Julia Wilkerson, '12

When the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) club traveled to a national supercomputing conference in New Orleans, Julia Wilkerson ’12 passed out her resume to a few potential employers.

With graduate school ambitions, Julia simply wanted to see what the job market was like for a Computer Science and Information Technology (CS/IT) major. She was just “testing the water” with big name companies like Google.

So, when Julia got a phone interview and was flown to North Carolina for an in-person interview, she was pleasantly surprised. And when Microsoft offered her a prestigious job as a Support Engineer, Julia said that she simply had to sit down.

“It has always been a career goal for me to end up working at Microsoft,” said Julia. “But I never expected to get it right out of college, never. This is huge.”

And with a career goal accomplished before she even graduates, Julia is thankful for the opportunities the ACM club provided her with. ACM is a chapter of a national society for CS/IT professionals. ACM is funded by the Ackerley Computer Science and Technology Scholars Program. Through the Ackerley Program, conference trips, projects and scholarships are made available to select CS/IT students.

"I got a ton of experience through ACM.
The meetings lead to fantastic opportunities."

“ACM is essentially the CS/IT club, but other students who have interest in robotics, computers, and computing are welcome to attend,” said Dr. Jim Jones, Director of the Ackerley Computer Science and Technology Scholars Program.

Julia says that the travel opportunities provided by the ACM have opened many doors for her, giving her valuable experiences.

Julia is a CS/IT major with a Mathematics minor. She has served as ACM Vice President, ACM Treasurer, and ACM-W, a subgroup dedicated to the women of ACM, President for three years.

Julia hopes to eventually move into a development position with Microsoft. She also says that she would enjoy coming back to Graceland one day as a professor.

Division of Science and Math, Computer Science & Information Technology (CSIT)