Meet AIU Students and Alumni
Meet Jelena Susloparova
Bachelor of Information Technology
School = Learning + Fun
Jelena Susloparova is at AIU Houston to get her Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, but she wants to make some friends and have fun at the same time. Now in her second year-she’ll graduate in December 2006-Jelena recently joined the school’s Ambassador Club, a student group that organizes everything from orientations to social gatherings.
“When I first started classes here, there were lots of parties and movie outings for AIU students. We’d rent an entire movie theater, and all the students could come. But that seemed to go away a few months after I started. I want to help bring it back and I want to feel more a part of the student body.”
The Ambassador Club isn’t all social, though: Jelena and other club members speak for the student body to the faculty, addressing issues and concerns of students at the school, and also stage events to boost student morale. “We try to unite students as much as we can.”
Uniting a student body whose individual members are as busy as those at AIU can be difficult, however. Jelena herself works full time as an office manager, has her own business (LJ Marble & Granite), and attends AIU classes as a full-time student. “It’s really tough. Professors challenge the students, and the work can be hard at times. I still manage to be on the Dean’s List regularly, though.”
No matter how successful the Ambassador’s Club becomes at bringing the student body together, Jelena doesn’t plan on staying in Houston for the entirety of her Bachelor’s degree, however. One of the reasons she picked AIU was its Study Abroad program. “I am planning on going to study information technology abroad in Dubai, UAE. I always wanted to attend a university that offered a study abroad program, and it has always been a dream of mine to go to Dubai. Now I have both.”
Another reason Jelena liked AIU was because all of its degree programs are so well planned out. “At the community college I went to before, I didn’t really know what classes I had to take for my degree, or when classes would be offered in the future, or whether a certain class would count for the kind of credit I needed. At AIU, it is very organized. I know exactly what I need to take and when I can take it.”
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