Jan. 18, 2018

Coursework, involvement, internships have Wolff prepared for career

By Taylor Middleton, media relations assistant

Northwest Missouri State University student Ben Wolff credits Northwest for helping him become a more well-rounded individual and equipping him to begin his career in the computer science field.

“All the general education courses and interacting with my fellow peers, as well as my involvement in extracurricular activities, really pushed me to have better technical skills and soft skills,” Wolff, a senior computer science major from Kansas City, Missouri, said.

Wolff, who will graduate from Northwest in April, has completed six internships with Cerner and taken an active role as a student leader since his first year on the campus. He worked with faculty in the School of Computer Science and Information Systems to found the Cyber Defense Club, and he served as the president of the Association for Computing Machinery for two years.

“With the help of extracurricular activities and the encouragement of my advisors, Northwest has definitely pushed me to become a better leader,” Wolff said. “Northwest also gave me the technical skills that I wanted and I was able to bring those back to Cerner.”

Wolff came to Northwest looking for a university with strong computer science curriculum. He chose Northwest after attending its computer science visit day.

“I got to see all the exciting things that I would get to learn and, on top of that, I was really drawn by all of the faculty because not only were the class sizes smaller, but the faculty really care about students’ success,” Wolff said. “They were really interested in not just helping you get through a course but really figuring out what you want to do with computer science.”

Wolff has benefitted from personal connections with the faculty and staff of the School of Computer Science and Information Systems and works as a teaching assistant. 

“Those connections continued by getting recommendations for Cerner again as a returning intern,” Wolff said. “There are strong connections with the faculty and industry, and being able to work with the faculty has strengthened my connections with Cerner and my career field.” 

Wolff’s first internships with Cerner were focused on writing code for the frontend healthcare software that Cerner provides to hospitals and clients around the world. His more recent internships with the company were focused on advanced work, such as backend development, security enhancements, mobile testing and intern management.

Each internship gave Wolff the opportunity to develop his skillset and expand his network. Last summer, he served as an intern manager and led a small team of Cerner interns.

He also has provided recommendations to Cerner about other Northwest computer science students seeking internships and he has brought Cerner employees to Northwest to talk with students.

Wolff has accepted full-time employment with Cerner Corporation as a software engineer upon graduation in the spring of 2018.