UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Allan Rocha started his career in information technology as a programmer and moved up the ranks to be a team leader and later a manager. To keep progressing in his career, he determined he needed to combine his knowledge of IT with business processes.
He looked to get a master’s degree in his home city of Salvador, Brazil, but he couldn’t find one that suited his interests. That’s how he ended up choosing Penn State World Campus and enrolling in the master’s degree in enterprise architecture that’s taught online by the faculty from Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology.
“I work with business process management and business transformation, and the content of the courses improved the quality of my work,” Rocha said. “It brought to me innovation. I could provide better solutions and solutions with a better degree of innovation.”
Rocha is one of nearly 1,200 Penn State World Campus students who will graduate this weekend during Penn State’s spring commencement.
Rocha began taking courses in 2014. He said the right balance for him was completing one course a semester, which meant 10 to 12 hours of work a week.
It was a lot to juggle: Rocha works as a business process adviser for the Industrial Federation of the State of Bahia (FIEB), and he is co-founder of Clara Idea, a Salvador-based startup company. He and his wife have a daughter, and he teaches business courses for Universidade Salvador (UNIFACS).
Rocha scheduled time each evening to work on his course, and allocated more time on the weekends. He said time management was absolutely necessary for him to be successful.
“Keep your focus, and then you get there,” he said.
Rocha’s Penn State experience has been so important to him that he will travel to State College, Pennsylvania, and attend The Graduate School commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 6. His family will accompany him, too.
“It’s an important moment in my personal history,” Rocha said. “I want to share this moment with family. I want to have this record in my memory. It’s a special moment.”
Visit the Penn State World Campus website for more information about learning online.