It’s not every day that alumni teach in the very same classrooms they were once students in. But, at Fox’s Management Information Systems (MIS) Department, this has become the reality for two instructors.
The MIS department recently welcomed two new alumni adjunct instructors–Victor Feinman and Noah Mercado–to teach MIS3406: Cloud Architecture. Drawing from their respective day-jobs at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google, these alumni are uniquely qualified to teach students all about leveraging the cloud.
“Much of what I do on a day-to-day basis at AWS relates to the concepts I teach in this course,” says Feinman, BBA ‘07, who works as a solutions architect at AWS.
Reflecting on his own journey, Feinman acknowledges the pivotal role that his MIS education and involvement in the Association of Management Information Systems (AIS) at Temple played in shaping his career trajectory.
“I regularly attribute my Temple education to the success of my career, and I’m very proud of that,” says Feinman. “I’ve always been connected with Temple and the MIS faculty. I think it’s just the natural progression of the relationships that were established a long time ago that brought me back.”
And now Feinman’s teaching has enabled him to connect with students similarly to how his professors connected with him as a student. By providing students with relevant and real-world information about cloud architecture, students are thriving.
For junior MIS student Kelly Liu, ‘25, her knowledge of cloud architecture and networking has given her a unique perspective on the topic, which enabled her to secure a summer internship with Kyndryl.
“I think what helped me secure the internship was my knowledge of AWS,” explains Liu. “I don't think a lot of other people my age have this sort of experience.”
Liu credits Feinman’s insights and advice as pivotal in understanding and preparing for her upcoming internship, emphasizing the advantage of having an instructor whose guidance is rooted in real industry experience.
According to Mart Doyle, MIS Department Chair and Associate Professor at Temple University,
Feinman and Mercado are two of many MIS “success stories.” He says their dual roles as alumni and industry professionals enhance their teaching and have helped them forge meaningful connections with students in the classroom.
“As a parent of kids who now all work in the technology space, this is who I would want to be teaching my children these concepts,” he says.
According to Doyle, the connection between alumni instructors and students has the potential to be mutually beneficial, as the professors get to teach technological innovations and students get to explore the forefront of technology.
As Doyle says, “There’s something special when you have alumni in the front of the classroom, teaching the latest and greatest cutting-edge technology to hungry students sitting in the classroom.”