Student Stories

Computer Science graduates at UMM go on to exciting careers at top industry companies as well as to teach at the prestigious universities. We would like to pay homage to some of those graduates.

After graduation many Computer Science alumni come back to visit and give something to the next generation of students following in their footsteps. They come to see faculty and friends, as well as to help with activities ranging from Internship Events, where they tell of their work experiences, to research symposiums in which they often present, judge, moderate or help organize.

Visiting Alumni

The alumni in the picture above all came back to UMM to help out with the 39^th Annual Midwestern Instruction and Computer Symposium, which was hosted at UMM in 2004. They are from left to right: Marty Wolff ’85 (Bemidji State University), Wendy DeRung ’90 (University of Minnesota Morris), Tom Halvorsen ’90 (Dakota State University) and Kris Nelson ’97 (US Bank).

Fred Dickson

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota announced today that it has promoted Fred Dickson, a 20-year veteran in information technology, to chief information officer.

After a formal search of external and internal candidates, Fred Dickson emerged as the individual best suited to lead our IT organization for the future,said Colleen Reitan, Blue Cross executive vice president, operations. Dickson has been instrumental in leading Blue Cross efforts to bring on-line access and tools for our members, providers and sales agents, new approaches to data and information management and new tools for key operational areas to perform their functions more efficiently.

Dickson, who has been a Blue Cross employee since 1999, has 20 years of experience in information systems with Blue Cross, The Pillsbury Company and Prudential Insurance Company. He most recently served as vice president, customer relationship management systems and technology for Blue Cross. In that role, he was responsible for leading and directing the efforts that support the company's front-office (ebusiness) applications, analytics system and the technology disciplines of architecture, systems engineering, data management and capacity planning for all platforms.

He holds a bachelors degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Minnesota, Morris and has completed the Executive Leadership Program at the University of St. Thomas. He is a board member of Sabathani Community Center, Minneapolis, and a member of the newly formed Eagan Technology Task Force.

Brent Heeringa

Graduated:

1999

Majors:

Computer Science and Mathematics

Awards and Honors:

Chancellor's Award, Allan W. Edson Award, Scholar of the College.

Where I am Now:

I am a graduate student in Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I am finishing my final year of study. I work with Prof. Micah Adler on combinatorial optimization problems with applications to the organization of information. This past year I taught the Theory of Computation and Algorithm Design at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

What I Wish I'd Done at UMM:

My biggest regret in college is not studying abroad. I believe every student should take advantage of this opportunity -- to spend a lengthy amount of time in another country, immersed in its culture.

My Best Moments at UMM Were:

There are many great CS moments that come to mind:

• Spending the day talking about functional languages with Nic McPhee in Atlanta during the World Programming Championships
• Spending an entire quarter in the dungeon writing code for the inaugural Software Design and Development course; truly an experience
• Revamping the CS curriculum with the faculty during semester conversion
• And many more...

How UMM Prepared Me for the Job Market:

UMM definitely prepared me for the job market -- I had a few internships during the summers and always felt like my education made me a competent programmer, a critical thinker, and a good communicator.

The Best Classes I took at UMM Were:

CS 1300, a programming course in Scheme, was fantastic. CS 3190, software design and development, was crazy because of its unreasonable expectations and our willingness to achieve them. I enjoyed the unusual class format of AI -- mostly discussion with a philosophy of mind twist. I enjoyed the Theory of Computation because the material is really beautiful and fun.In all, I feel the UMM CSCI experience was exceptional. It was a theoretically strong program but still emphasized strong design and programming skills. There was great camaraderie among the majors. We wrote a lot of code together, but had fun doing it. Developing personal relationships with the professors helped make the classes feel more relaxed, more like a team on an expedition; a shared learning experience. When entering graduate school I felt as prepared as any of my peers who had graduated from the top schools in the country. A friend recently told me that the key to learning is to remember that the mind is like a toy and that using it is just playing around. I think that advice would have made a lot of sense to us back then.