UHCL Distinguished Alumni as the keynote speaker of itSMF Houston Special Event
Ms. Kathy Tamer, VP & CIO of United Space Alliance (USA) and an UHCL Distinguished Alumni, will be the keynote speaker of itSMF Houston Special Event on August 31, 2010: http://hou.itsmfusa.org/. The event is free for those who register early.
itSMF, or Information Technology Service Management Forum, organized this special event to focus on the international ITSM standards, ISO 20000 and ISO 27002.
This event is especially suitable for CIS and CS students. Although you may not be familiar with the ITSM standards, it is an excellent opportunity to expose yourself to IT management and the working environment. (USA has the largest IT operation in the Clear Lake area.) Joining professional organizations and their activities is crucial for your professional development and I encourage our students not to miss this opportunity.
Dr. Dan Kim’s research is highly ranked
The Association of Information Systems (AIS) is the leading US professional organization in IS. It identifies eight leading IS journals in its Senior Scholars' basket of journals. Among them, three are especially respected: Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ), Information Systems Research (ISR) and Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS). There are rankings of research productivity of individual researchers and universities based on the publications on these journals.
One of this ranking is based on the publications of the big three: MISQ, ISR and JMIS. I am happy to say that our Computer Information Systems (CIS) program is doing great according to this ranking. Thanks should be given to Dr. Dan Kim, our now not so new faculty member in CIS. Dr. Kim taught a collection of CIS courses, such as CINF 3231 IS Theory and Practice, CINF 4234 Modern Systems Design and Analysis and is very active in his research. He has published more than 20 papers in the last two years, many times with his students.
According to the big three IS ranking, Dr. Kim is ranked as no. 22 worldwide:
http://www.vvenkatesh.com/ISranking/RankingsMISQISRJMISbyAut.asp?RYear=3
As a result, UHCL is ranked as #61 in IS research worldwide, the same ranking as Texas A&M University and ahead of many other well known universities.
http://www.vvenkatesh.com/ISranking/RankingsMISQISRJMISbyUni.asp?RYear=3
This is an outstanding accomplishment. Please join us to congratulate Dr. Kim. By the way, don’t forget to take his courses and conduct research under his supervision. You may end up publishing a paper yourself.
Excellent NASA summer internship opportunities
We always advise students about the values of a good internship in their education. Students will not only gain invaluable experience, build crucial network and polish their resume. They may also be hired by the same company after they graduate.
There are great summer internship opportunities in our high technology neighbor: NASA Johnshop Space Center. You can look at the intern program for planetary science (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpiintern/) through the Lunar and and Planetary Institute (LPI: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/nlsi/). One of our students, a UHCL NSF Scholar, participated in the last summer intern program, co-published a nice paper in a highly regarded conference, and is now applying for graduate school. He can attest to the excellent value of the LPI internship in advancing his career goal.
So check it out. It may work well for you too! Good luck.
Student Success Newsletter
I recently received the latest UHCL student success newsletter from the Dean of Students. It is a well produced two page newsletter full of interesting stories of activities of our students: the community outreach day that attracted students, faculty and staff alike to work with various charity organized, the student who worked with Army for six years, including at Iraq, on how she became involved with student government committee, the "honor the elders scholarship program" that had awarded 141 students for their uplifting stories about how their elders inspired them, etc. It was good reading.
Many of our CS/CIS students are international students. The goals of studying aboard are not only in learning technical skills but also experiencing and embracing a new culture to add a new dimension for a rich and fulfilling life. This is especially important in a globalized world. A deep understaning of other cultures is a crucial ingredient for success. One way is to learn about how other fellow students with completely different background are doing. I thus encourage you to read the student success newsletter:
http://prtl.uhcl.edu/portal/page/portal/DOS/Documents_and_Forms/DOS_Newsletter.pdf
The latest version is here: 2009 Fall Student Success Stories.
Or better yes, join the student government. I had fun myself doing so when I was a student, hmmm, though that was quite a while ago.
Two opportunities to expand your horizon
We learned about these two opportunities from Mr. Dion McInnis, Associate Vice President for University Advancement at UHCL:
"One is called Young Professionals for Space Exploration. It is national, but located here and strives to unite young professionals. I imagine this would be of interest to some students. Perhaps faculty could help spread the word. Their website is www.goboldlynasa.org.
The other is IMAGINE 2009: Ideas at Work, a two-day conference to be held at the NASA Gilruth Center on Dec. 2-3. The event is very different in its approach and content. $250 for both days, but I’d wager that some of your innovative types would be very interested. The event is hosted by the American Astronautical Society and more info can be found at http://astronautical.org."
CS and CIS are highly applicative in nature. Our professionals need to be able to study a entirely new problem in different domains and grasp the essence quickly. It is thus very important for us to continuously expand our horizon beyond our core CS/IT competency. This kind of opportunities may work for you.