Not everyone can claim to be a Noogler (a new hire at Google), but recent NIU College of Business grad Priyanka Gollamudi (MIS 2018) can. She reached out to the chair of the Department of OM&IS to share news of her professional adventures and the College of Business is delighted to share some of Priyanka’s insights about her experience in the OM&IS program. She also describes how her experience at NIU Business played a big role in helping her land a spot with Google.
I’m currently working as a business strategy analyst for Google’s Media & Entertainment Strategy and Operations team. I was hired in November 2019. My base location is in Mountain View, California, which is Google’s global headquarters.
The structured and practical approach of NIU’s OM&IS program helped up-skill my business and technology acumen. Specifically, courses such as database management, project management, and business systems and analysis played a pivotal role in building my foundation knowledge and my understanding of concepts. Such capabilities are required in order to successfully interview with companies for business/data analyst roles.
I have a special appreciation for the professors in the college’s Department of OM&IS. When I was a student in the program, they were very encouraging and always available to address questions. Every professor I interacted with left me with a positive feeling. They were all very approachable, and they all encouraged practical application of concepts.
The advice I would offer to current or new NIU Business students is first to say that it’s okay to be confused or even clueless. College is the best time to explore and then gradually firm up on career choices. I had five years of work experience when I pursued my master of information systems at NIU. The OM&IS program offers a great set of courses: business intelligence, business systems analysis, bigdata, database management, SAP ERP, project management courses, among them. I took the opportunity to explore and learn about most of these subjects. This helped me to understand the topics and concepts that most interest me, which ultimately provided clarity on the career choices that were appropriate for me. In addition, interaction with students across the globe in a very conducive environment like NIU’s College of Business was very useful in my overall personality development. I encourage peer learning as much as possible.
When we contacted Priyanka for more details and for permission to share her story here, we also asked if she had a hero she wanted to mention. Here’s Priyanka’s reply: “I would like to also take this opportunity to mention my parents who continuously supported me throughout this journey and my husband who encouraged me and mentored/guided me to prepare for the interviews. Without their support, I think this would not have been possible for me.”
