Mohamoud Egal
If you’re a student studying computer science and IT, and you get a job with computer-manufacturing giant IBM the summer after graduation, you can start bragging about having acquired the holy grail of jobs in your field. Mohamoud Egal is one such holy grail possessor.
Egal isn’t one to brag, even though he earned the right to after the hard work he put into earning a degree from the Information Technology Infrastructure (ITI) program, plus two additional minors—one in computer science and the other in business management. Considering all the effort he put into his studies, it’s hard to believe this path wasn’t his first choice.
“My interests were originally in finance and economics,” Egal says. “But then I realized the ITI program would prepare me for the real world more than anything else I was studying could. That realization motivated me to overcome the fact that I didn’t have a background in technology.”
Egal soon changed that. He took on a full course load in his newfound tech-heavy areas of interest and eventually landed an internship with IBM in Boston. That experience solidified Egal’s certainty that he was in the right field for him—a field that promised opportunity and possibilities after graduation.
“I remember my CCAPS advisor telling me that the ITI degree was the most real-world-applicable degree he’d heard of,” Egal says.
For students fully aware and conscientious of the real world that waits after graduation, those words are persuasive indeed.
So far, Egal would say the real world suits him just fine. He was offered a position as a full-time IT Specialist with IBM, whose training program is among the best in the world. The jury is still out on whether or not Egal will finally do a little well-deserved bragging.