Friday, March 28, 2003

CCSU graduate building a future with Local Centex Corporation

Success is the order of the day at Clayton College & State University, as yet another graduate finds a career building opportunity in their very own backyard. Grace Bell of Peachtree City was recently hired by Centex Homes, a nationally recognized subsidiary of Centex Corporation, in Peachtree City.

Bell, a non-traditional student who received her degree in information technology in July of 2002, graduated Magna cum Laude with a 3.72 GPA from Clayton State.

"I love my job," said Bell. "I am very impressed with Centex. The company really stands by their claims of integrity and that is very important to me."

Graduating with honors certainly didn't hurt Bell's chances of getting a good job, but she credits much of her success to Clayton State's IT professors and the two internships she was required to take during her tenure as a student.

"During my first internship, I was the project manager for the implementation of Clayton State's New College Web site (the New College is now called the College of Information and Mathematical Sciences). I worked with a faculty web developer/class instructor and a classroom of students to insure the completion of the project." continued Bell. "I accomplished many of these tasks by using everything I had learned in my systems analysis, project management and webmaster classes. There was very little or no supervision. The way I chose to manage the project was entirely up to me because I was proving myself as a project manager."

Bell reported her progress to Larry Booth, head of the department of Information Technology at Clayton State, who was impressed with Bell's creation of an internal web site for him to use to track her progress. In addition, Bell has taught Systems Analysis classes at the University and is courses.

"During my second internship, I worked with Professors Joseph Bowler and Jon Preston. We worked more as a team than boss and employee," said Bell. "All of the professors and staff in the Information Technology Department at Clayton State are superior to work with."

At Centex, Bell is the Pathways Administrator for the South Atlanta division. She has been in Orlando, learning their program, which she will eventually teach to the sales staff. "I am working with the program to get it ready for the Sales staff to use, which involves adding a variety of data to the program," Bell said. She will train the staff and continue to support them whenever they need assistance. In addition, she will be performing analysis of some of the contracts for Centex.

"Although my position requires me to use my information technology expertise, I am part of the Accounting Department," she said. "In my job, I utilize my previous accounting background, my current information technology skills, and my previous teaching knowledge that I acquired at Clayton State.

"The people I work with are great. I do not know all the current plans for the future (of Centex), but I predict they will be highly successful in this area due to their superior product."

It's easy to predict that Grace Bell will be highly successful as well.