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Crockett Hopper, Vice President of Engineering, MyToons.com
Software Engineering Graduate (MSE 2006)
Without any hesitation, Hopper, 36, credits the executive software program for software engineering administered by the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Lifelong Engineering Education as a key factor in his success. As the vice president of engineering, he is responsible for designing the systems that MyToons is currently building, as well as maintaining them and making sure they remain operational. He also recruits and trains developers to make sure the systems scale well during their construction.
“I give the program a lot of credit for giving me the confidence to step into this role,” he says. “When you work for large organizations, you don’t get a lot of opportunity to deal with the whole system end-to-end; you only get put into one small part. This program gave me the opportunity to work on things I wouldn’t necessarily get to in a large company and do projects where I was building entire systems. With the experience I received from UT under my belt, I was ready.”
Part of the reason Hopper feels so confident is because of the good mix of academic work and practical exposure he has gained through his courses. “The combination of reading academic papers and doing real projects by collaborating with people in my field gave me a good feeling of where others were with their experience and the kind of work they were doing,” he says. “I got a good chance to see what’s out there.”
Hopper is certain one of the reasons his employers hired him was because of the experience he gained while at the university. “They told me they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to find someone who could not only come in and do the work but to also be able to help mentor a team, and that’s certainly something you get from the educational side of things,” he says. “Today, it’s not only important that you know how to do your work; you have to know the why behind it and have the ability to teach others about it as well.”
Not only did the program work well with his full-time professional schedule, but its intensive courses fit his personality for absorbing information. The program required him to come to Austin only once a month to attend classes for eight hours each day on a Friday and Saturday. “By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around,” he says, “my brain was fried.” He usually arrived at Austin the day before classes started to meet with his study partners at a coffee shop or restaurant and faced the onslaught of classes Friday and Saturday. Hopper appreciated the fact that he had to come to Austin once a month because it “was nice to be able to get away from work” to focus on school.
Since his master’s report on reconciling conflict between two different object models was based on a problem he encountered during his time at the United Services Automobile Association, a Fortune 500 financial services business based in San Antonio that serves military members and their families, he believes it is best to have some real-world experience before entering the program. Working at the association helped him discover “in a very personal sense” that he needed software engineering instruction. “I ran head-first into a brick wall that came about from one team building a user-interface model and another team building a system object model,” he says. “The two weren’t reconciled until the teams were in the middle of construction, so I wrote my master’s report on a technique to use when trying to resolve those models earlier in the software development process.”
Hopper decided to attend the university’s program in 2004 after working for several years at Alltel Information Services, a large software shop in Little Rock, Arkansas, that specialized in banking software. After working there for five years, he realized computer science did not provide him with all the tools needed to build large software systems, and after considering some expert advice, he decided to get a master’s degree in software engineering.
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Mitchel McNair, DOW Chemical Company
Engineering Management Graduate (MSE 2003)
- The number one thing is that the program has totally reshaped my thinking processes—I’m not just an engineer anymore—the scope of my thinking has increased and that in turn has made me a much more valuable employee and opened a lot of doors for me at work. It has brought me much greater influence. If I knew then when I was looking at this program what I know now, I would not have waited six months and would have done it as soon as possible.
- I actively promote the program to my peers because I believe it is the best Master’s Degree option available to engineers today. People don’t just gain a Master’s degree through this program – they also gain the knowledge and tools they need to be successful for the rest of their professional careers.
- Having gone through this program and bringing this information back to my workplace has enabled me to rise head and shoulders above all of my peers in the eyes of my leadership and management.
- One of the most beneficial areas of this program has been the value of the practical application focus of this program. The material that is taught can be applied immediately in the workplace. It’s this focus that will get your boss to notice you immediately. It was easy for me as I’m going through the classes, in the back of my mind I’m taking notes on the side, ‘investigate applying this section to this problem at work’.
- You’re going to get recognized when you go through this program and you start applying it in your workplace. You don’t have to promote yourself. If you’re just doing the things you’re learning from this program, you’re going to rise to the top; I guarantee that, because everyone else is not doing those things, they’re not thinking with that broad of a mindset when they approach their work.
- I’ve had friends of mine at work who have gone off and gotten MBAs. When I was going through the Engineering Management Masters, I would show them the curriculum and each and every person who I’ve spoken to who has an MBA said: ‘I wish I knew about this program and that it was around when I was pursuing my masters because from an engineering standpoint, I would much rather have taken that path than just a traditional MBA.
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Jeremie Gordon, Motorola
Circuit Design Graduate (MSE 2007)
After being out of school for eight years, returning to school while maintaining my full time job to get a technical Masters degree seemed out of reach. The UT CLEE Circuit Design program is well tailored to working engineers who are looking to progress their higher education to the next level while maintaining their current careers. An interesting aspect of the CLEE program is the wealth of knowledge and experience the students bring with them to the classroom discussions. The CLEE instructors embrace and leverage student's real world experiences to heighten the educational experience and close the loop from what is taught vs. what is practiced. The CD instructors also bring in guest speakers from technical communities and industries to elaborate on the latest "state of the art". My experience in the CD program was very positive and feel it will help me achieve my future career goals in hardware design. I would recommend this program to anyone looking to expand their technical knowledge.
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