IST sets graduates up ‘to do well in life,’ says member of first class

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — When the then-School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) opened its doors in 1999, its first class of students were faced with a unique opportunity: they could help build a blossoming program and shape its educational and extracurricular experiences for the future.

For Maggie Sapovchak, one of the members of IST’s first class who earned their degrees in 2003, the impact of being a part of a tight-knit group of students who worked together to grow a program has been life-changing.

“It’s a different mentality to build something versus to plug into a structure that exists,” said Sapovchak. “I’ve seen that a lot in my career where the pace of change is so fast. Coming into IST when we did was a really great time to learn how to be super adaptable, how to quickly sum up a situation that might be ambiguous or very dynamic, and to figure out where you can add value and be an expert in a particular space that you’re choosing to focus on.”

For Sapovchak, that ownership mentality was emphasized throughout IST coursework and applied hands-on outside the classroom, when she and her classmates worked to create the school’s student organizations — several of which are still active today.

“In IST’s project management classes, you learn how to rapidly figure out where you can add value and become irreplaceable within a product; like how to become an expert who becomes an owner who has a mentality of being invested in whatever part of the workflow or project is,” she said. “Because of that, we learned how to own what the extracurriculars were going to be in the program. There was a part of ownership of building something really great and being part of something that has gone on to flourish in the years since.”

Sapovchak has built on that ownership mentality throughout her career. As a student, she completed internships with FedEx, Lucent Technologies Bell Labs and GE. After graduation, she participated in GE’s Leadership Development Program, which took her across the country and the world to locations such as New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Tokyo and Brussels.

"The experiences we had at IST, like setting up extracurricular groups and building the structure on this side of the program, worked well into the narrative as you were interviewing for roles with a company,” said Sapovchak.

In fact, Sapovchak feels lucky to have earned a spot in the GE leadership program, which was designed for post-MBA candidates that had sales and marketing experience.

“I didn’t fit the original criteria for the program; I was the youngest candidate in the 250-person class, I had no sales experience, I had no marketing experience, and I didn’t yet have an MBA,” she said. “I don’t know how it all came together, but it’s wonderful that it did because I was able to use this rich IT training and complement it with the business side of projects.”

System thinking in entertainment

That experience and blend of IST and business positioned Sapovchak for a career in digital marketing and media sales. She went on to work as a marketing director at NBCUniversal, where she helped produce side content for “The Office” to target digital consumers as they visited the show’s website. She later joined Amazon, working in marketing and ad sales to help theatrical studios and TV network partners increase awareness about their upcoming premiers. Currently, she serves as head of sales for IMDb, on online database for movie, TV and celebrity content.

“Once I got into entertainment, I never left,” Sapovchak said. “Entertainment is very vibrant; it’s what people talk about. It’s a lot of fun. I really love this space.”

While Sapovchak’s career has taken her down the path of marketing and ad sales—which she supplemented by completing an MBA program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania—she still draws on the education and soft skills gained at IST.

“There’s a mentality around the process of launching things, and the ability to flag what might be critical constraints, technology-wise, and being able to relate to the technologists that are on projects,” she said. “Also, some of my coworkers who come from sales and marketing backgrounds always tell me that I’m thinking in systems all the time. And I do. Scalability and building an infrastructure are part of what I learned at IST.”

“IST has transformed lives”

While being a member of the first class at IST has set Sapovchak up for career success, she has benefited personally, too. The connections she formed with the approximately 100 classmates —f rom launching clubs to living together in the IST Interest House (now known as the IST Living Learning Community) —  have resulted in lifelong friendships.

“There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t talk to a group of classmates of mine who have become dear friends,” she said. “I’m the godmother to one of their daughters, and crossed paths with many others professionally. We all come from a common place, IST, and we can relate to each other’s backgrounds even though we’re all taking it in different directions.”

There is even an IST connection in Sapovchak’s marriage. She met her now-husband, Adam Tampanello, through fellow IST graduate Mike Biron, who worked with Sapovchak at GE. While Sapovchak wasn’t formally acquainted with Tampanello or Biron, who both graduated in 2005, as students, their chance meeting shows how wide the IST network runs.

“IST has really transformed lives,” she said.

In 2014, Sapovchak was presented with the IST Outstanding Alumni Award, the highest honor bestowed by the college upon its graduates, recognizing the outstanding accomplishments and significant contributions alumni have made by leveraging their expertise and knowledge gained through their degree.

Upon receipt of the award, Sapovchak had the opportunity to give a short acceptance speech to the college's Dean’s Advisory Board, touching on the many ways that IST has impacted her personally and professionally.

“I was able to tell them what the degree meant to me and my family, and that I’m really grateful not just for the group of people who not only decided that (building an information technology) school was something that was something that was needed, but was also executed and built into something that has scaled way beyond (what I’d imagined) and becomes more successful as time goes on,” she said.

“The program has set us up to do well in life; to stand on our own in our careers and go out and see the world,” she concluded. “I feel like I hit the jackpot when I picked IST. It’s a very flexible major and it’s enabled me to try my hand at a lot of different things.”

The IST Outstanding Alumni Award program has been revitalized for 2022 and is currently accepting nominations through May 1. All IST alumni, faculty, staff, students and friends are invited to nominate outstanding alumni that deserve recognition by the college for their professional accomplishments. Visit ist.psu.edu/outstanding-alumni-award for more information.