SUSA looks into offering more electives for information systems majors

On Monday, the SUSA Assembly voted unanimously to explore offering more elective courses for information systems (IS) majors.

The bill, authored by SUSA President Chris Coraggio, recommends that the Decisions, Operations, and Information Technology (DOIT) Department first identifies the areas missing from the information systems major's curriculum. Then, it is recommended that DOIT would explore offering more courses in these areas, if feasible.

Coraggio said the idea came up when he was discussing his course options amongst friends. "We were talking about whatinformation systems electives to take, and we only had 1 IS option," he said.

Additionally, Coraggio stressed the importance of these topics in a broader sense, for when one is applying for jobs. "We also needed a legitimate IS course because we needed to talk about our classes for our General Electric job interview for the Information Management Leadership Program," said Coraggio.

The bill also highlights this, stating that many topics and concepts not currently covered in the curriculum are important to understand and know when one is applying for jobs.

Senior IS major Jenny Zeng agrees that having more electives would be helpful. "Having electives that could focus on more of the business aspect of the industry and industry trends would offer students a better understanding of the major," said Zeng.

This plan, however, has its caveats. "There aren't a lot of teachers, and it takes time and money to create a new course," Coraggio said. "Additionally, the newest program introduced (titled ‘Technology and Business Transformation Fellows') brought little interest, which is bad news when trying to introduce new opportunities."

Coraggio said the next step at this point is to sit down with David Wilmes, the SUSA advisor, Hassan Ibrahim, the primary lecturer in the IS department and Hank Lucas, the chair of the DOIT department. "They will most likely ask more students if this is of major concern to IS majors, and then move forward from there," said Coraggio.