Meet Dan Sorrentino
Adjunct Professor, School of Information Technology
Teaches Software Systems Engineering courses
Giving Students the Tools Necessary to Succeed
Adjunct Professor Dan Sorrentino joined Colorado Tech Online in 2005 and brings twenty-two years of experience with some of the world's leading information technology companies and seventeen years as an Adjunct Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology to the classroom. Just as important to his students, he is totally focused on helping them achieve their career aspirations by building professional skills needed in the real world.
"The way I see it, " said Sorrentino, "my job is to give students the tools they need to be more successful—whether they're an experienced IT professional, just starting out in the field, or preparing to change careers."
Sorrentino has had personal experience in realigning career goals. Originally planning to study Medicine, he graduated from SUNY Geneseo with a Magna Cum Laude in the dual degrees of Biology and Psychology. But faced with a harsh economic environment and the realities of family obligations, he decided to pursue a Masters in Computer Science at the Rochester Technology Institute instead.
This decision proved to be an excellent choice and he soon discovered that the then relatively new field of Computer Science was as interesting as it was challenging. His enthusiasm for the industry not only led him to a successful career with companies like Xerox and Eastman Kodak. It inspired him to teach to others. From 1986-2003 he was also an Adjunct Professor in Computer Science and Information Technology at his Alma Mater, Rochester Technology Institute. In 1998, Sorrentino studied for and passed the Sun Certified Java Programmer exam, which he found gave him authority in Java in both the classroom and Xerox.
Today, he is a Technical Project Manager with Xerox Corporation, serving a wide range of high profile accounts. During his eleven year career with the company his responsibilities have included designing and implementing main features of products, managing teams, mentoring junior developers, and developing ground-breaking applications for various software programs.
Because of his own experience, Sorrentino is very aware of just what the industry is looking for in new hires. "Having been a hiring manager of software developers", Sorrentino explained, "I know what managers look for in new recruits. Providing my students with these skills is my main goal. Believe me, I respect and appreciate the sacrifice that students make in both time and dollars and I want that to pay off for them as much as possible."
"As an instructor my greatest thrill is when a former student tells me that it was my course that made the difference in a job interview because of the "state-of-the-art" projects that he or she did in class. That, to me, is really what it's all about."
"At Colorado Tech Online," he continued, "I know I'm part of an organization that is as dedicated to helping individual students as I am. You can tell that from the program structure. The system encourages team interaction—a huge plus for those working in the industry today—but it also allows students to make individual choices of what chats to attend, when to retrieve archived material, etc. In short, at Colorado Tech Online students have the best of both worlds—the interactive support they need from faculty and classmates to assure their success and the flexibility they want to use the materials and resources in a way that fits their professional goals, personality, and lifestyle.