with branding and design,” Nathan said.
Nathan encourages all current MIS students to obtain internship experiences over the course of their college careers. He said that work outside of the classroom allows for building a diverse skill set.
“Think about something you really enjoy doing and think about the skills you would need to run that as a business by yourself,” he said.
A piece of advice Nathan offered from his own experience when looking for internships is to ask about the possibility of working remote. COCC allowed Nathan to continue his summer internship during the school year because the company had the capabilities to enable him to work from anywhere, he said. Continuing this internship through the school year has been even more beneficial for him because it allowed him to work on even larger tasks because he was already acclimated with the company, he said.
After graduation, Nathan hopes to dive deeper into programming for web-based applications. Nathan said that he and his brother are planning to start their own audio company to build synthesizers in the form of guitar pedals to simplify performances for drone musicians.
“I like the idea of being self sufficient and being able to create your own job after graduating,” Nathan said.
He said he is currently learning to program in PureData. His goal is to implement PureData patching to his company’s devices in order to create highly complex sonic textures.
“My ultimate goal in the field is to be able to say that I used computers and technology to build something that truly helped someone,” Nathan said.