Professional Development for Graduate Students

Engineering global trajectories in real-time. This is more than a degree.

CCI has a full-time Director of Professional Education for Graduate Studies dedicated exclusively to our graduate students — Carmalita Govan, MHRD. The result is a professional development program that goes well beyond what most university career centers offer, built specifically for computing and informatics graduate students and run by someone whose only job is making it work.

When you enroll in a CCI master’s program, you don’t just get access to this programming. You get a team that knows who you are, what you’re building toward, and which employers you should be talking to.

Employers Inside Your Courses

These relationships go beyond programming events — they reach directly into the curriculum:

• Wells Fargo sent multiple cybersecurity professionals to guest-lecture in our Network Security course (ITIS 6177).
• Truist gave direct project feedback to students in our Visual Analytics course (ITCS 5122). Real critique from a future employer, on your actual work.
• Lowe’s (a PhD-level executive) guest-lectured in our Cloud Computing for Data Analysis course (ITCS 6190).
• SAS hosted a half-day immersive AI and analytics career event on campus.

Mock Interviews with Industry Professionals

One-on-one, 30-minute structured interviews with working professionals from companies that hire CCI graduates. This isn’t a peer practice session — it’s feedback from someone who will be reviewing candidates at organizations like:

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Duke Energy
• Honeywell
• TIAA
• Trane Technologies

Resume Review

Industry professionals come to our Dubois Center Ideation Lab to review your resume and give you direct, honest feedback — the kind that comes from someone who actively reviews candidates at the companies you’re applying to.

Career Events

• Tech Connect — CCI’s immersive career event. Live demonstrations of graduate student work, not a traditional job fair.
• STEM Career Fair — University-wide fair with 180+ employers including Fortune 100 companies and major Charlotte organizations.
• Connections & Caffeine — Faculty and alumni mentorship matching at the start of each semester.
• SAS x UNC Charlotte — Annual half-day AI and analytics event with hands-on learning and career preparation.
• GDG Charlotte DevFest — Google Developers Group annual event covering AI deployment and cloud security.

Workshops

• LinkedIn profile building — live session, real feedback
• AI-assisted interview preparation
• AWS certification pathway strategy
• Career fair preparation and coaching