Before LGO I spent 7 years as a submarine officer in the US Navy. A nuclear-powered submarine is a massively complicated system but surprisingly most of the technical problems that arise have already been solved; it’s just a matter of looking up the solutions. I am thankful to have had the privilege to serve. I grew a lot and worked with amazing people, now I want to go and solve new problems in the civilian world.
An MBA had not been on my radar until a colleague convinced me to go to Sloan’s Veterans Visit Day. The Veterans Association has been a fantastic group that helped me as I applied, interviewed, and moved to a new city mid-pandemic. The other Sloanies I met that day gave me the sense that MIT was very collaborative and a little geeky—a perfect fit.
It’s a little intimidating leaving the Navy–you’re used to having a 20+ year career path laid out for you in exacting detail and going into a civilian world where you could do anything. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do after the Navy, but I was sure I wanted it to involve both cutting edge technology and leading people. Business school was a way to give myself 2 years to try a lot of things in depth and make some decisions about my civilian career.
What I found over the LGO Summer Core was a diverse group of very talented people, all invested in building a strong LGO community. Despite being totally virtual, and missing out on some traditional summer events, the 6 of us in my summer core team became extremely close (we still call ourselves “The Hive”) and became a support network as we all transitioned from our jobs, moved to a new city, and just generally dealt with this challenging year. Starting the fall semester in person kick-started networking and gave me a chance to expand my network and meet other Sloanies from a variety of backgrounds.
If you’re active duty or a veteran and you’re thinking about what to do next I’d offer a few thoughts from my experience. You’re already a leader, but you’ve likely been working at such a high stress level that you haven’t had much time for reflection on all the amazing things you’ve done. School is a fantastic structured opportunity to grow from those experiences in a way that is much easier because you have a little distance from them. It is also a way for other people in the community to learn from all the incredible leadership challenges you have faced.
I cannot overstate that the community here is amazing. I was worried leaving the Navy that I wouldn’t find the same camaraderie again. The culture at MIT is different, but I’ve found friendships every bit as strong as I had in the Navy. Lastly, getting back into engineering classwork has been challenging after several years without much math, but it’s also been incredibly exciting. If you really enjoyed a class on lasers, combustion engines, semiconductor physics, or even nuclear reactors, and want that excitement to be a part of your career, LGO is perfect.
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By Andrew Tresansky, LGO Class of 2022