Graduate profile

Bachelor of IT/ Bachelor of Business Information Systems, Melbourne Burwood Campus, 2012.

Currently: Graduate Business Analyst, Suncorp

There is a touch of rebel about Christiane Perez - but the person she likes to rebel against is herself. Back in year 12, Christiane favoured humanities subjects. When she attended Deakin's open day, it was mainly to investigate health science courses. However, she likes technology and computers and, on finding out that few girls study IT and business information systems, she couldn't resist it. 'I liked to learn how things worked, especially computers. I enjoyed multimedia in IT because it allowed me to be creative' she says. 'The fact that not many girls do it kind of motivated me. I really wanted to challenge myself.' Combining IT with business also appealed, she adds. 'I wanted the commerce/business aspect to make myself more attractive to the job market, so the double degree was perfect.'

A favourite elective within Bachelor BIS captured Christiane's interest and alerted her to an emerging business issue. 'I really liked a subject called Business Intelligence which is about analysing data,' she says. 'If a company finds out information, they can make better decisions. We used tools like analytics to find solutions and I really liked it.'

In the final trimester of her course, Christiane completed an internship with banking and insurance giant Suncorp. Here, she enjoyed the opportunity to work in her new found area of interest. 'They are heading in a business intelligence direction at Suncorp. It is a new aspect of business that is really growing because the technology is growing,' she says. 'It is a way for businesses to find out where they can go and through analysing data they can find and make better business decisions to gain a competitive advantage'.

The internship had Christiane working full-time with Suncorp over three months and the benefits are immeasurable. During the first four weeks she worked as a project manager, managing a team of employees and organising their workload. 'It was a bit intimidating but exciting,' she says. She also filled a business analyst role involving the analysis of reports and assisting a software engineer by creating a business plan, then deciding if the job is possible and advising on what is needed to complete it. 'I was making the data happen and organising it all,' she says. 'It is pretty interesting.'

Christiane thoroughly enjoyed the 'laid back and relaxed' culture of the Burwood campus and says there were always people to take care of any questions. She is particularly pleased she decided to join the group DIGITS (Deakin Interactive Group for IT and IS Students). 'It is a support group for students who do those courses. They help with careers by running workshops etc. and you get to meet industry partners at the events,' she says. 'It was really eye opening to see all the possible career paths I can take.'

On completion of her internship and the course, Christiane secured a graduate program position within Suncorp as a Business Analyst.