When Colin Dabritz – a double computer science and education major – started at OSU three years ago, he already had four years of college education under his belt from Portland-area community colleges and the Oregon Institute of Technology. Although he came to OSU to get “the big campus dorm experience,” BSG convinced him to stick around. Dabritz joined the software development team at BSG in February 2006 and found that the outfit’s “modern, real-world relevance” provided an important and “incredible complement” to the theory-based computer science program.
The university “does important science and important research,” he says, “but a lot of the knowledge of how to develop software comes straight out of business: We tried this, it worked; we tried this, it didn’t.”
As he’s worked his way through school, Dabritz has spent time employed in offices and even a local burger chain. But BSG works for him in a way that other jobs didn’t, in part because his schoolwork and job are related to each other. Also, at BSG, “school always comes first,” he says. “BSG is remarkably flexible with its workers. I’ve never had a job support my needs like that.” There’s also the human element. “You’re not just a resource,” he adds. “You’re a person.”
BSG has provided Dabritz with invaluable experience programming in ASP.NET, C#, SQL and other in-demand coding languages. But it has also given him interaction with paying customers. “Working with clients — with real people — is really valuable,” he says. Not only that, working at BSG “is fun,” Dabritz says, “geeky, but fun.”
