Alumni Career Profiles

After speaking with alumni and thoroughly researching MEM (or equivalent) programs at Duke, Cornell, Columbia, Purdue, and UIUC, I chose Dartmouth because of the academic rigor, focus on experiential learning, and generous scholarship program.

The MEM program's curriculum gave me a perfect blend of hard skills, experiential learning opportunities, and soft skills required to thrive as a business leader. More importantly, in going through the program, I developed a strong work ethic and the intellectual rigor needed to teach myself new concepts and skills. This in turn gave me the confidence to take risks, say yes to exciting roles in domains that I knew little to nothing about, and as a result, enabled rapid growth and learning for me in my career thus far. Last but not least, I have access to an invaluable global network to rely on, for career and life advice.

My top three favorite memories from Dartmouth have to be: 1) The countless hours I spent in the tower room of Baker-Berry Library, working through assignments and job applications, often looking around and thinking to myself — I feel like I am at Hogwarts! 2) The "zenness" of walking under the clear, star-lit sky in Hanover. 3) Spending my first holiday season in the US in New York City, living a block away from Times Square, and working on defining product strategy for a top media company as a part of Tuck's Onsite Global Consulting course.

Broadened horizons

Dartmouth's MEM program is known for its tight-knit culture, academic rigor, and a well-rounded, yet flexible curriculum. Talking to MEM alums gave me additional confidence that I will have broad career opportunities, a collaborative learning experience, and a chance to explore a beautiful college town.

The MEM program provided me with the skillset required to manage and grow a business and it prepared me to be able to make an impact at Optum (The Advisory Board Company) starting from Day 1 at the job. The program, with its strong curriculum and case/experienced-based teaching, gave me the confidence to go beyond the spreadsheet and operate in a dynamic business and corporate environment.

I loved the engaging projects such as Littlefield simulation with Prof. Hall and technology assessment with Prof. March.

Unlimited possibilities

The tight-knit Dartmouth alumni network was the key to my decision as other McGill grads/international friends of mine that ended up at Stanford, Columbia, etc. for similar Masters programs were left without internships/jobs months after graduation.

The MEM honed the hard technical skills required to do a broad set of jobs (data analysis, risk analysis, resource optimization, project management techniques, etc.) while preparing us for the higher-level conversations that ultimately helped accelerate my career growth (speaking to execs as peers re: strategy, organizational design, resource management, industry trends, etc.)

Class trips (Moosilauke, Class of '66 lodge, etc.) were a lot of fun and really brought the whole MEM class together… intramural sports like soccer and flag football against other members of the Dartmouth community made us more of a cohesive group while having fun.

Skilled generalists

The MEM program sits (both literarily and figuratively) between the Tuck School of Business and the Thayer School of Engineering. Both schools are world renown for their academic rigor and thought leadership. Interacting with the students and faculty from both institutions provided an academic experience that few other programs can replicate.

A lot of my current job involves synthesizing complex ideas and plans down into a presentation that can then be shared and understood across multidisciplinary teams with a wide range of backgrounds and scientific acumen. Many of the classes during the MEM program, in one form or another, are focused on just that - the presentation of complex business and scientific/engineering concepts to a broader audience. While all the students have an undergraduate degree in the STEM fields, backgrounds are still very diverse which brought, for me, a ton of novel perspectives and mirrored a real-world professional environment.

Generally, the diversity of the student body - I made life-long friendships during the program. Although the campus is a bit secluded in NH, the time spent there and the immediate access to awesome outdoor activities (hiking, biking, camping, etc.) was a welcomed change from the city where I lived before and live now after the program.

practical skills and experience

When it came to deciding between the MEM at Dartmouth and Duke, the factors that drove me towards the former were the smaller class size, the relative proximity to New York where I hoped to work given my interest in the financial services sector, and the choice of Tuck electives that were offered to MEM students.

Courses such as Technology Analysis and Technology Project Management equipped me with the skills to approach technical challenges methodically. The finance electives at Tuck were crucial to my understanding of financial instruments and financial statement analysis.

I have fond memories from the last term at Dartmouth after receiving a full-time offer from the bank I interned with over the summer. Having taken four courses in the spring term while facing the relentless pressures of the internship search, it was finally time to relax and enjoy the lesser course load. I also had more time to soak in the area's spellbinding fall splendor and spend time outdoors.

Foundational

At that time of my career, I was taking on a multi-dimension role that combined technology and sales/marketing. I did it very well and felt interested in furthering my career at the intersection of business and technology. Dartmouth MEM is a perfect graduate program that offer a well-designed and balanced curriculum that can build on top of my solid engineering background and broaden my business knowledge and skills. The rigor and reputation of the Ivy League institution as well as the wide reach of the network was also a big appealing factor.

One crucial aspect of my Dartmouth MEM education is that it pushed me to be a more well-rounded person, ready and confident to take on new challenges. Through the rigorous coursework, numerous team projects, and case studies. and the interactions with some of the brightest and finest people anywhere in the world, I not only learned the hard skills (modeling, project management, operations, etc) essential to advance my career with, but also honed my skills to effectively communicate myself, build consensus, and collaborate to solve complex problems. All of these helped shape me as a great team player and a trustworthy leader wherever I go.

The people for sure. Everyone I met through the MEM program, from the directors, professors, admin staff, career service to my peer students and classmates, is amazing! We work hard and play hard, and everyone is super nice and helpful! Not to mention my lovely landlady Grace in West Lebanon, who I interacted day in and day out. This makes a very big difference for a foreign student coming to this country.

Transformational

I chose the Dartmouth MEM because of the university's prestige, program's structure/academic rigor and the campus culture.

The Dartmouth MEM exposed me to host of business disciplines which I would have otherwise not experienced, and allowed to dramatically diversify my skill set, but also build unpon my technical background. The coursework in business (e.g. finance/accounting, strategy, operations), the hands on experience with analysis / analytics, and the team project work integrated into all of the classes not only enabled me to secure a job in my desired field, but also laid the foundation for success in my first (and subsequent) roles.

It's difficult to pin down one memory - there were so many! But overall, I'll never forget the fun and collegial feeling of spending time with friends & peers in our Murdough study area between classes - there was also a new topic to debate, class assignments to partner on, story to share and fun to be had.

Door opening

As I finished my undergrad degree, I knew that I liked engineering, but didn't want to make a career out of engineering alone. I believed the MEM would be a good way to move into leadership and management over time without losing my engineering roots. Looking back, the skills and lessons of the MEM, especially those regarding the human elements of business (interaction, motivation, management, etc.) have been incredibly valuable to me in my career.

Layering in the knowledge and language of business on top of the problem-solving approaches of engineering has been invaluable. I found the MEM helped students see new applications in a business similar to how engineering courses showed us applications of physics. Whether it was organizational behavior to design well-functioning teams, marketing to drive a user-centered approach, or operations management to enable supply chain efficiency, the MEM touched on so many useful applications outside my core experience coming into the degree.

My team had a great time with the marketing simulation, doing our best to reverse-engineer the system to achieve the best score and were especially proud to have trounced the Tuck students!

Foundational knowledge

I loved Dartmouth as an undergrad, and Thayer had been my home for much of that time -- any excuse to stay was a great one!

Thinking like an engineer has always been critical. However, learning how to translate that technical knowledge into the context of business has been indispensible and has served me better than any "pure engineering" skills I've learned.

The intense teamwork and strategy of the simulations in both marketing and operations. Also, having the opportunity to travel to Paris to present our 89/90 project work to our corporate sponsor (who happened to be my now-fellow CCC member Shailesh Chandra)

Eloquent technology

I chose the MEM because I loved being at Thayer for my AB and felt that there was much more I could learn from the professors and through the many projects I could pursue as a student. The MEM provided an opportunity to learn about how engineering gets done in the real world, work with a cohort of students who came from schools besides Dartmouth, and go a level deeper in my engineering coursework.

I was able to accelerate my career as an engineer because the MEM helped me to see the big picture. In the MEM I had a head start on learning how to put big projects together, work across engineering disciplines, and understand what success looked like for my management, team members, and customers.

I look back very fondly on my cohort's Organizational Behavior course. The course was engaging and interactive. I didn't know it at the time, but I was learning foundational concepts, that I still rely on today, while enjoying working with my classmates.

Accelerated career growth