The Professional Readiness Experiential Program (PREP), an experiential learning initiative within the Costello College of Business at George Mason University, has seen 250 students complete the program and more than 70 projects completed since its inception in 2021.
Brian Ngac (back row in baseball hat) and Nirup Menon (middle row on the right) with a group of PREP students. Photo provided by Brian Ngac.
Started by Brian Ngac, assistant dean for centers and FedWriters, Inc., Corporate Partner Faculty Fellow at Costello, PREP bridges academic theory and industry practice by pairing high-performing students with industry professionals to solve real-world challenges. Through the process, students develop their professional skills and expand their professional networks.
When Ngac and Nirup Menon, PREP co-instructor and information systems and operations management professor, visit conferences across the world—like the International Conference on Information Systems—they reference PREP projects and use them as examples during presentations. “Not only will students be able to say, ‘Yeah, I worked on this project,’ they can say their project has been accepted and published in a conference proceeding at the international level,” says Ngac.
“Collaborating with a group of diverse backgrounds and skill sets significantly broadened my expertise and knowledge. Having our paper published was incredibly meaningful, as it allowed our work to impact a wider audience beyond the classroom and served as a catalyst for my professional growth.”
— Yasmin Jubran, BS Marketing and Business Analytics, '23
Recently, the projects have focused on cyber security, and five student projects hosted and scoped by U.S. Cyber Command have led to student publication in cyber security-focused practitioner journals.
Four of the projects were published in The Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Journal, with several students being published for multiple projects. Brian Lemus, Fatima Majid, Bella Nguyen, and Quan Vo authored “The U.S. Allies Leading AI Development, Malware, and Network Security.” Hanh Nguyen, Celeste Clarke, Sahrash Tanveer, and Zachary Risseeuw wrote “An Assessment of the Chinese Communist Party’s Made in China 2025 Initiative on Technological Advancement and Economic Development in the Area of the Internet of Things,” as well as “An Assessment of the Chinese Communist Party’s Made in China 2025 Initiative on Technological Advancement and Economic Development in the Area of Quantum Computing.” Also published in the ISSA Journal was “Enhancing Synthetic Media Detection and Mitigation for Thwarting Election Interference,” by Jacob Locklear and Ritika Dixit.
The fifth project, published in the ISACA Journal, was “Enhancing Collaboration to Improve Cybersecurity Practices,” by Yasmin Jubran, Parsa Sadeghi, Kevin Melecio, and Felipe Casabianca. All the pieces were co-authored by Ngac, and Menon was a co-author of “The U.S. Allies” article.
“Collaborating with a group of diverse backgrounds and skill sets significantly broadened my expertise and knowledge,” says Jubran. “Having our paper published was incredibly meaningful, as it allowed our work to impact a wider audience beyond the classroom and served as a catalyst for my professional growth.”
“This course created a structured and collaborative environment that pushed my team and me to effectively research,” says Vo. “We were compelled to thoroughly organize our evidence and refine our writing through continuous feedback. Through the several phases of the paper, I learned how to effectively synthesize sources and connect theory to real-world problems. Nonetheless, having the paper published in ISACA demonstrates that our ideas can contribute and help future research efforts.”
“The feeling of accomplishment during the time studying at George Mason is unforgettable, and this is one of the best moments,” says Clarke. “With the guidance from Professor Brian Ngac, I put in a lot of time reading, analyzing, writing, and editing this article. My hard work was paid off when I received positive feedback from U.S. Cyber Command, especially when it was approved and published in ISSA. I would say it was worth the effort.”
As more PREP student projects are published and promoted, more companies are taking notice. To date, more than 25 industry partners have participated in this experiential learning program, giving students valuable experience and exposure while signaling to the rest of industry that Costello is a premier institution for partnership and recruitment.