Information systems student's internship takes him to Wall Street

As a senior computer information systems and technology student, Joel Austin already has experience far beyond the classroom.

His most recent extracurricular experience has been as an intern with IPC Systems Inc. in the New York metropolitan area. After spending the summer of 2018 working with the software development company and spending weekends in the city, he has continued to work remotely as an intern from his residence hall hundreds of miles away in Bradford.

The internship is not just challenging in the technical area he wants to pursue, but also in understanding the inner workings of Wall Street.

IPC Systems works in the complex world of investment banking, where thousands of transactions are happening every second. Within the highly computerized world of investment banking, many brokers continue to prefer calling in orders for various reasons, Austin explained.

“Ten percent of trading happens by voice,” he said. “It still has its place, and if there's a dropped call, it costs the company millions of dollars.”

Over the summer, Austin, who is from San Diego by way of Sewickley, worked with IPC on mobile and desktop apps for the high-stakes calls. “I really felt prepared, and I could contribute a lot,” he said, noting that a project management class he took with Don Lewicki, associate professor of business management, gave him a leg up on some of the computer science interns who had a hard time understanding and conversing with the business people.

When not crunching code, Austin took a short ferry ride to New York to wander the financial district, eat ramen noodles and test out his nascent Japanese language skills. He also had a chance to visit the New York Stock Exchange and be present for the opening bell that begins the day's trading.

Austin was not the first Pitt-Bradford student to have a successful internship with IPC. Matt Biehl '18 had begun his career with IPC during the summer of 2017 and began working there as an information security consultant following his graduation. When IPC began looking for new interns, Biehl recommended Austin.

Austin had an already impressive resume for IPC - one that included two second-place finishes in the University of Pittsburgh's annual university-wide Mobile App Challenge.

He plans to enter the challenge again this year using his senior capstone project, an application that will tell diners ordering food what the most popular item is on a restaurant's menu.

Next year, Austin hopes to find himself in graduate school studying information science or software engineering.