The 2024 edition of CIS 434 culminated before Thanksgiving break with the judging of responses to hypothetical “requests-for-proposals” from departments and agencies of the federal government.
SUMMARY: IT consulting elective seamlessly simulates the real thing.
A unique course that provides immersive exposure to the sources and methods of information- technology consulting is wrapping up its 25th year at JMU, and its 15th under the leadership of Tom Dillon – holder of the PwC Donald F. Caputo Memorial Professorship of Computer Information Systems and Business Analytics.
The 2024 edition of CIS 434 reached its climax early last month with the judging of responses to hypothetical “requests-for-proposals” (RFPs) from departments and agencies of the federal government. Shortly before the Thanksgiving break, a 35-page proposal submitted by the team representing KPMG, the Dutch business-advisory firm that ranks among the world’s “Big Four” professional services networks, was designated “best” among the 12 crafted by three-member student-teams since the class first convened in August.
The KPMG team consisted of Andy Ezidinme, Hayden Bako and Jace Lemm – all senior CIS majors. The JMU alumni and friends who served as their mentors included James Elliott (‘01), Christian Ryder (‘98), Luis Salcedo (‘98) and Becky Slagle of KPMG’s Northern Virginia office.
Standing out among the JMU graduates who annually assist with the mentoring of CIS 434 teams are longtime comrades-in-arms Christian Ryder (’98) and Luis Salcedo (’98) of KPMG. Ryder and Salcedo date the formation of their friendship to the very first week of their first year at JMU. They recall being introduced by mutual acquaintances and fellow high-school classmates at an informal gathering outside their dorm rooms in “The Village.” Some 30 years after that first encounter, Salcedo and Ryder find themselves back together serving as co-directors of KPMG’s mainstay engagement with a large Pentagon-based client.
Christian Ryder ('98), left, and Luis Salcedo ('98), right.
“We’re proud to be part of it,” says Ryder, noting that the project’s scale and scope are “massive.”
“There are jobs at KPMG that are more short-term – a few weeks to a couple of months,” he says. “But this one is almost year-round, due to the sheer size and complexity of it.”
Salcedo cites the very difficulty of the engagement as being one of its chief attractions. “Because it’s challenging,” he says, “it keeps people interested and wanting to learn more.”
It has now been nearly two decades since Ryder and Salcedo each served as a groomsman at the other’s wedding, but their lives continue to intersect and overlap even with respect to their wives’ careers. Both women work in the Fairfax County school system.
“They’re the real heroes,” says Ryder. “The stories they come home with beat ours in terms of what they’re doing to help kids and their families.”
This year’s runner-up was the team from Reston, Va.-based MetaPhase Consulting, made up of senior CIS majors Bilal Asif, Amy Lee and Vinay Wasan. Their MetaPhase mentors were JMU alumni Scott Cannon (‘06), Brett McLaren (‘04), Amber Richards (‘10) and Ryan Schulien (‘22).
A total of 37 fortunate students were selected to participate in CIS 434 this term out of the 61 who originally applied. The process by which they secured their seats was a rigorous one involving submission of transcripts, resumes and thoughtful responses to a battery of questions.
By the time the students first took their places in the class last fall, 23 were already battle-tested veterans of summer internships with some of the IT consulting profession’s household names. Over the past four years, no fewer than 49 different firms have provided internships to CIS majors.
Dillon attributes the high rate of success to the breadth and depth of the College of Business’ program offerings. He says JMU’s institution-wide emphasis on engaged learning, supplemented by strong support from the Office of Professional Development and Engagement (OPDE) and the University Career Center, enable him to be very proficient at “developing the relationships necessary to create these great internship opportunities."
The experience students acquire at such an early stage in their development as IT consultants is invaluable as they seek to derive maximum benefit from the rich and multi-layered learning opportunity that is CIS 434. The class is like no other in the degree to which it leverages the College of Business’ enviable core-group of successful alumni.
At the beginning of the fall semester, students are divided into teams to create proposals in response to actual government RFPs. “The first seven weeks of the class deal with the preparation of a proposal,” says Dillon, “and the final seven weeks focus on what I would call ‘consulting best practices.’”
(Left to right): Vinay Wasan, Bilal Asif and Amy Lee made up the team mentored by MetaPhase Consulting.
The firms from which this year’s student-teams received hands-on mentoring ranged from established industry heavyweights like KPMG and Deloitte to upstarts such as MetaPhase and Fortreum.
Other firms which provided mentoring support this year included Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, Captech, CGI, Coalfire, EY, Guidehouse and Gunnison Consulting Group.
For Fortreum, led by alumnus Michael Carter (’04), this year’s appearance marked the firm’s debut as a CIS 434 mentor. Carter himself was also among the 18 subject-matter experts with JMU connections who delivered classroom lectures on specific topics. Six others took part in judging the completed proposals.
An additional enrichment opportunity from which this year’s students benefited was the presentation on proposal graphics given by Michele Pryor, the graphic design specialist in the JMU College of Business’ Office of Marketing and Communications.
