Michael Anderson, B.S. ’20, Applied Information Technology

written by Kristi Moore

Michael Andersen started 2020 with one goal clearly in mind—he was going to graduate.

After six years at The University of Baltimore, he knew he took his time, but he is proud, nonetheless, because of everything he learned and the opportunities he discovered along the way to his December graduation.

“Two years ago, I was on the verge of failing, had a terrible GPA, didn’t want to go to class, didn’t want to do anything and now here I am and it’s just incredible.”

As a first-generation college student, Michael had trouble transitioning to the pace of college in his first year at The University of Baltimore. He says he kept digging himself a hole without realizing its depth. Then he was put on academic probation and with support from staff and faculty, Michael started turning things around.

“I think, for me, digging myself out of that hole was a great experience for myself. I learned a lot about confidence and getting yourself back into it, but just getting out of it in the first place and being able to graduate at all has been incredible,” he says.

Changing his major to Applied Information Technology, the program from which he would eventually graduate, helped Michael find a passion he was excited to pursue. His father works in IT support and Michael decided to follow his example.

“He really helped me shape my love of technology,” Michael says. “He helped me build my first computer a couple of years ago and ever since then, it snowballed into this wanting to do more with it.”

In his last year of college, Michael joined the AstroBees, a team of students from the University’s design and technology programs invited to be part of a national competition called NASA S.U.I.T.S. (Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students). Participating students gain engineering design experience while imagining and creating technology that can support NASA’s astronauts.

“It’s just expanding on the classes, where if you weren’t participating in this project, you wouldn’t necessarily get that experience,” Michael says. “I think experience in today’s world is the biggest thing you can have on a resume. And getting the opportunity to get feedback from NASA engineers is incredible in and of itself.”

Congratulations to Industrial and Organizational Psychology student Andrea Garry, whose symposium submission was accepted for the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s (SIOP) 36th annual conference, a hybrid event that will be held April 15-17, 2021. Andrea’s research—which she did in collaboration with Assistant Professor Archana Tedone—is titled: The Moderating Effect of Home Workspace Design on the Relationship Between Technostress and Mental Fatigue.

Andrea was also part of the team that placed second in the Personnel Testing Council Metropolitan Washington’s (PTCMW) 2020 Graduate Student Consulting Challenge, sponsored by Amazon. Student teams were presented with a request for proposal (RFP) that outlined a real organizational challenge. Andrea and her teammates from peer institutions created a selection protocol with request parameters for Amazon. They were given three days to submit an RFP and oral presentation, which was delivered virtually on the final day to a panel of judges that included experts in I-O psychology and related areas from PTCMW and Amazon.

The consulting challenge was developed in 2014 by PTCMW to allow students to develop key professional skills, while expanding their professional networks and winning great prizes—the winning team wins $1,350, the runner‐up team wins $750, and every participating team receives a free year of PTCMW student membership.

Sharon Glazer, professor and chair (first author), Sally D. Farley, associate professor, and Tannaz T. Rahman, M.S. ’17, co-authored a chapter titled, “Performance Consequences of Workplace Ostracism” in the new book, Workplace Ostracism: Its Nature, Antecedents, and Consequences, published by Palgrave McMillan.

Prof. Glazer (first author) also co-authored a chapter on the essential knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs), and experiences that master’s level I-O psychology students need to prepare for their careers in the new book, Mastering the Job Market: Career Issues for Master’s Level Industrial-Organizational Psychologists, from Oxford University Press.

Lastly, Prof. Glazer solo-authored a chapter on cross-cultural training in the U.S. military for The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Training.

All three books are available now.