Midsize tech companies expand career options for MIT Sloan MBAs
Students explore West Coast companies during annual "Tech Trek"
Students explore West Coast companies during annual "Tech Trek"
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 1, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- While large tech companies often have formal internship programs and small startups offer great hands-on opportunities, MIT Sloan School of Management MBA students say they are seeing increased interest from midsize tech companies. During their "Tech Trek" next week, they plan to visit several of those mid-size companies for the first time.
MIT Sloan MBA student Nicki Stutz, a New York native who is helping to organize the Tech Trek to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, says, "Past Tech Treks to this area have gone to startups and mature tech firms, but we are starting to see more interest from mid-sized tech companies now, which has affected this year's agenda."
The Tech Trek to San Francisco and Silicon Valley includes first-time visits to Uber, Square, Airbnb, and Fitbit as well as visits to Twitter, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, VMware, Apple, and Walmart eCommerce. The MBAs also will meet with alumni in the area.
"Students are very excited to visit a range of hardware and software companies to see which ones might be good cultural fits and to learn more about MBA roles in these organizations. It's a unique opportunity to visit these companies in person and get a better sense for what the Bay Area and Silicon Valley are like," says Stutz, noting that around 30 first-year MBA students will participate in the Trek.
Ways Hassas, an MIT Sloan MBA student who also is helping to organize the San Francisco and Silicon Valley Tech Trek, adds that students selected to visit leading companies within disruptive spaces, such as the shared economy, fintech, and cloud computing/storage.
"For example, fintech is a booming trend at the moment so we chose to visit Square, a payments-based tech company that had an IPO last month. In cloud computing/storage, we are visiting VMware, which is on the forefront of merging companies' private cloud infrastructure with the public cloud to effectively create new 'hybrid clouds.' And we are visiting the undisputed leaders within the sharing economy segment, namely Uber and Airbnb," he says.
MIT Sloan MBA students also have the option of participating in a Tech Trek to Seattle, where the focus remains on larger, established tech companies. The 15 students on this leg of the trek will visit Tableau, Amazon, Disney Interactive, and Microsoft as well as meet with MIT Sloan alumni.
Adi Hodis, an MIT Sloan MBA student from the Boston area who is helping to organize the Seattle Tech Trek, says, "Seattle has long been associated with creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. I'm looking forward to seeing that innovative atmosphere at each company's home turf. I'm also excited to give my fellow students the best opportunity to understand the environment and culture of these firms, which continue to inspire students to return year after year."
She notes that all of these companies have participated in past Tech Treks in Seattle, except for Tableau, which MIT Sloan students previously visited at its location in San Francisco. "We're looking forward to visiting Tableau's Seattle headquarters to see demos of its analytics visualization software and gain insight into more of its innovative work," says Hodis, adding that another first-time stop for students will be Amazon's new brick-and-mortar bookstore.
MIT Sloan MBAs participating in the Tech Treks average four years of professional experience and take a course on how to understand corporate culture. While these treks focus on tech companies, MIT Sloan also offers treks that target other sectors.
The MIT Sloan School of Management is where smart, independent leaders come together to solve problems, create new organizations, and improve the world.
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SOURCE MIT Sloan School of Management
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