Bell, a non-traditional

student who received her degree in information technology in July of 2002,

graduated Magna cum Laude with a 3.72 GPA from Clayton State.

"I love

my job," said Bell. "I am very impressed with Centex. The company

really stands by their claims of integrity and that is very important

to me."

Graduating

with honors certainly didn't hurt Bell's chances of getting a good job,

but she credits much of her success to Clayton State's IT professors and

the two internships she was required to take during her tenure as a student.

"During

my first internship, I was the project manager for the implementation

of Clayton State's New College Web site (the New College is now called

the College of Information and Mathematical Sciences). I worked with a

faculty web developer/class instructor and a classroom of students to

insure the completion of the project." continued Bell. "I accomplished

many of these tasks by using everything I had learned in my systems analysis,

project management and webmaster classes. There was very little or no

supervision. The way I chose to manage the project was entirely up to

me because I was proving myself as a project manager."

Bell reported

her progress to Larry Booth, head of the department of Information Technology

at Clayton State, who was impressed with Bell's creation of an internal

web site for him to use to track her progress. In addition, Bell has taught

Systems Analysis classes at the University and is courses.

"During

my second internship, I worked with Professors Joseph Bowler and Jon Preston.

We worked more as a team than boss and employee," said Bell. "All

of the professors and staff in the Information Technology Department at

Clayton State are superior to work with."

At Centex,

Bell is the Pathways Administrator for the South Atlanta division. She

has been in Orlando, learning their program, which she will eventually

teach to the sales staff. "I am working with the program to get it

ready for the Sales staff to use, which involves adding a variety of data

to the program," Bell said. She will train the staff and continue

to support them whenever they need assistance. In addition, she will be

performing analysis of some of the contracts for Centex.

"Although

my position requires me to use my information technology expertise, I

am part of the Accounting Department," she said. "In my job,

I utilize my previous accounting background, my current information technology

skills, and my previous teaching knowledge that I acquired at Clayton

State.

"The people

I work with are great. I do not know all the current plans for the future

(of Centex), but I predict they will be highly successful in this area

due to their superior product."

It's easy to

predict that Grace Bell will be highly successful as well.