Alexandria Cisco '15: Consulting a Medley of Knowledge

When a professor suggested that Alexandria Cisco ’15 attend Mock Interview Night, sponsored by Adelphi University’s Center for Career Development, she had no intention of eventually scoring a position in IBM’s Consulting by Degrees program—yet that’s exactly what happened.

Cisco began working in IBM’s Consulting by Degrees program during Summer 2015 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Much went into getting herself to that point. After earning a B.S. in Computer Management Information Systems, gaining experience as a part-time student worker in Adelphi’s IT department during her senior year and completing the Internship Preparation Seminar course, Cisco managed to gain a complex medley of knowledge needed to impress Big Blue representatives during an on-campus recruitment event in November 2014.

“The [Internship Preparation Seminar] ended up being such a rewarding experience. My professor, Allison Keibel, went through everything about interviews, cover letters, résumés. It was about life after college.

“She was extremely helpful. I feel like if I hadn’t taken the seminar class, I wouldn’t have gotten the job at IBM,” Cisco said.

After completing a separate round of interviews, which included both question-and-answer sessions and a challenging case-study scenario, Cisco was officially offered the position at IBM, months prior to her graduation from Adelphi.

This two-year, entry-level position allows new hires to travel and work as consultants with IBM business partners, including financial and IT experts. As a result, Cisco, and others, will be fully trained and prepared to tackle a permanent position after the two-year introductory period.

“IBM really wants to get people involved and help you understand things quickly so you can learn the ropes,” Cisco said. “Personally, I love to help people. I realized that with all of these programming languages you can create programs to help people. That was what kept me going with [computer management],” Cisco said.