MBA + MS Design Innovation (MMM Program)at the McCORMICK SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING and KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

Why did you choose MMM?

I had two main goals for graduate school. First, I wanted to supplement my career experience with formal academic structure. Second, I wanted to become a successful entrepreneur and innovator. While an MBA would check the first box, it was MMM that really drilled down and focused on my second goal. In getting to know the program I learned that this second Masters would also teach me about Product Management – my dream short term career goal.

In defense, my previous industry, the military comes to you with a specific problem they want solved. Your work is bound by their desires and self-perceived need. The commercial world I wanted to enter is the opposite - instead driven by understanding people’s unmet needs and innovating into them. Developing the toolkit to find those opportunities for innovation is truly what the MMM program has given me. I want to find the gaps that novel solutions can fill, and the program has fully delivered on that aspiration.

What is life like as a MMM student?

Literal paradise on Earth. I spend every day on campus bouncing between the MMM lounge and the Kellogg Global Hub, stopping for conversation and laughter in between classes and group meetings. In an hour yesterday I went from talking about upskilling adults using video games, to disruptive dialysis interventions, to debating the best Italian spot for a guy's night out. That diversity in conversation is representative of how different every member of our class is. The best part of this experience is learning about worlds I didn’t know existed prior to Northwestern.

While we do take more classes than the main student body, these classes are taken as a cohort and specialize in innovation. We learn skills like rapid prototyping, proper IP management, and mindful product management – all of which are either taught by prolific professors or accomplished current professionals.

MMMs are tight knit. We arrive on campus a full three months before everyone else, and spend the summer creating strong, lasting bonds (helped along by some pool parties, trollies, BBQs, fake Weddings, boat days, and dozens of group dinners). When the rest of the school arrived, we dove into making new connections while knowing that the community we built over the Summer would always be there to support us. As I look back at all the happy memories I’ve made during my time back at school, MMM is the center of it all. FaMMM forever!

How did MMM help you during your summer internship?

This Summer I was at Amazon as a Product Manager and I kid you not, the role-specific onboarding was almost verbatim what we learned in class. From being Customer Obsessed, to solutioning only after distilling down unbiased data, to laying out concrete execution, my day-to-day work relied on what I had learned in MMM. The mindset that MMM ingrained in me also allowed me to bring a human-centered approach to an area where SQL is king, marrying customer focused insights with hard data. That combination allowed me to have lasting impact, and solidified in my mind the value proposition of what I was doing back at school.