When Mark Reid moved to southern California from his native Canada, he realized he'd have to change more than just his currency. Reid's qualifications—an electronic engineering diploma from a technology school, as well as years of IT management experience and certifications in Microsoft, A+, and Network Plus—weren't translating well to American employers.
“Because it was a Canadian vocational school, no one could determine what type of degree it was,” he remembers. “Was it a bachelor's? An associate's?”
He struggled to make his case to San Diego area employers, who heavily favored résumés bearing a recognizable, four-year degree. So, out of work and frustrated, and with a family relying on his support, he began looking at options for returning to school.
“Of all the different universities I checked out, Capella was the only one that kept working and pushing for a way to honor my course work from Canada. They made the extra effort to give me as many transfer credits as possible.”
And there was another benefit to choosing Capella: the online learning environment provided Reid with the flexibility he needed during the job hunt. His schedule was wide open for interviews, and he could accept jobs that might otherwise prevent him from commuting to a classroom.
But by far, the biggest appeal of Capella's bachelor's degree in Information Technology was its versatile curriculum. In addition to teaching marketable technical skills, Capella's IT program also offered significant training in project management—such as the fundamentals of project management, and project estimation and budgeting.
“This was the stuff that got me excited. The degree equipped me to do project management for anything. And I realized that I didn't have to do just IT. I could go anywhere.”
Reid interviewed at ViaSat, a software company that supported contracts for the U.S. Department of Defense. When they asked him how well he could work with engineers, he pulled his answer directly from Capella's Motivating IT Professionals course.
He got the job, and now he works closely with engineers every day, developing schedules, keeping everything on budget and on time. Reid is currently contributing to his company's marquee project, the development of a communications satellite. Powering high-speed Internet communications, the satellite will reach rural areas underserved by wired Internet providers. Reid is seeing it through to completion.
With a bachelor's degree from Capella, Reid found what employers were looking for: a respected degree that delivers versatility and expertise beyond the purely technical side of IT.