As a high school student, Adam Schick discovered a passion that led him to make a choice of college major.
“I knew I would go down one of two roads — computer science or information systems,” he said.
Schick chose the latter and graduated from the Bachelor of Business Administration in Management Information Systems program on campus at Lamar University in 2018. He also completed a pair of online courses during his four years.
“I didn’t fully understand what information systems was at the time,” he said. “I learned a lot in the program, and I know I made the right choice.”
After working as a systems analyst for Allstate for more than three years, Schick started a new role as a consultant at SAP Fioneer in Euless, Texas, in October 2021.
“I was a corporate IT guy in my previous job,” he said. “I used to work alongside software consultants who delivered new functionalities and solutions.
“I helped set up Zelle for claim payments. It’s the same thing on the consulting side, but now I am helping corporate systems analysts like I once was.”
In Good Hands
Schick was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in a military family that relocated to Orange, Texas, when he was 14 years old.
“I liked the technology classes in high school — things like audio and video technology,” he said. “I discovered that I had a knack for it.”
After settling on a major, Schick especially enjoyed the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) courses in the BBA in Management Information Systems program curriculum.
“I like those because my professor, Dr. Kakoli Bandyopadhyay, prepared us for the real world,” he said. “Several companies are using agile methodologies and work in a two- or three-week sprint. After that, your deliverables are due, and you should have something to show for your effort.
“That was the approach she took in our ERP classes — we had a three-week sprint. At the end of that three weeks, our work was due. We had to present it to our teacher, get feedback, incorporate it and come back in another three weeks.”
Schick said that experience helped him to take on similar challenges in his first job out of college at Allstate.
“We had a two-week sprint, but the program prepared me for that and the real world,” he said. “Everybody should have a solid grasp of accounting, ethics and business law.
“When Allstate hired me, it was because I already had some SAP (systems, application and products) knowledge that I picked up in college. That was most helpful.”
Moving Ahead
Schick celebrated the accomplishment of earning a bachelor’s degree by walking in the commencement ceremony in Beaumont.
“It was a good experience,” he said. “My family was there. They were definitely excited for me. My grandfather, Patrick Carroll, flew in from Scotland to watch me graduate.”
Although Schick is in the early stages of his career, he has entrepreneurial aspirations once he gets more experience.
“I read about consultants starting their own firms and then selling them,” he said. “I’d like to do that maybe 10-15 years down the line. That’s nowhere on the horizon for me just yet, but this degree definitely opened opportunities for me.”
Starting a new job is not the only exciting thing in Schick’s life. After watching “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix, he took up chess again in late 2020.
“I learned chess when I was 10 years old. I dropped it for years, but now I am all in again. I joined the chess federation. I have a coach in the Ukraine. I recently competed in a tournament,” Schick said. The critical thinking skills he learned in college will serve him well in chess.
Schick is glad that his choices led him in the direction of the BBA in Management Information Systems program at Lamar University.
“The dean mentioned when he was selling people on the degree at orientation that you can go to an Ivy League college and spend an arm and a leg, or you could come to Lamar and have a little less wood on the walls, so to speak, and get the same degree for much cheaper,” he said. “I got good value out of the bachelor’s degree program at Lamar.”
Learn more about Lamar University’s online BBA in Management Information Systems program.
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