Educational background: Wellesley College, Biology
Past position: IT consulting, Exeter Group, Inc.
I wanted to use my biology background in the business world — possibly in bio-tech or the biomedical field — and going to MIT Sloan made sense career-wise. It’s challenging here on a lot of different levels, not just academic. I've met amazing students and professors and leaned more than I ever thought possible.
Last year, as part of the Biomedical Business Club, I helped organize a trek to the west coast to visit nine companies in bio-tech, pharmaceutical, med device and venture capital areas, and through that was offered a summer internship with Genentech, one of the largest biotech companies in the U.S.
Since then my perspective has changed in that I’ve learned a lot more about the bio-tech industry. I knew superficially what the industry was about and now I am much more versed in the challenges facing the industry and the challenges of bringing new drugs to market. I think MIT Sloan has really helped me focus on those challenges.
I had an interesting project this summer where I had to work across all the different product teams at Genentech and look at strategies to find where we could centralize some of their promotional activities while keeping things de-centralized. I found, because of my consulting background and my coursework at MIT Sloan, that I was really good at analyzing organizations and how they work. At MIT Sloan I learned a lot about organizational behavior and management. Even classes like accounting and finance really helped me in analyzing financial statements for portions of my project.
Communication was really important, too. When I had my final presentation to the board of senior managers, it was a make or break moment. It was twelve weeks boiled down into ten minutes. I practiced and practiced and made sure I had all possible questions and covered, and I realized all of the skills I needed I had learned in my first two semesters at MIT Sloan.
MIT Sloan has been an amazing experience. I have met some wonderful people and made some lifelong friends here. It has really opened doors for me. The School has helped me get to where I am and has imparted me with the skills and the abilities to get to where I want to go.
© 2013 MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT