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Scholarships and fellowships have long been valuable, sometimes essential
sources of support for college students. Consider Jill
Bricker, a student
in Ball State’s master’s degree program in Information and
Communication Sciences. Bricker works to juggle her student loans, a
sixty-plus-hour work week, a demanding academic program, technology
supervision responsibilities, and, not least of all, job hunting. The thin
sheet of glue that helps her hold it all together is her graduate
fellowship. After beginning her graduate work in January 2000, Bricker worked in University Computing Services in addition to her demanding class work to help pay for her education. "I also took out student loans – I maxed them out each semester," she says. "Then I got this fellowship starting in the summer and for fall semester. It has paid for my books and part of my housing. Otherwise, I would not have been able to come back to school."
The fellowship offers Bricker the opportunity to work in Ball State’s Center for Information and Communication Sciences on a project for Cisco Systems, a giant in the new high-tech economy. Cisco produces the means by which different computers are able to communicate with one another. But without people trained to work with Cisco’s systems, the burgeoning cyber world will not be able to expand as fast or as efficiently as it could. Ball State University is the state training center for Cisco Systems. The university’s Center for Information and Communication Sciences distributes funds from Cisco to graduate students who assist in training Cisco Academy instructors, many of whom are high school teachers, so that these instructors are able to bring information about these technologically complex and vital systems into their classrooms. The hope is that with the right training, the students of these instructors will go on to careers in the field, which is growing as fast as companies can fill their jobs. Right now, students who graduate from Ball State’s computer programs find two and three employers lined up to recruit them. This center fills a vital need for the state, the economy, the country, and for the last two semesters, Jill Bricker. Bricker’s fellowship does much more than provide financial assistance. It also helps her develop skills and master knowledge that are related to her course of study. Through her fellowship she assists Ron Kovac, associate professor of information and communications sciences, in delivering education and certification programs for Cisco Systems’ Internet equipment. Her work at the center includes training instructors in binary-to-decimal and decimal-to-hexadecimal conversions, teaching subnet masking, editing new Cisco curriculum in English, checking Internet links in Cisco’s English and Chinese curricula, and training graduate assistants to conduct site assessments for the project.
Bricker sees another benefit to fellowships as well. "Learning how to work with people from different backgrounds is the way it is in the real world. This job is good preparation for that." Private support helps students who otherwise might not be able to attend Ball State further their educations, strengthening the university’s academic programs and the opportunities students have to learn from one another. Multiply this effect by the many scholarships and fellowships available, and it becomes obvious that the benefits of private giving are more than just financial. Continue: Aesthetics |
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Jill Bricker
