Alan Nguyen has spent the past few years building a virtual environment to hold his most precious memories. Irreplaceable family photos and videos are now stored in a custom version of a self-hosted Google Photo drive that he built himself.
A graduate of Syracuse University, Nguyen credits the School of Information Studies for giving him the tools and expertise to take on such a complex personal project.
“This was a significant project because of how it applied all of my learnings from years in iSchool to something that is practical for my everyday life,” he said. “Everything from Computer Networking, Web Application Security, System Administration and Machine Learning combines into a modern web app.”
Currently a solutions engineer at Cloudflare in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Nguyen has used the skills he learned working on his family keepsake project to expand his knowledge about digital products and solutions in his job.
At Cloudflare, Nguyen works in the Pre-Sales Solutions Engineering team, which is responsible for the technical sale of the company’s solutions, ensuring they deliver maximum business value through well-designed, efficient adoption plans.
In his role, Nguyen is responsible for creating customized plans that incorporate serverless platforms, AI tools and security services. He is constantly learning about different Internet performance and security technologies to keep up with rapid product innovation.
“What I love most about my job is crafting unique solutions on the spot with my customers. This keeps me sharp and on my toes. Eventually seeing these solutions play out in apps that I use everyday brings me so much joy,” he said.
Nguyen credits the iSchool with teaching him about information technology infrastructure, cybersecurity, applied machine learning and how to give a professional presentation. He earned a bachelor’s degree in 2019 in information management and technology and a master’s degree in 2020 in applied data science.
“I was able to develop my knowledge in all things technical about information systems and machine learning all while applying it in a very practical way by working in the iSchool labs and SIDEARM Sports,” he said.
The iSchool also helped him improve his communication and people skills, which eventually helped him grow his technical selling skills at Cloudflare.
“Everything from career fairs, immersion trips and iSchool organizations (Peer Advising and WiTec) events gave me opportunities to hone my relationship building skills that would carry over to my day-to-day interactions with my customers,” he said. “The transformation from someone who was introverted to an outgoing personality was my best personal accomplishment in Syracuse.”
Nguyen still remembers advice an iSchool graduate gave him years ago – “Be mindful of the moment.” He takes that advice with him and shares the same words with current students who want to succeed after college.
“Have an open mind to push past your boundaries,” he said. “We spend so much time working on a predefined path that we become rigid believing it’s the single and most successful path to the start of our careers. Having a flexible mind allows for us to find a calling to where our talents fit best.”