Class of '08 Outstanding Students - Marshall Dougherty

Storrs, CT (5/9/2008) - When Marshall Dougherty took his first course in the business school's operations and information management department, he was hooked.

"It really clicked for me," says Dougherty, an honors student who will graduate this month with a bachelor's degree in business.

He majored in management information systems.

For his honors thesis, he designed a university information system from the student perspective.

"I looked at HuskyMail and PeopleSoft and brainstormed ideas for how to streamline different processes like course selection," he says. "I also suggested ways to make user interfaces more intuitive."

Dougherty received this year's Outstanding Senior Award in the operations and information management department, and was recently inducted into the School of Business 2008 Student Hall of Fame.

Dougherty, whose GPA is 3.86, says he found his professors "very approachable. In my department, the class sizes, in general, were very small. I got to know almost all my professors on a first-name basis. They were willing to take time out of their schedule to address whatever concerns I might have."

He adds, "Not everyone in my major came in with a lot of IT skills.

The professors allowed you to learn the basics, but if you wanted to take something to the next level, they encouraged you to do that."

Dougherty has been actively involved in campus and community activities: He has been a community assistant in North Campus for three semesters, is a member of the Business Student Leadership Council and a member of the UConn Men's Project through the Women's Center, and is co-president and webmaster of the Information Management Association.

He was also a campus "big buddy" with the Office of Community Outreach, and a health education department peer educator volunteer, and belonged to the Karate and Jujitsu clubs.

"I learned as much from the extracurriculars as from my classes," he says.

"They were a vital part of my development. What makes UConn such a great place is the combination of great classroom instruction and abundant extracurricular opportunities."

After graduation, he plans to join Deloitte & Touche in Hartford as a consultant in the data quality & integrity department.

- by Sherry Fisher, The Advance

PHOTO: Marshall Dougherty '08 (Photo by Jessica Tommaselli)

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