From Student Job to IT Career: How CLAS Turns Work Experience Into Experiential Learning

For CU Denver graduate Aman Tewolde, a student IT job did more than provide a paycheck— it helped him discover what he wanted from college, build confidence in his abilities, and find a career he genuinely wanted to pursue. 

Aman arrived at CU Denver without that clarity. He began in electrical engineering before switching to computer science. He had recently come off academic probation and was working in retail while trying to understand where college was supposed to take him. While education mattered deeply to his family, figuring out how college translated into a career was harder. 

“When I first came in, it was ‘I'm going to college for my mom,'” Aman said. “Right, that's the end goal, I will get this degree for her.” 

Then he found a student IT position at CU Denver. 

That experience eventually helped take Aman from uncertain undergraduate to IT professional and, today, IT Operations Manager for the CU Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS). His journey also illustrates something central to experiential learning at CLAS: Students can learn differently when they have opportunities to apply their education, take on real responsibilities, and discover where their interests can lead. 

Learning by Doing Real Work 

Experiential learning gives students opportunities to connect their education to practical experiences through internships, research, student employment, and other hands-on opportunities. Across CU Denver, those experiences can help students develop career skills and professional networks while exploring what they want to do after graduation. 

For CLAS Director of IT and Web Services Kenny Sisco, that exploration is a fundamental part of student employment. Kenny's own career began with student employment. A first-generation college student from a low-income family, he remembers arriving at college without knowing how higher education worked. He eventually found a work-study position at a university help desk, where mentors helped him begin building an IT career. Years later, that experience shaped the kind of student employment program he wanted to create— a program that now lives in CLAS. 

“The entire program is based on not just, 'can you come and do work for me?'” Kenny said. “In fact, that's a secondary thought.” Instead, he asks a different question: How can this experience be valuable to the student? 

That means flexible scheduling, career guidance, mentorship, and opportunities to experiment. Students do not need to arrive knowing exactly where they are going. 

“What do you want to do in your career?” Kenny said. “And if the answer is, 'I don't know,' that's totally fine. Let's help you experiment until you figure it out.” 

Finding a Career, Not Just Completing a Degree 

When Aman applied for his student position in 2020, he did not fully understand what IT work involved. He expected something closer to monitoring a computer lab. Instead, he found himself troubleshooting technology and helping people solve real problems. 

“Instantly, just showing up, it was like, ‘Oh, I love this,’” Aman said. 

IT offered something he had been missing. He could work with computers without spending his entire day coding, while still communicating, collaborating, and helping people. 

College began to look different. 

Working with Kenny and other mentors, Aman participated in regular goals meetings where students identify what they want to accomplish and receive guidance on how to get there. Nobody had approached his education that way before. His motivation changed quickly. Aman began working toward IT certifications while completing his degree, earning the A+, Network+ and Security+ certifications in roughly nine months. 

“Now I'm excited to do this. Now I have a pathway to actually work towards,” he said. 

Building Confidence Through Challenge 

As students develop, the CLAS IT student employment model gives them increasingly challenging responsibilities. Students can begin with desktop support and daily IT needs before progressing into more project-based work, leadership, and training responsibilities. For students ready for an additional challenge, Kenny can develop advanced projects around both the student's goals and university needs. 

Aman's experience eventually included a paid, for-credit internship that replaced his computer science capstone. His assignment was a real project the college needed. He developed a Jupyter Hub coding environment for students, navigating technical requirements, university authentication, project management, stakeholder communication, and documentation. 

It was difficult. That was part of the point. 

Kenny believes students need opportunities to tackle problems without knowing the answer in advance. They also need a workplace where mistakes can become learning experiences instead of reasons to stop trying. The team calls them “positive failure experiences.” Aman remembers struggling with one technical problem, walking away from his computer, returning, and finally finding the solution in the documentation. The experience gave him something that extended beyond technical knowledge: Confidence. 

Today, Aman encourages student employees to develop that same willingness to try, make decisions, communicate, adjust, and try again. 

“Don't be afraid of failure,” Aman said. “Failure as a teacher shouldn't be something that discourages you or makes you feel timid.” 

Experience That Travels with You 

After graduating, Aman applied for full-time IT positions with a new sense of confidence. 

He eventually joined the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) located at the University of Colorado Boulder. Later, he learned that other finalists for the position had more experience and certifications. What distinguished him was his eagerness to learn and his ability to communicate that enthusiasm during the interview. He was later promoted to security engineer before returning to CU Denver to join CLAS. 

Now, as IT Operations Manager in CLAS, Aman is helping students develop the same combination of technical knowledge and workforce skills that helped launch his career. That includes troubleshooting and systems knowledge, but also communication, collaboration, project management, decision-making, adaptability, and the confidence to work through unfamiliar problems. 

As Kenny put it, students are not being handed artificial assignments. 

“We're not giving them fake projects,” he said. “They're doing things that are required of us.” 

That distinction is important. Experiential learning can give students evidence that what they are learning has value beyond a classroom and that they already have something meaningful to contribute. 

How to Meet Your Moment 

Kenny and Aman have simple advice for students looking for internships, student employment, or their first professional experience: Do not eliminate yourself before someone else has the chance to consider you. Students sometimes read a job description, notice qualifications they do not have, and decide not to apply. Kenny encourages them to think differently. 

“My challenge to that is, why would you apply for a job you already know how to do?” he said. 

Instead, look for opportunities that interest you and show that you are willing to learn. Aman also encourages students to ask questions, contact people working in fields that interest them, and seek opportunities even when they do not feel completely prepared. Technical skills can be taught. Curiosity, communication, and a willingness to grow can help students make the most of the opportunity once they get it. 

Most importantly, do not wait until graduation to start discovering what work feels meaningful to you. 

What Can You Do with This Experience? 

Student IT employment and internships can prepare students for careers in areas such as IT support, systems administration, cybersecurity, network administration, security engineering, and IT operations. But the value of experiential learning reaches beyond a particular job title. Students learn how to work with colleagues and clients, manage projects, explain technical ideas, solve unfamiliar problems, and take responsibility for work that matters. Those are skills they can carry into their next internship, their first full-time position, graduate study, or an entirely different career. 

For Aman, that first student job changed the purpose of college. He was no longer simply working toward a diploma. He could see where he was going and meet his moment.