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February 2, 2007

Communicating in the "Real World": Alums Return to MIT to Give Career Advice

by Erin Michael Salius

Among the roughly two dozen alumni who return to MIT each January to share their real world experiences with sophomores in the School of Engineering, Lee Brettman ('69) and Steve Levy ('86) said they wouldn't have missed the opportunity that the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP) provides for students to learn from and connect with working professionals. For these two alumni in particular, the decision to volunteer as teaching assistants at one of the two week-long corporate-style training seminars offered through UPOP was an easy one: both men said they jumped at the chance to take seven days out of their busy schedules to reimmerse themselves in the "energy" of undergraduate life at MIT.

But rather than focusing on the environment inside the Institute, these volunteer TAs spent the majority of their time discussing the world beyond the Infinite Corridor. After all, the mission of UPOP is to help the students develop engineering business, and interpersonal skills that will give them a leg up when they begin their careers. Nicknamed "boot camp," the seminars led by the alumni are part of a year-long series of activities that also include mock interview sessions, resumé feedback, networking dinners, and a summer internship.

During boot camp, each TA guides a group of about eight students through the multi-faceted aspects of engineering practice, including robust design, customer requirements, specifications, leadership and presentation skills.

According to Mr. Levy, who founded The MacGregor Group, Inc. shortly after graduating from MIT, UPOP offers a useful forum for "learning some very practical lessons about what to expect in the business world; these are things you don't learn academically, things that have to do with the kind of dynamics that happen when you work with a team of people."

Since 1991, Mr. Levy has served as president and CEO of his software company, which provides trade order management systems and financial network services that facilitate straight-through trade processing for investment management firms, brokers, hedg e funds and other financial service companies.

For him, an ability to communicate is the most essential skill that young professionals -and professionals of any age-can acquire. "You want to have a really clear picture of what the customer needs, what the company's doing, and what you're doing to fulfill your part," he advises.

Through teamwork exercises and "boardroom" strategy sessions, the students participating in UPOP are able to experience first-hand the value of effective communication. And, in Mr. Levy's opinion, "they're soaking it up."

As Dr. Brettman notes, the receptivity of the participants bodes well for finding success in careers later on in life: "it's not just how well you can solve problems, though that's very important; it's also about how to get people on the same page, how to get through difficult situations with people."

Dr. Brettman is currently president, CEO and director of Dynogen Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biopharmaceutical company that develops drugs for gastrointestinal and genitourinary disorders. Although he has devoted the bulk of his career to medical research and practice, Dr. Brettman credits his undergraduate studies in literature (he doubled majored in Russian Literature and Biology while at MIT) with exposing him to life's "large themes" at any early age, which has helped him better understand his coworkers and to develop valuable interpersonal relationships with them.

Those themes that he read about in Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are still "really useful" to him in thinking about the workplace. He says, "it's not just what you know that helps you find success at work; it's how you communicate with people, how you're able to work with people, how you're able to understand where they're coming from." He encourages science majors to expand their horizons as he did and to force themselves to study subjects like liberal arts that might take them into "a discomfort zone." He teaches his mentees at UPOP that "you've got to be able to understand that somebody else is coming from a different place than you are. Just understanding that they're coming from somewhere else helps open up the possibility of collaborating with them."

One great benefit of the UPOP seminars is that students don't just listen to the advice of these industry professionals, but they actually have the opportunity to put into practice what they have learned. This hands-on approach to career development has become a hallmark of efforts made by the School of Engineering to increase the professional foresight of its students.

UPOP began in 2001 and currently involves over 250 MIT sophomores from every department in the School of Engineering, and some from other majors as well. For more information about UPOP, including opportunities for alumni involvement, contact the program's director, Chris Resto ('99) at cresto@mit.edu.

For more UPOP news articles, click here.