Terri-ann Magee - Student
More about me
Background:
My name is Terri-ann Magee, and I’m from Portstewart.
I started my secondary education at Domincan College, Portstewart and studied 9 GCSE’s in ICT, French, English lit, Spanish, Maths, English, History, Science and Religion. From my GCSE’s I then continued in completing my A-Level’s and decided to study the offered courses of ICT- (A), Spanish- © and English Lit -(C).
Degree title:
BSc Business Information Technology at Queens University Belfast
What you study:
Within my degree pathway we study both a mixture of Management modules and Computer science modules.
Yr 1 – Overview of the modules within my first year were- Management information systems, Accounting, Software engineering and Multimedia systems. One of the main projects from 1st year was in the Software Engineering module, when we had to design and implement a prototype Ski booking information kiosk. The software packages we used were based within Macromedia, and Director. From this project it was treated as if we were doing this in a real life situation as we had a customer, that submitted requirements and then from this we planned our system.
Yr2- Overview of the modules- Management principals, Business Development, Technology of E-Commerce, Computer programming for BIT and Multimedia systems. One of the main projects from 2nd year was with the Technology of E-Commerce module which was to design a website that people could order products from, this was created using ASP.net and give me good practical understanding of this language and how to implement it in
Yr3- This was my year out on professional experience, I got my placement with Microsoft Ireland. I worked for a small team within the operations department within the European Operations centre, and I would really recommend this placement to anyone.
Yr4- Overview of modules- BIT Project, Information systems in Organizations, Databases and Data processing, E-Business and Contemporary issues in Management. One of the main projects of this year is our BIT project where we get to set up our own business to design a piece of software or a system based around idea generation of problems encountered on personal or business environments on a daily basis.
Since being on my BIT (Business Information Technology course here at Queens I have acquired a range of skills and programs from JCreator (used in java programming and development of programs using the application of java language), Visual Basic.net (software project for a ski company developing a system that would allow data to be inputted stored and processed for ease of client usage and adaptation), Macromedia Package which includes Fireworks and Director (used for producing a game and a information kiosk develop application that enabled client interaction with created application) and paint shop pro for manipulating different things and also COBOL programming language.
My technical skills have been developed even further from my year of professional experience. During my year at Microsoft I have been able to thoroughly advance my knowledge of Microsoft office and Sharepoint. Not only these applications but also others including Crystal reporting used for telephone systems and Rebate management systems. I used each of the applications for different areas of my job such as reporting, forecasting, presentations and team collaboration.
What you learn:
In terms of my technical skills, I have learnt a wide range of programming languages such as XHTML, CSS, Java Scripting and My SQL. I feel this has progressed my problem solving skills and my team working skills.
In terms of my management skills, I have learnt a lot of attributes that contribute to the type of work I would like to do once I finish university. These being Business Development, Software engineering and Project management along with the other Management modules I have completed. These skills will help to improve my understanding of what it is like to work in large businesses and knowing how to handle people in these business situations.
Career goals:
As this is now my final year, I am currently applying for jobs. I would like to stay in the same type of role that I undertook on my year out working in the operational side of the business, but using the computer programming that I have learnt to make the job easier. I would like to work for another big company as I liked the sense of community that I experienced within Microsoft.
