Cameron Kochenower, a UNL College of Business Administration management alum, believes his business degree, along with participation in a computer science and engineering (CSE) design team during his senior year, was the key to landing a job immediately upon graduation.
“Having a degree in management and also working on the CSE design team helped me stand out from other candidates when I was interviewing for my job,” Kochenower said. “The CSE design team let me experience the real world because it integrates both working with technology and being part of a team.”
That is exactly what Kochenower is doing now at Pen-Link – a local business in Lincoln, Neb. He was hired part time by Pen-Link while in school, and was immediately given full time status upon graduation.
The CSE design team allowed Kochenower to utilize his management knowledge and apply it to a technology team. He was the only business major on the team.
“I knew some of the programming but primarily did the planning of the programming iterations and mapping out the visuals of where we should be at each stage of the project,” he said.
Cameron Kochenower at Pen-Link
Kochenower, who came to CBA from Gering, Neb., took on programming responsibilities, but his project management skills were what really helped the team. The team’s assignment was to work with the Nebraska Global Beehive company, a software development firm located in Lincoln, to provide research for the functionality of a geographical asset editing tool called GeoBee.
Dr. Demet Batur, assistant professor of management at CBA, was instrumental in involving Kochenower on the team and hopes more business students will follow his lead in the future.
“Cameron did a remarkable job representing CBA at the university level,” Batur said. “The team's advisor at Nebraska Global, the course instructors at CSE and Cameron's team members all expressed their satisfaction with the quality of his work. He brought a different perspective to the project because of his background in management. He opened a path for other CBA students to participate in the CSE senior design projects.”
The team project was presented in a public showcase at the end of the school year and Kochenower was featured by the department of computer science and engineering to encourage more of their students to minor in business.
Kochenower currently works with programmers at Pen-Link to review and test the most recent versions of code updated by the developers. The software is used by government agencies throughout the country to track phone and IP data and analyze the information.
Published: March 4, 2013