If you’d told me at my high school graduation that I’d be starting my career in the corporate world in just two years – with confidence – I would have doubted you.
I recently graduated college and started my full-time job as an associate software engineer at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee , and I’ve been thinking back on my whole journey through the BlueSky Tennessee Institute . It hit me that it wasn’t just about getting an education. It was about preparing for the challenges and opportunities ahead, not just in the corporate world, but in life too.
When I first heard about BlueSky, I was skeptical. And I wasn’t alone in thinking it was too good to be true. BlueSky is an accelerated degree program created by BlueCross in collaboration with East Tennessee State University. It was hard to imagine a better opportunity than gaining a bachelor’s degree and a job offer at a reputable company – without any debt – in just 27 months.
My experience taught me about building relationships and working in teams
I already had an interest in computer science and planned to apply to East Tennessee State University, so for me, BlueSky made sense. But I didn’t have the best experience with learning a lot in my computer science class in high school, so I still went into BlueSky with a grain-of-salt mentality…