I came to Yale SOM to gain a broader perspective on how business is run, beyond the operational logistics and technology systems departments that I’ve been part of. My goal is to one day develop new technologies in either the blockchain or AI space. But I needed to first deepen my understanding of different perspectives and functional areas so I’ll be prepared to lead within a large, complex organization.
Everyone here is looking to make meaningful connections and build out their networks. Our cohorts and learning teams really help us do it. Teamwork projects introduce you to the people you can turn to for help and support in the future. So many of my classmates are experts in their fields. During the first year, our courses forced us to lean on, and learn from, one another.
I was on the marketing science team during my internship at Amazon. We worked on a new machine learning-powered recommender engine to help advertisers build more effective campaigns. We approached the project asking, “How can we make our advertisers more successful? Beyond just sales, what other metrics do they care about?”
My job wasn’t to build the system, but to synthesize the perspectives of various stakeholders into a single narrative and vision our team and department could get behind.
Everything I learned about marketing and competitive analysis in the Customer and Competitor courses was helpful, but the soft skills we developed were what I leaned on most. Lessons from Managing Groups and Teams, and all that teamwork with my classmates, prepared me to work with the data scientists and engineering product experts I spent the summer with.
