Bringing the MMM Mindset to Google

Saranga Arora’s summer internship helped shape her career goals for when she graduates from the MMM program.

Saranga Arora’s future came into sharper focus this summer inside the walls of Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Arora is a second-year student in Northwestern's MMM program, a dual-degree program between Northwestern Engineering and the Kellogg School of Management. She spent the summer interning as a product manager at Google, where she managed the product experience for Bluetooth hearing aids that work with the company's Android and Pixel products.

For Arora, who has an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering and was a startup product manager before MMM, the internship was an awakening of sorts.
“Getting exposure to the accessibility space within a healthcare project was really special,” she said. “It made the work feel more impactful, knowing the benefits you’re having on underserved populations.”
Throughout the summer, Arora frequently found herself applying lessons she'd learned during her first year in MMM. Learning foundational concepts in the classroom was important, Arora said, but they took on a greater significance for her when she could apply them in business.
“My internship went well because of the MMM program,” she said. “Product management at its core is all about understanding users and designing solutions that solve those needs. The ethos of the MMM program is exactly that.”
The collaborative nature of the MMM program, which teaches business skills coupled with user-centered product design, created a unique opportunity for Arora during her internship. Thanks to her MMM classes on design research, she was able to lead her project’s user experience research, which involved conducting focus groups and surveys with hearing aid users.
“That really solidified for me that MMM is a unique experience that gives you a differentiated skill set,” she said.
Arora's internship preparation consisted of more than just coursework, she discovered. The diversity of the MMM cohort allowed Arora to work with students from all over the world. That experience proved valuable at Google, where she remotely worked with colleagues and partners across Taiwan, Japan, and Denmark.
“Because of the team-based model in MMM, I have had a chance to work with lots of different international students,” she said. “It made me feel more confident when I collaborated with new people from different backgrounds this summer.”
Arora has specific goals for herself as she looks ahead to the rest of her time in MMM:

● She wants to intern at a healthcare-focused venture capital firm in order to better understand emerging trends in the healthcare industry.
● She's looking to continue her own personal development in order to be a better leader, teammate, friend, and person.
● She wants to strengthen her connections with the MMM cohort so that she leaves the program with lasting bonds and lifelong friendships.

Beyond that, she's just excited to experience a program that has already given her so much.

"I have grown more in the last 18 months than any other part of my life thanks to the MMM program," she said. "I'm now a more confident, self-aware, empathetic leader that knows how to evaluate the disruptiveness of an idea and steer strong concepts into innovations that are actually desirable, feasible, and viable."