The LGO Internship Journey

The Leaders for Global Operations Program combines both the Sloan School of Management and the School of Engineering. But it also uniquely incorporates industry partners into the program. Our second year student Yucen walks us through how the special relationship with the LGO partner companies works and how each student benefits from the knowledge shared with them.

~

Hi all! I’m Yucen!  A little bit about me: my career passion is to blend technological innovations with a principled management skillset to affect positive change in society. After going through a technically rigorous chemical engineering curriculum in undergrad, I worked in upstream oil and gas for three years as a project engineer. I had a lot of fun collaborating with design teams in the morning, then managing construction projects in the afternoon. It was a great blend of technical with management. I wanted to continue that path of developing my technical and leadership skillsets, and LGO provided me with the perfect opportunity to do so.

 

image

 

There were many reasons why LGO was the best fit for me.  I thoroughly love the community here – we get to be in one of the most intellectually-gifted communities in the world, full of diverse, innovative, brilliant, yet humble people. I was highly motivated to grow as a person and leader in this environment. The LGO cohort is about 45 – 50 students, all with high ambitions, all working through a rigorous curriculum and sharing a seminal two-year experience. On top of that, we get to be fully integrated into the Sloan class and well as our engineering department. We have action learning labs with emphasis on “learning by doing,” and we have access to approachable, world-class faculty. It’s truly the best of both worlds (engineering and business). Before I joined, upperclassmen told me the hardest thing about LGO is knowing when to say no. A year in, and I couldn’t agree more. There’s literally an exciting project, a cool event, or a world-changing speaker engagement happening every day (and often all at the same time!). You will be very intellectually captivated.

One of the aspects that sets LGO apart from other dual degree programs are our industry partners. The LGO Industry Partners – or “partner companies,” are a group of 29 companies that have strong, formal relationships with the LGO program. These partner companies contribute to the program by offering –  among many things – strong alumni networks, fellowship funding, plant tours, and providing input on latest industry trends in operations and technology. They are an integral part of the LGO program.

All students are guaranteed an internship at a partner company. The internship process is collaborative and considers students’ interest (through committee surveys) and partner company needs for that year. Certain students are “pre-matched” into more-customized internships that deliver sufficient technical content as it relates to the engineering department. Most students interview for different opportunities among the different partner companies. You can interview with as many companies as you’re interested in. Then, there is a matching process based on mutual rankings between the companies and students to pair each role to each student.

The internships are an opportunity for students to conduct research in an industrial application. We publish a thesis based on our six-months internship work. Faculty advisors from both the Sloan school and the engineering department advise on our thesis content. Overall, the internship is a good opportunity to apply the skills you learned, while giving you the chance to dive deeper than a traditional summer internship and produce potentially novel content.  The internship opportunities are quite diverse, in terms of function and company. Did I mention that everyone is guaranteed an internship?

My internship is at Amgen, one of the worlds’ leading biotechnology companies based in Thousand Oaks, California. I am applying machine learning to generate predictive models for cell line selection. Ultimately, we want to increase efficiency (reduce resource utilization and cycle times) in this critical, resource-intensive process within the biologics development pipeline.

 

image

 

Beyond the machine learning coursework in LGO, which has provided me with a capable data analytics foundation, what’s been even more useful within the LGO curriculum is the emphasis on operations and organizational dynamics. The focus on analytics within operations allows me to diagnose where my project adds value within the workstream. Furthermore, “soft skill” classes in communication and organizational processes has helped me manage my project stakeholders so I can be more successful in implementing my project.

Has my internship allowed me to think outside the box and take on new leadership roles? Yes, and yes! Since our internships are finite in duration, I had to think of practical ways of delivering predictive models that would be useful for our stakeholders after I leave. Instead of building time-consuming, first principles-based models, we focused on an algorithmic framework to build data-driven models, to allow for scalability and transferability in analogous use cases. There was a lot of research and advise-seeking on the best ways to create our tools. In the end, we were able to develop a modular framework and a user-friendly front-end application to help our projects’ customers understand and adopt our tools.

This internship has helped me practice influencing without formal authority in an industrial setting. In fact, one of my favorite experiences was the opportunity to travel to the Amgen site in Singapore for a knowledge transfer session, where I taught end users how to use my machine learning-based applications.

 

image

 

I had a lot of support throughout my internship. There were biweekly meetings with my faculty advisors, during which Anna, our helpful LGO research collaboration manager, also provided advice. Within Amgen, I relied heavily on alumni for mentorship, both in navigating my project and the company.

Most importantly, my fellow LGO classmates provided invaluable support. Within Amgen, the LGO interns have created a close-knit community, collaborating on project topics and providing useful resources to one another. For the whole class, we hold weekly calls where all LGOs can share issues and provide constructive advice to each other.

There have been some surprises along the way. From a technological sense, what’s been surprising is the ubiquitous emphasis on Big Data and AI (and all the related buzzwords) across companies and industries. I feel very fortunate to be in a community at the forefront of innovation, where I can learn about the “latest and greatest” technologies.

Regarding LGO – I can’t say I’m too surprised – but I’m very appreciative of the amazing achievements of my classmates. On top of that, everyone is humble, friendly, and funny – which makes for a great group! One of my favorite takeaways from my classes at MIT is that authenticity is the one key trait shared among diverse, effective leadership styles. As you think about applying, think about how you can present your story authentically and show your genuine aspirations and passions. Be bold and think about what specific program or opportunity will allow you to be genuinely fulfilled, for the duration of the program and beyond. Good luck!

~

By Yucen Xie, LGO Class of 2019