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Title: Alum is Living the Dream as a Software Engineer
Steven (Steve) Polvino ’21 took a class on Data Structures with Java in Fall 2019 at Brockport. The class was heavily oriented around coding in the programming language Java, and is normally considered a “hard” class by many students. Steve decided, however, that he liked the material and, moreover, he had a number of his fellow students who felt the same way and with whom he could work on the material considered challenging. This led him to declare a major in Computer Science. Following this experience, he moved on to take classes in Software Engineering and Web Application Development. In the course of these classes, he worked on projects involving the development of various software applications - including the development of a Library system that could be used by a small lending library, the development of a database that could be used to localize (i.e., appear in the local spoken language) the user interfaces to a payroll maintenance product, and a retail inventory management system - the last two being sponsored by external industrial partners of the CSC department. Through these experiences, Steve saw how technology can actually be used to impact someone’s life - for example, how it can be used (at very low cost) to enable a “mom-and-pop” organization to run its day-to-day business more efficiently.
Steve was so engaged with these experiences that he took on leadership roles in the student teams he led while still in school. The sum total of his contributions and efforts while at Brockport - carried out with considerable diligence even in these times afflicted by the ongoing COVID pandemic - stood him in good stead when he began his search for a full-time professional position in Spring 2021. Steve is now a Software Engineer with Paychex in Rochester, NY, and looks forward to moving onwards and upwards in his chosen field.