Contact Academic Affairs
Email: acadaffairs@champlain.edu
Questions?
Student Experiences
Are you curious to know what it's like to be a student in Champlain’s Robert P. Stiller School of Business? There’s no better way to find out than by following a few of them as they take you on their journeys and share the successes they found along the way.
Riley Seith on Preparing for the Future, Stiller Women in Business, and Unexpected Opportunities
Riley Seith, '22
Division
Stiller School of Business
Major
Marketing
Minor
Event Management and Data Science
Hometown
Stow, MA
Pronouns
she/her
Internship
Fuse Marketing, Winooski, VT
I feel confident in my ability to get competitive internships and think outside of the box.
How has your Champlain experience prepared you for your future career, both in and out of the classroom?
The Marketing and Event Management courses I took in my first years helped me feel confident in my career aspirations, which has made me eager to learn and appreciative of the opportunities I have. My early experiences in internships and major-specific courses, as well as other experiential learning opportunities, give me a huge head start in my industry and will help me be successful after graduation.
What extracurricular activities are you involved in? What do you do/why do you enjoy them?
The extracurricular that I am most involved in is Stiller Women in Business. I am the Vice President of the club, and I love coming up with creative and engaging ways to empower women on our campus. Stiller Women in Business is open to all students, even non-business majors and those who don't identify as female. Everyone will end up in the professional world after graduation, so it is important to prepare everyone for that world, and especially to bring awareness to how women are represented professionally. Stiller Women in Business has changed a lot recently, and each semester is designed with the mission to be inclusive and benefit students by featuring events such as our speaker series, professional seminars that count as InSight milestones, our Semi-Annual Networking Event and more!
What’s the most surprising thing you’ve found/didn’t expect about Champlain (or your experience here) so far?
I didn't expect to have the opportunities I have had and to be as professionally ahead of the curve as I am. I feel confident in my ability to get competitive internships and think outside of the box. I would never have expected to start an entrepreneurial venture and present it to Senior Vice Presidents at Samsung in my first year at college, but connecting students with outstanding opportunities is a part of the Champlain experience.
Austin Roorda on Managing a Team, Studying Abroad in Montreal, and What He Dared to Do.
Austin Roorda, '20
Division
Stiller School of Business
Major
Game Production Management
Hometown
New Haven, Vermont
Pronouns
he/him
Study Abroad
Montreal, Canada
Internship
Behavior Interactive
I dared to get an internship while going abroad. It's something that I hadn't ever done before.
What was it like to study abroad in Montreal?
Studying abroad in Montreal was fantastic. I would definitely say it's probably the highlight of my time here at Champlain in many ways. I worked as a Project Manager Intern at Behavior Interactive on their mobile division. I worked on an unreleased game, which is currently still in development, called Game of Thrones Beyond The Wall. I worked on that as a Project Manager, tracking tasks, and being a facilitator of discussion and communication between the team. I was also just a person of contact and point of reference for pretty much any questions the team had. I'd get them to talk to who they needed to.
What is your favorite tool to get things done?
For getting things done as a Producer and Project Manager, you have a bunch of task tracking software and communication facilitators such as Matter Most or Discord. I've found food is extremely effective. Being able to sit people down at a work session and say, "Hey, I brought food. Please eat this food and then do those things that we said that we should probably do to make sure that we actually don't crunch." Super effective. Also, having a smile and a pleasant disposition is pretty good, too.
Are you scrum certified?
So I'm Scrum certified, which means that I've been certified as a Scrum master through Clint Keith and the Scrum Alliance. And that basically means that I can facilitate team progress and a team workflow by making it so we reevaluate and iterate whatever we're making on a week-by-week basis or a case-by-case, sprint-by-sprint basis. That just allows us to be more efficient in what we're making. And it's a better way than just doing it the traditional old fashioned way from start to end.
Zhomart Dairov on the Freeman Foundation Grant, BizCafe, and Life in Burlington, Vermont
Zhomart Dairov, '18
Division
Stiller School of Business
Double Major
Business Administration and Finance
Minor
Data Analytics (now Data Science)
Hometown
Almaty, Kazakhstan
Pronouns
he/him
Studied Abroad
Shanghai, China
Internship
Finance & Marketing Intern at meXBT in Shanghai, China
Post-Grad Job
MBA Candidate at the University of Connecticut School of Business in Hartford, CT
My internship experience proved to be valuable in terms of exposure and knowledge, and provided me with a cumulative opportunity to integrate all I have learned at Champlain and apply it in a practical setting.
Have you worked on any particularly exciting projects in the Business Administration program?
In my Business & the Entrepreneurial Mindset class, we ran a six-week simulated coffee shop competition, called BizCafe. We made weekly decisions surrounding coffee orders, hiring servers, setting employee wages, and promoting the business. We placed first out of six virtual coffee shops in our course.
You were part of the Freeman Foundation Grant internship program in Shanghai, China. What was that experience like?
The Freeman Foundation Grant allowed me to spend two months in Shanghai, China, interning at meXBT, a FinTech company that operates in a payment service provider industry, all while experiencing authentic Chinese culture. My internship experience proved to be valuable in terms of exposure and knowledge, and provided me with a cumulative opportunity to integrate all I have learned at Champlain and apply it in a practical setting.
What do you like about going to college in Burlington?
One of the great things about going to college in a small town is the way the community caters to students. Eateries stay open late, public transportation is convenient, and local businesses welcome their student customers. College is also a great time to be living so close to the great outdoors. Champlain has active outing clubs that sponsor free or highly subsidized trips, so students living in the city can still enjoy the natural beauty of Vermont.
Chris McCammon on Virtual Reality, Game Development, and Studying Abroad in Montreal
Chris McCammon, '20
Division
Stiller School of Business
Major
Game Production Management
Hometown
Scarborough, ME
Pronouns
he/him
Studied Abroad
Montreal, Canada
Internship
Lead Producer at the Emergent Media Center in Burlington, VT
We get a Scrum Master Certification here, which is very big in the game industry. You'll find most of the industry uses Scrum, and they definitely want a Scrum Master on their team. It's great to already have that qualification coming out of college.
What made you choose to attend Champlain?
I used to have a gaming YouTube channel with 60,000 subscribers. I filmed a Minecraft video of me trying on the Oculus Dev 1, which is a virtual reality (VR) headset. I remember thinking it was so cool that you could be immersed in these virtual worlds. I started imagining what stories you could tell in VR. That's why I really wanted to come to Champlain. It's cool to access that immersive technology and learn how to use it.
What projects have you worked on during your time here?
Junior year, my team worked on a game called Snowball Showdown in our production class. It was a wacky VR snowball fighting game, but the cool thing was that we got accepted to the Oculus Start program. So Oculus gave us free VR headsets and invited us to Oculus Connect 6 in San Jose, California, which is an annual VR convention for the whole industry. We didn't go as students, but as developers, which was really cool. We're working to publish Snowball Showdown in the Oculus store, which is at the forefront of VR games.
What did you do in Montreal when you studied abroad?
I interned at Casa Rara, which is a tiny VR game studio. The company had a staff of five people—plus me. I had my own desk, and we all collaborated together in one room. My boss was away a lot of the time, so I worked as the producer of the team for a while. It was a really cool experience to work in the role I'm hoping to get hired for in the future.
.jpg)
.jpg)
