Info systems senior Matt Garland won’t graduate until December, but he’s already working 30-plus hours as a QA analyst at Weissman. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

The final semester of Matt Garland’s time as an undergraduate student at the University of Missouri–St. Louis has been a bit busier than he might have expected when he first enrolled in the information systems and technology program in 2023.

Not only is he finishing his final three courses, including a demanding capstone class with Joe Rottman, but he’s also helping out with clubs such as Collegiate Impact and UMSL’s chapter of Cru. And the big development: He’s also working 30-plus hours for the job he’s already landed, as a quality assurance analyst at Weissman, a costume and dancewear company that has been headquartered in St. Louis for more than 60 years.

“It’s been a lot, but it’s going well,” Garland said with a smile. “I love it there. It is my job to run tests on the features that the developers add to the website or to the internet. Basically, I’m making sure that they operate as expected. And I also do regression testing, where I test four features to make sure that they’re not broken or need updates or anything. And at the checkout process, I run through checkouts to make sure that nothing is out of the ordinary.”

Even though he won’t graduate until December, he said he felt prepared to start his career early.

“There are definitely principles I learned here at UMSL that helped me get started, but a lot of this I’m learning as I go,” Garland said. “They’re doing a pretty good job of orienting me.”

Garland traces his learn-by-doing ability to the Java and Java II classes he’s taken with Adjunct Professor Brian Lawton.

“Brian is a fantastic professor who is clearly passionate about what he’s teaching, and it shows,” Garland said. “That’s very engaging to me. One of the things Brian would always say, and I now see how it’s very true, is that his goal was to teach us how to teach ourselves. So going forward I feel confident that even if there’s a project where maybe I don’t have all the answers, or I don’t have the expertise to do everything myself, I know where I can look to find the answers so that I can accomplish the goal.”

From Lawton’s perspective, it was clear right away that Garland, who came to UMSL a few years after completing his associate degree from Jefferson College, had a bright future.

“The thing that stood out about Matt was his attitude and mindset,” Lawton said. “You could see in his interaction with other students and with myself that he approached everything from a perspective of curiosity, patience and joy. Matt truly was enjoying his learning journey and wanted to learn what programming could do and be for him and those he worked with on projects.”

Garland’s career jump start is a shining example of how UMSL’s ecosystem can provide advantages for students who recognize the opportunities.

Lawton makes it a priority to bring in professionals with ties to UMSL to speak to his students and show them what they’re working toward, even if they don’t have a specific career path in mind.

“It helps to connect the students with what the future could hold and bring in perspectives they may not have considered,” Lawton said.

One of Lawton’s go-to connections is Greg Shafer, the director of business development at Norton Digital Consulting who earned his economics degree from UMSL in 1982. Shafer, who sits on the Information Systems and Technology Advisory Board, donates his time to UMSL in multiple ways. He’s been a mentor to students, he’s helped with career-building events, he’s judged capstone projects and other competitions, and he’s participated in end-of-the-semester classroom surveys.

“I’ve been very involved with UMSL in a lot of different capacities,” Shafer said. “I graduated from UMSL with an undergrad degree in economics, and I’ve been successful, monetarily and career-wise. I think I got a great foundation from UMSL, so I like to give back.”

Shafer was an observer for the student projects in Lawton’s Java II class last spring, and he was impressed by Garland, who worked with three other students to create a functional employee onboarding program. Shafer reached out, had a conversation and offered an opportunity to Garland.

One of the ways Shafer goes above and beyond is the semi-annual tour he organizes in partnership with Weissman. He invites a select group of students and recent graduates to spend the day at the company, getting a look into the inner workings of the IT side of the company. The students also get a chance to meet with a couple of UMSL alums in leadership positions: Brian Merli, who is Weissman’s vice president of operations, and Jeff Young, the IT director at the company.

“By doing these tours, they’re getting a lot of exposure to a real workplace,” Shafer said. “And the great thing is, the tour is basically a practice interview for these students, even if they don’t get a job at Weissman. Matt was very enthusiastic about the tour, and when he did the tour, they liked him, so they brought him in for an interview.”

Garland wasn’t interviewing for a specific open position, but the interview was more of a getting-to-know-you follow-up to their interactions on the tour day. The seed that was planted in the spring sprouted later that summer.

“When this opportunity for this QA role came about, I said, ‘What about Matt?’” Shafer said. “And Jeff said, ‘You know, I think that’s a good idea.’ Matt has this potential to be really great, and Matt went in and just blew their socks off. This is a guy who has no real-world experience, and he still blew their socks off.”

Garland, obviously, is a fan of Lawton’s approach to having advisory board members contribute to the educational experience, but not just because he landed a job before graduation.

“I think that it’s tremendously valuable,” he said. “For one, knowing that I have a board member who is personally interested in individual student success is very encouraging, and I hope that other students are seeing similar benefit. And, two, (Shafer) brings a lot of wisdom to the table. Even before setting up his tour, he was giving me advice on different certifications that I could pursue that were outside of the curriculum but would definitely be of interest to professionals who are potential employers.”