Student profiles

Teresa Finlayson
Bachelor of Information Technology (Applied Commuting)

BEFORE embarking on her degree at Deakin Univesity, Teresa Finlayson admits that she did not know much about the IT industry.  Now, she is working with the most senior executives at corporate giant KPMG to develop a program that will help 4,500 staff at company to communicate.

Teresa, who studied Information Technology (Applied Computing) said her course at Deakin had sparked her interest in the industry.

"To be honest, when I started my university degree at Deakin, I really didn’t know much at all about the IT industry.  I soon realised how interested I was in understanding more about it and definitely interested in working on the people side of IT," she said.

Teresa has worked in the IT industry for more than nine years and more recently at KPMG in Melbourne for three years, and some of the highlights have been the exposure to new ideas and technology.

"I am always working with new technology and preparing it for release to the business, which is exciting and challenging.  I am currently working as a change manager on one of KPMG’s largest strategic IT projects, implementing a firm-wide Electronic Document Management System.  This is a significant step forward for the firm in terms of the way that we manage our electronic documents."

In 2006 Teresa had the opportunity to travel to Thailand to meet with colleagues in the Asia Pacific region.

"This meeting allowed me to be exposed to different ideas and to hear about the different cultural and business challenges that we all face.  It was exciting to visit another country and experience that culture."

She said that Deakin had helped her recognise her strengths and weaknesses, as well as providing the technical skills she needed in her career.

"I had some great lecturers who I could sit down with and talk about my career direction.  They provided me with guidance and information that allowed me to decide on the right path for me."

It is a path that Teresa can see herself travelling along into the future.

"My future aim is to become a change management specialist and continue working on major projects that really make a difference to large corporate organisations," she said.