Author: Kara Baskin | Leaders for Global Operations<\/p>\n
Many students in MIT\u2019s Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program return to the workplace primed to tackle complex operational problems. But sometimes their research sparks deep scholarly interest, and they bring their LGO toolkit into an academic career instead.<\/p>\n
That was the case for Jimmy Smith SM \u201918, MBA \u201918, who\u2019s currently pursuing a PhD in computational mathematics at Stanford University. He specializes in machine learning models for sequence data.<\/p>\n
Smith was ready to accelerate his career as a drilling engineer at BP Exploration Alaska, so he enrolled in the LGO program for experience in engineering management. There, he worked with Goodyear to develop machine learning algorithms to automate a tire-inspection process. He realized that he wanted to explore machine learning even more deeply. Instead of polishing his resume, he began preparing applications to PhD programs, all with the support of MIT mentors.<\/p>\n
\u201cLGO opened up the world for me. Getting exposure to so many students and faculty with different interests helped me to gain a better understanding of what I wanted out of my career,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s advisor, mechanical engineering professor David Hardt, praises LGO\u2019s natural link between industry and academia. Having worked closely with Smith in his manufacturing statistics class and applauding his curiosity, he wrote Smith a glowing recommendation letter for Stanford.<\/p>\n
With LGO, \u201cYou get a holistic perspective,\u201d Hardt says. \u201cWhile LGO students are not research students \u2014 they\u2019re professionals doing a project in an industry that ends up as a thesis \u2014 Jimmy was asking the probing questions that you\u2019d want in a PhD student.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the LGO program isn\u2019t a traditional training ground for PhD candidates, it\u2019s a highly useful one, Smith says. The work he pursued, initially for a professional edge, ended up blossoming into an intellectual passion.<\/p>\n
\u201cLGO exposed me to the machine-learning, AI-type things that I\u2019m interested in now. The master\u2019s thesis component gave me an opportunity to do meaningful research, and working with faculty advisors at MIT gave me a better sense of what doing research full time as a PhD student would be like,\u201d he explains. \u201cI realized it was something I was really interested in and excited about.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s revelatory experience isn\u2019t unusual for LGO students, says MIT LGO executive director Thomas Roemer.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents come to us because they want to change direction in life in some way. And some, while at MIT, discover how much they love learning and how much they love being at a university. They may get inspired by professors and say, \u2018Hey, this is what I would like to do: become a professor myself,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Like Smith, Audrey Bazerghi SM \u201920, MBA \u201920, a former management consultant, didn\u2019t enter MIT with the desire to pursue a PhD. Before enrolling, she worked for Oliver Wyman, focusing on the manufacturing, transportation, and energy space. She was at a career crossroads and wanted to refine her math and modeling skills. She graduated with a newfound passion for research.<\/p>\n
\u201cI focused a lot of my coursework at MIT on supply chain and on questions regarding procurement or logistics that I ran into in my time as a consultant. I discovered through my LGO internship and thesis requirements that I really enjoyed research,\u201d she recalls. \u201cLGO allowed me to discover that I liked it enough to do it full time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now she\u2019s a second-year PhD student at Northwestern University\u2019s Kellogg School of Management, focusing on operations management. Bazerghi hopes to teach master’s of business administration students, ideally helping them to apply cutting-edge operations knowledge to their respective industries. It\u2019s a logical extension of the hands-on education she received at MIT.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what LGO really is about: How do we organize work so that it serves its purpose? And I think it\u2019s more relevant than ever that people understand that,\u201d says Deishin Lee \u201990, SM \u201992.<\/p>\n
To that end, she\u2019s now an associate professor of operations management and sustainability at Ivey Business School in London, Ontario. The LGO program \u2014 at the time called Leaders for Manufacturing \u2014 imparted an appreciation for the connection between academics and practicality, which she now shares with her students. In fact, Lee worked at Motorola for seven years before obtaining her PhD. It was a useful strategy. The real-world experience she got on the job helps her teach organizational pain points from a lived perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is that sometimes students don\u2019t have an appreciation for the problems organizations have. It\u2019s difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of various solutions, if you don\u2019t understand the problem \u2014 that comes from an understanding of how organizations work,\u201d she says. \u201cLGO was enormously helpful because we saw so many different organizations, and we had so many managers come and talk to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the vast majority of LGO alumni reenter the workforce, Roemer hopes that prospective students enter MIT with an open mind.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The LGO program] is a life-changing opportunity that will really have a huge impact on their future lives, not so much in terms of careers \u2014 of course they\u2019ll have great careers \u2014 but in terms of how they look at the world,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that transition, in those two years, may go in all sorts of directions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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