Ep. 04 - Student Stories - Michaela Cluett

WBS Podcast #4 - MIchaela Cluett

0:07
Welcome to the WPI Business School Podcast, where we catch up with incredible students in the Business School and hear why they chose WPI, how they chose the programs they are studying, how they are involved on campus, and what their WPI experience has been like.

0:22
I'm your host, Tom Clark, Associate director for Outreach and Program Operations, and today I'm excited to welcome Michaela Cluett, a senior bachelor's in business student and also a master's in management student.

0:34
Michaela is also very involved on campus here at WPI.

0:37
Michaela, it's great to have you with us today.

0:41
Thank you so much.

0:41
I'm excited to be here.

0:43
So to get started, let's talk a little bit about your journey of the WPI.

0:47
How did you find out about WPI?

0:49
How did it land on your radar?

0:51
Of course.

0:52
So a little bit fun fact about me is that my mom has worked at WPI for over the last 25 years.

0:59
So I grew up knowing all about WPII, even went to preschool right next door.

1:04
There's a church right next door that I went and I had preschool and daycare there.

1:09
So I've been on campus for a long time.

1:12
And then just going through the college journey, what I was looking for, I was really interested in business, really interested in more of the management kind of style.

1:21
So looking for leadership opportunities, project management, and kind of applying that to business.

1:26
And truthfully, WPI was always going to be a place I was going to apply.

1:30
And then for me, it wasn't until I came to campus, I went on a campus tour and I fell in love with the community that WPI has to offer.

1:41
And after talking a little bit more with Norm Wilkinson when he used to work here at WPI in the Business School, finding out what being a business student is like really open my eyes.

1:51
And WPI offers the kind of business that I'm looking for, not really focusing on specific part of business or like finance or marketing, but having an overarching idea.

2:03
And I really enjoyed that.

2:04
And I really loved the community that not only WPI has to offer, but also the Business School specifically has to offer.

2:11
Amazing.

2:11
I love that.

2:12
We love Norm.

2:13
He retired a few years ago.

2:14
Was there anything that Norm said in these conversations that sparked an idea for you?

2:19
He was always someone willing to meet with me and talk it out with me, which is what I really appreciated.

2:24
I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to get lost in what I was doing.

2:27
And he always made himself available.

2:30
And then he also really talked about just how like business students at WPI are able to have like their, it's a very generalized role and you're able to tailor it to what you're looking for.

2:43
And so like I said, as myself, as someone that was looking for project management, looking to lead others in the most, he said that that was possible with what I was looking for, which honestly led me to looking at the master's in management.

2:58
Oh really?

2:58
So that kind of worked out perfectly because he was going to put you on that pathway.

3:02
Just so happens that the management program was an option as well.

3:06
Yep.

3:07
I remember meeting with Norm in my first year and being like, how do I get this to work?

3:11
When can I start taking courses?

3:13
And he was able to walk through it all with me and I really, really appreciated it.

3:17
I think that is one of the interesting things about WPII, love the, the bachelor's, master's, BSMS program.

3:24
Well, for students that have that drive and have that motivation to say, you know what, I, I think I want to pick up his credential on here.

3:31
I think that's great.

3:32
And the fact that you put the time in to see how you can make it work and the staff were there for you to be able to talk through that, that's really great.

3:40
What was your first experience like getting the campus?

3:43
Because you'd grown up in the area, you would see the campus you've been around, so you probably had more familiarity with the lay of the land than say, someone coming from halfway around the world.

3:53
Did you commute or did you live on campus?

3:56
I lived on campus.

3:58
I lived in stod C Shout out.

4:04
No, it definitely for me.

4:07
The transition to WPI was something obviously very new.

4:11
I felt extremely grateful because I had multiple different support systems in place.

4:16
I'll never forget first day of classes.

4:18
I woke up extra early.

4:20
I was like, this is my first ever college class.

4:22
It was a 9:00 AM class and I remember walking across the quad and I stopped in the admissions building just to talk to my mom.

4:30
And I was really lucky to have that support system in place because she was always going to be there for me.

4:35
But she also talked a lot about the other resources on campus and how everyone was there to answer my questions.

4:41
After like the first day of classes, I think I had business 10/10 with Jed Lindholm and I was like, I need to like talk out what the assignment is.

4:51
And I was able to very quickly e-mail and I got answers right away.

4:55
So the transition for me, like it was very new, tried out a lot of different things, but I was really grateful with all the resources that were there because if those resources weren't there, if professors and staff weren't there to help answer my questions, I think I would have been a lot more lost, but very grateful for them.

5:12
That's so great to hear.

5:13
So not only are you getting used to now being a college student, do you have a roommate your freshman year?

5:19
I did, yes, I did.

5:21
What was it like to move into a different place?

5:24
So it was very interesting for me.

5:25
Like I have a lot of people coming from my high school that were coming to WPI, but I kind of wanted to break away a little bit and meet more people.

5:34
That was something I was really kind of focused on.

5:37
Luckily for me, my roommate who was my first year roommate and then I'm actually still roommate with two today.

5:43
I ended up becoming my best friend.

5:44
She had filled out, we both filled out that housing application, answered all our little questions.

5:50
She saw my name and she ended up finding me on Instagram and then D Ming me.

5:55
And so it was really nice.

5:56
We were able to meet before we moved in.

5:59
We went to lunch at Chili's specifically, which is like, we love going back to Chili's of the Chili's.

6:05
I love Chili's.

6:07
She also was going through the experience for the first time.

6:10
We were both the eldest in our family of the kids.

6:13
So this is the opportunity to branch out, find something new.

6:16
It was definitely a transition in the beginning.

6:19
We joked around how like the only people we ever really shared rooms with were like our younger siblings for a period of time.

6:25
But we were very open and honest in the beginning.

6:29
Like this is what we expected as roommates.

6:31
We're there for each other.

6:32
And then we had like a couple of like certain ground rules.

6:37
She'll make fun of me to this day.

6:38
But my thing was that like I didn't want anyone like underneath my covers on my bed.

6:43
So if anyone was ever sitting on my bed, the covers had to be all the way up or like we were very specific about shoes on or off in the room.

6:52
So placing those ground rules early and making sure to just be open and honest with your roommate is the biggest thing.

6:58
It's very different, like coming from a place where I used to have my completely own space at home to then coming and sharing a space with someone.

7:05
There was definitely a transition period.

7:07
Like we were both very aware of what area was ours, what wasn't, but as we grew comfortable throughout the year, what we can share, what we didn't, stuff like that.

7:16
I love that we have our extended student days coming up, and I love that there's so many tools in place now that really encourage this interacting before you get here to be able to have those conversations.

7:27
I believe it's the class of 2029 Discord.

7:32
Crazy to believe, right?

7:33
2029 Wild.

7:36
I think that's incredible.

7:37
I think that's so great that you advocated for yourself.

7:40
I think some people struggle with that.

7:42
I think it's fantastic that you were able to have those conversations open and honest because let's face it, classes are hard.

7:49
You're doing a lot of work.

7:50
You're just trying to keep everything balanced, especially as a new student, you're trying to get used to the environment.

7:56
So for you to be able to have those conversations in advance, going in knowing, all right, we've got a good foundation for a good living environment.

8:04
Another thing that I always tell students when they come to campus and they're meeting their roommates, even if it is for the first time, make sure that you have the opportunity to lay the ground rules, but also make sure you're having fun at the end of the day.

8:15
It took a little bit of time for me and my roommate, but like there came a point where we would both come back from campus at the end of the night and we would be able to debrief about our days because we were open and honest with each other.

8:27
Which again, ended up like, she's my best friend now.

8:30
So like nothing I would ever change.

8:31
And I really am grateful for her.

8:33
That's awesome.

8:34
So you want to be able to have some fun.

8:35
You want to be able to do some things.

8:37
What did you find?

8:38
You know, what did you find?

8:39
Was your routine, getting involved, things like that?

8:42
Definitely took a little bit of time, but for me, like the biggest thing was throughout new student orientation, what really stood out to me was student Alumni Society.

8:51
As you're crossing the bridge, all of them in their red and white striped rugbies, they were cheering for you.

8:57
And when I learned more about what Student Alumni Society SAS was all about and how it was keeping traditions alive, fun programming for campus, that was kind of what drew me to it.

9:07
So my biggest thing was always trying to go to those meetings and like because also ended up becoming some of my closest friends, meeting some of my closest friends.

9:16
And then my biggest thing, especially the transition to college was purposefully scheduling fun times 'cause sometimes some of those quickly go to waste.

9:27
Especially transitioning to WPII feels like there's always homework to do.

9:31
You have classes more often.

9:33
How do you make sure that it's not just about classes and also making sure you're also fitting in the necessities like you need to eat meals during the day, you need to make sure that you're sleeping enough.

9:45
And it took a little bit of time, but finding the best way to schedule out your time was something that I saw was really important.

9:51
After a couple months, what I learned is that for me, the best thing that I could do for myself was completely take off Saturdays from school work.

10:00
And so that was my thing where if I had something fun to do, like trying really hard to plan for Saturday because I realized that on Sundays, I really liked this sleeping in ketchup day, doing laundry, cleaning our room, like anything of the sort.

10:14
And then my afternoons and evenings were spent preparing for the next week, whether that's doing homework or studying for exams or anything of the sort.

10:22
But Saturday for me was always like, I'm not even going to open my laptop.

10:26
I'm not even going to crack open a book.

10:28
This is my opportunity to step away from it because I realized that everyone needs to take a break in some way or the other.

10:33
And for me, making a full day not focused on school was how I reached that point.

10:39
Did you get to that point pretty early?

10:41
I would probably say it was the end of my first term here at WPA where I realized that this is something that I needed to do moving forward, and I still do to this day.

10:49
There was a period of time in my Outlook calendar.

10:51
I completely blocked it off.

10:52
So I made sure that it wasn't just classes, but also as I grew within my extracurriculars on campus and in leadership positions, I gave myself Saturday as this is my not WPI day if that's what I need.

11:06
This is where I'm focusing on myself, whether it's leaving campus or it's having something planned with my friends.

11:14
Like what can I do that's not focused on WPI?

11:18
That's pretty credible.

11:19
I think it's great that you've found that pretty quickly because I've worked there a number of colleges and universities and whether you're on a classical semester system like most college universities have, which we have on the masters level, the Graduate School level, but the seven weeks in particular, I think that's something a lot of people have questions about, like that seems really fast.

11:39
So what would a suggestion be that you would have for a student in their first term as freshmen?

11:44
I think the biggest thing is that everyone's going to hit that point eventually.

11:49
Like what am I doing?

11:50
What does this look like?

11:52
Kind of like the imposter syndrome sometimes.

11:54
And the first thing I would say is realize that you're not alone in this sense because everyone's going to go through it at some point or the other.

12:02
All of my friends, it wasn't until I want to say like the third or fourth week of our first year where we're all like, wait a minute, you've all been feeling this way too.

12:11
This is a lot to transition because you're not only transitioning into a completely new environment, completely new campus, completely new community, but you're doing all these things that are different as well, while also holding yourself to a pretty high standard when it comes to academics at WPI.

12:26
So the biggest thing is realizing you're not alone.

12:29
And then on top of that, yours is not going to be the same exact as someone else's.

12:34
And what I mean by that, it's how you deal with this isn't going to be the same exact way.

12:39
So while I talk to my friends and I'm like, what worked for me was taking off my Saturdays to focus on myself, Wellness for myself, my friends, a couple of my friends are like, I'm not doing any work past 5:00.

12:51
That's how they decided to plan their time.

12:54
Other friends of mine, they wanted to take their mornings off completely and they would rather sleep in and they'd work late into the night.

13:01
Like it's kind of like there are these main themes that you can go after.

13:05
But understanding that like everyone is going through this in a way, if you need to talk about it and come up with some ideas, but also understanding that your schedule and the solutions you create are not going to be the same as everyone else's.

13:21
That's great.

13:21
That's so true.

13:22
Every does it a little bit differently.

13:24
So going back to class, do you have a favorite professor or a favorite class that sticks in your mind as just memorable to you?

13:32
There's a couple different courses.

13:34
I think by far one of my favorite professors is Professor Hall Phillips.

13:38
Not only did I love her marketing class that I took looking at case studies and we had one long project at the end that was really fun to create, but she was also my MPP advisor, loved working with Professor HP.

13:53
And then another class I really liked, there was an entrepreneurship class with Professor Micah Chase.

13:59
And this course was based on case studies and it is one of the few courses that would happen at 8:00 AM that I was always excited to go to.

14:08
Like by far one of my favorites.

14:11
I want to say there are only 12 to 15 students in the course, but it really pushed us to speak up, give our opinions, taking a look at case studies.

14:19
It just was a really nice seminar course.

14:21
That's awesome.

14:22
So yes, Professor Hall Phillips, Professor HP love her, she's fantastic.

14:27
And yes, Professor Micah Chase, one of the things I love about him too, is that he's got so much industry experience.

14:33
One of the things I love about our faculty, just about all of them have been practitioners, but still really maintain the practice and the research.

14:42
You know, they're still doing it now.

14:44
They keep doing the work.

14:45
They're passionate about it.

14:47
And I think that excitement comes out in how they teach.

14:50
It's, it's kind of infectious that way.

14:52
You mentioned Professor HP was your MQPA major qualifying project advisor.

14:57
Would you mind talking about your MQPA little bit?

14:59
Oh my gosh, I'd love to.

15:02
So our MQP really wanted to focus on social spaces on campus and how we can create social change.

15:11
And through a bunch of different methods such as like WPI experts, we also created a survey that we got about 700 responses from the campus community, which is really great.

15:25
We had a really great response rate.

15:27
And then we also looked at a couple of other local universities social spaces that they had.

15:31
We really established different recommendations to improve already known campus social spaces, while also we actually created a long term vision and recommendation that included creating a social space on campus called Bite and Brew BYTE, which is the bite, which is kind of cool, like a little bit a little nerdy.

15:52
Bite and Brew, which is a coffee shop and pub style.

15:58
Really focusing on a couple of key important elements in social spaces that kind of indicate to students that it's time to socialize.

16:05
So looking at soft seating, certain types of lighting, entertainment, food, drink, and we tried to answer the question, how do we signal to students that it's time to socialize?

16:17
We really based our work off of the kind of creation and ideology of the Center for well-being and how that was created.

16:25
Taking a look at creating a culture shift and how do we improve or even more just talk about mental health and how do we incorporate Wellness into student schedules?

16:35
And through that, through the Okanogan charter, they talked about having a physical space dedicated on campus.

16:41
And we thought, does that ideology kind of shift to socializing as well, having a designated space, solely socializing, No one's doing work, no one is opening their computer.

16:54
And so we kind of created a couple of different recommendations to improve our social spaces on campus while also having that larger social space.

17:03
I love that you're doing this.

17:04
And it speaks to, for people that aren't familiar with the WPI culture.

17:09
WPI students, as you know, are so motivated, are so hardworking, so talented, that sometimes it's such a part of who you are.

17:19
It's hard to shut that off.

17:20
The innovative thoughts, the ideas, so many of our students coming with ideas that they want to start a business, they want to change the world if they want to do impactful work.

17:29
And it really is hard sometimes when you're that passionate to step away.

17:33
I think what you're doing in being intentional about promoting Wellness is something that we are passionate about WPI and want to be doing more of because it truly is easy to get caught up and lost in the work, right?

17:47
Because the work never stops.

17:49
So to your point about I'm not going to do any work after five, I'm not going to do anything on Saturday for you to be able to have that kind of, I don't want to say self-control, but it's kind of what it is, right?

18:01
To be able to do that.

18:02
That's such a hard skill for a lot of people that I like the what you're doing is you're systemically adding in these things to keep people accountable to themselves.

18:12
Hey, you have this no workspace, Use it.

18:16
Go there.

18:16
Don't think about the work.

18:17
Just talk about life.

18:19
Talk about you.

18:19
Take a break.

18:20
I love that.

18:21
That's so important.

18:22
Yeah.

18:23
And like you said, like it's difficult to like tell yourself to stop, especially WPI, everyone has the same idea where it's seven weeks, seven weeks, where it feels like sometimes like it's a Sprint and sometimes realizing that it's not.

18:37
And you do have time that you can build in.

18:40
But another thing that I always tell people is that like college, yes, you are here to get a degree.

18:47
That is a big thing.

18:48
But it's also really important to highlight the fact that this is a couple years in your life where it's a big pivotal transitioning moment where you are growing as an independent adult.

19:00
And that requires you to do more than just get a degree.

19:03
Sometimes it requires you to learn a lot of transferable skills that WPI is great at doing for future careers, presenting and communicating, working in teams, all of those things.

19:14
But it's also important 'cause you're there to grow and do the fun things as well.

19:18
Find the socializing aspects, make the memories, find new hobbies.

19:23
Because at the end of the day, like you don't want the rest of your life to be just about work.

19:26
You want to be able to have the things in between as well.

19:29
Yeah, that's great advice.

19:31
So you talked about having hobbies and doing things like that.

19:35
You mentioned SAS student alumni society, SASS.

19:40
I'm surprised there isn't more marketing about being sassy.

19:43
I'm sure that's being used.

19:45
Talk about some more ways that you're involved on campus.

19:48
Yeah, of course.

19:49
So I was also in our student Government association, and this past year I was actually the president of our Student government association.

19:56
Love it, which was very, very nice, very busy.

19:59
I'm trying my best to represent all of the undergraduate students.

20:02
So lots going on, lots happening, but that was super fun.

20:07
And then I also.

20:09
Have worked as a community advisor since my sophomore year, and this past year I was actually a senior community advisor.

20:16
So what that was is helping students with that first semester transition onto WP is campus.

20:23
How we're there to promote joining our community as a whole rather than just maybe like a residential hall or looking at academics.

20:31
How can we integrate you into our community?

20:34
And then I'm also involved in Greek life.

20:36
I'm in Chi Omega on campus as well, and I was going to say that's been a blast.

20:41
I've met some of the closest, some of my closest friends through Chi Omega.

20:45
And then trying to think what else done.

20:48
I've also worked in the admissions office and also our alumni office.

20:51
So you just kind of do a little bit of everything.

20:54
Yeah.

20:54
I feel like I've touched every different.

20:56
Like if you think of like being a student at WPI, like the life cycle of it, I've been able to work with all of them from prospective students through admissions, your first year as a student and that transition into college through community advising, working with students while they're here through SCA, and then after the fact working with our alumni through both Student Alumni Society and also our alumni office.

21:20
So assuming that you're not doing too many activities on Saturdays, right, 'cause you're doing all this, all this work, you're involved in all these clubs, you're taking all these classes, what do you do to just unwind and relax?

21:33
Yeah, it's a mix of things like a big hanging out with my friends.

21:37
We like to play different like card games, or we love going out to eat and testing different restaurants around Worcester.

21:44
Oh my goodness, we love.

21:46
You have any favorites?

21:47
Oh, you said Chili's.

21:48
I, well, I love Chili's, of course.

21:51
But Volturnos Monday and Tuesday nights are buy one get one pizza.

21:56
So let's go.

21:57
You guys can big group of us to go to Volturnos.

22:01
I was going to say I also love Mexicali right on Shrewsbury St.

22:06
Shrewsbury St.

22:06
has a bunch of different restaurants to try.

22:09
But the flying rhino still over there.

22:11
Oh my gosh, yes, I love the flying rhino so good.

22:14
But definitely we just like trying different things.

22:18
We really do enjoy kind of going to a bunch of on campus events.

22:21
There's a lot of traditional events that we like to do, like during a term, love going to pep rally.

22:27
I've worked at the past couple of years for SGA, but all my friends are usually come on out and there's usually free food and free T-shirts.

22:35
Of course everyone wants a super fan and you get a super fan's shirt.

22:39
They literally throw them from the stage.

22:41
It's so much fun and you have to like catch them.

22:43
There's they all try to give up, trample your classmates.

22:46
That's the trick.

22:48
Everyone's like, people are like sitting on people's shoulders and there's so much happening.

22:53
Yeah, I was going to say, and then most recently I've been going a bunch to our men's basketball team games because I had two members of my MPP group on the team.

23:03
So we used to go a bunch of those games and that was a blast as well.

23:07
They had a great run this season.

23:09
So proud of that team.

23:09
They're just, they're great people.

23:12
Yeah.

23:13
Yeah.

23:13
I love our our athletic community and it's interesting.

23:15
There's a really a good strong number of athletes in the business programs.

23:19
There's something to that.

23:19
I'm not quite sure what it is, but I'd just love to see it.

23:22
So now that you shared, there's really no, there's really no cheat code to getting a super fans T-shirt, right?

23:30
Like you just got to be at the right place at the right time on a friend's shoulders, Agile, ready to go.

23:37
Talk about maybe some like cheat codes or hacks that you already kind of talked about, you know, Saturdays.

23:44
I think that's a great tip for a lot of people if they can, if that's their style, but maybe talk about some other hacks or cheat codes to be successful in school.

23:54
Yeah, of course, trying to think.

24:02
I definitely think having a really good core group of friends that are willing to, at least for me, willing to study for a period of time, but then also if you need a sweet treat, they're down to go and get one with you is really nice.

24:16
Kind of making sure you're focusing on, like I said, and I've talked about it a lot, but like the social aspect of college is so important as well.

24:25
So making sure you're fulfilling that and you have those groups of friends that are able to be there for you both when you're being serious and academics, but also when you're trying to have a good time is important.

24:34
And then another cheat code is definitely to get involved if you as much as you can.

24:40
Now, I'm not saying to join like 10 or 12 different clubs, but be an active member of the WPI community is definitely really something that I've valued over the last couple of years.

24:52
Whether you do join clubs and you go to their general body meetings every week or if it's just being an active member on social media where you're able to see where when they're handing out the free super fans or where the free food is going to be.

25:05
I always like to say that all of this free stuff that is handed out every day on campus, it's kind of prepaid.

25:12
You paid your student life fee.

25:13
Truly take advantage of it.

25:15
There's always new things that are happening and I was going to say during the day and the evenings, there's always something that you can do where you're going to be able to not only create a really good memory, but also a lot of the time you can get some free stuff from it.

25:29
So definitely take advantage of it.

25:32
Dive head first into all of that.

25:33
You're there to get a degree, you're at WPI to get a degree, but you're also there to make those memories have a life outside of academics as well.

25:41
That's interesting.

25:42
I, I agree with you 100%.

25:43
Having that social network, having those folks to just go get a sack with while you're taking a break from your studies.

25:50
Some people will be quieter.

25:52
They're not really that outgoing.

25:53
Maybe they're more introverted or they keep for themselves.

25:56
What would your advice be to to those folks as they maybe get a little bit nervous about going to school where, oh, all these people seem like they're meeting people and getting to know people, but that's not really my way of doing things.

26:10
What would you say to that person?

26:13
One thing I love about WPI is that there's going to be a group that is always there in person.

26:16
They're going to be the loudest group in the room, and that's like a lot of the time what you hear about.

26:21
But WPI has a really great online community because we're so nerdy and we love all of our computer science and STEM and everything like that.

26:30
We definitely have a group of people that connect with people through gaming, through answering questions online.

26:37
And it wasn't until this year truly where I joined Discord and there are a bunch of different Discord options for students.

26:44
The amount of clubs that also have an online community where people are able to ask questions or send out anything that they want to share, they have that opportunity as well.

26:55
Specifically, like from what I've seen as a community advisor, I've obviously had multiple different kinds of students that come through.

27:02
I always try to tell people, make sure that you feel like you have a support system in place.

27:06
And no matter where that is, I've had students where if they could, they would rather just text me like whenever you have to do like little check insurance to be like, hey, how's the first couple weeks of school going?

27:18
They'd rather just send me a message on Discord or through Slack and they're like, hey, I'm good.

27:24
I do this.

27:25
My classes are great, everything's good.

27:27
I have other students who would love to meet me at Starbucks and just we talk for an hour and they tell me everything.

27:34
I have other students who are just like quick little, yeah, we're good, everything's great and I'm done.

27:40
I tell students, just know that you do have resources in place if you have any questions.

27:44
But I think WPI students, they've had an opportunity to meet their people.

27:49
What's really nice about WPI is that you can find someone else that is nerdy about something, whether that's nerdy about Star Wars.

27:56
We have an entire club dedicated called the Galactic Senate.

28:00
If you're nerdy about like Wild Thing, underwater hockey, never heard about underwater hockey until I came to WPI.

28:09
Yeah, we have an underwater hockey team and things like that.

28:12
You're able to find your people, which I think is really great.

28:15
Yeah, that's fantastic to hear.

28:17
Because I think whether it was COVID or not or otherwise, I think a lot of people really kind of leaned into the online engagement, you know, ways.

28:25
And I think especially with the popularity of things like gaming right, where you can literally play a game with anybody in the world anytime you want, there are a lot of people just thrive in online communities.

28:38
I was giving you a hard time before we chatted today about we have some friends that are like these genius Minecrafters.

28:44
Oh my gosh, yes.

28:45
Are they even called Minecrafters?

28:47
I don't even know if that's a thing.

28:48
I'm not sure I'm official.

28:50
I'm officially 1 though, my friend.

28:51
Oh, you won't.

28:52
You're officially a Minecraft.

28:53
Hey, I'm, I'm trying my best love to hear that.

28:56
I love to see that people are kind of getting together.

28:58
I have seen students game in a room on campus on a console.

29:01
But that's great.

29:02
Find your people.

29:03
I think that's a really, really important message that yeah, there's a little something for everyone at WPI.

29:09
So before we wrap up, I think people know WPI as this sort of legendary engineering school, right?

29:18
But 160 years old.

29:20
So many very, very successful alums have gone on to do world changing things.

29:25
But occasionally people will say there's a Business School at WPI.

29:30
What's your response to someone that might not know that we have a Business School?

29:36
I think the biggest thing I tell them, besides the fact that I highly recommend it, the best thing about WP is Business School is that throughout all of your classes, you're traditionally working with some of these science technology, like these engineering majors that let's just say sometimes they're not the easiest to work with.

29:56
They're very methodical with how it goes, like and logical with how something should work.

30:02
But being a WPI Business School member, you're able to learn how to take all these different parts because at the end of the day, someone needs to put it all together.

30:13
Someone needs to find the different pieces that brings everything together to then bring it to, for example, bring a product to market and Business School students are able to piece everything together, lead a group of people that are focused on their own projects and bring everyone together and produce that.

30:36
That's what a Business School student can do.

30:38
But WPI Business School allows you to combine all of it and make something happen, make change happen, which I think is really important to note.

30:48
At the end of the day, all of these people that are looking at these other degrees, engineering and everything like that, really proud of them because you know, it's not a job I would want to do.

30:58
They're the right people doing it because they want to do it.

31:00
But they're going to be working for businesses and having that business background, that social background is how I focus on it.

31:07
That more socialized background helps them later on.

31:11
We've seen a lot of our alumni like leave WPI with their degree and later on they want to grow into leadership.

31:19
They want to grow into more of the business side of it.

31:21
And one thing I really value about WPI is that, yes, you can get that education that's maybe more specialized in your engineering focus or science focus, but you also can take business courses that are going to help you later on in your career as well.

31:36
That's great.

31:36
I have this conversation all the time with perspective students and family is that our students are so precision and so brilliant and have so many amazing ideas.

31:46
And eventually what's going to happen is they're going to be asked to lead a team, they're going to be asked to lead an initiative, they're going to be asked to lead an organization for operations or chief operating officer, CEO, or maybe they'll have so many ideas, they'll say maybe I should try this on my own.

32:06
But I would say in every one of those circumstances, having some business experience is beneficial.

32:12
And you're right, you're exactly right.

32:14
We have alums come back all the time from every corner of engineering, electrical, mechanical, Fire Protection.

32:23
Was a engineering student here at WPI and is now the CEO of Levi's.

32:28
Like it's going to.

32:30
It happens a lot for our alumni.

32:31
And I think that background is important.

32:34
Yeah, there's got to be some research out there about like the engineer to CEO pipeline, because so many, so many successful people in in every industry start out as engineers and get to that leadership place.

32:46
You and I are on the same page about this, but we're telling the world, I've heard this from multiple alums recently, that not every idea is a good one.

32:53
In a world where resources aren't infinite, unlike Minecraft, right, where you just keep going and just keep digging, you'll find what you need.

33:01
In a world where resources aren't infinite, you have to pick and choose which projects you work on.

33:07
And if you're a creator and you're a thinker and you're a brilliant engineer, how do you make your ideas have business impact?

33:14
How do you ensure that they have a business impact?

33:17
And I think that is such a critical piece of the work that we're doing in the Business School.

33:21
So thank you for that and sharing that insight.

33:24
With that said, what would you say to anyone considering becoming a Business School student at WPI?

33:33
I would say if you're considering it, definitely take some courses.

33:39
If you're even somewhat thinking about it, try it out.

33:42
That's the biggest thing you can do because there's no harm in taking a Business School course.

33:48
You're learning something, whether it's a lot of Business School courses, especially leadership practice, you can apply that.

33:57
If you decide that business isn't something you're interested in, you can apply it to something else very easily.

34:02
A lot of the skills you're learning throughout business is transferable, and I think that that's really valuable.

34:08
But if you're interested in becoming a business major, highly recommend.

34:11
It's the best major at WPI and you'll be set really well after college and you're going to learn a ton.

34:19
That's great.

34:21
What would you say to the senior in high school that might be looking at a bunch of business schools in general?

34:26
What is it about the Business School at WPI that might be a little different or that would stand out compared to other types of business schools?

34:34
When I looked at this when I was doing my college search, WPI Business School was extremely collaborative compared to other universities or specifically business schools.

34:45
WPI Business School students gain transferable skills that really help them work in a team and collaborate.

34:51
How do you find the best group of people to create the best product, to create the most effective process?

34:58
And I think WPI students as a whole are really good at project group work.

35:03
They love working in teams, whether they want to or not.

35:05
Sometimes they're able to make it work in a team, and I think that that's something that really stood out for me.

35:10
And realizing that like everyone wants to change the world, but you're not going to be able to do it by yourself.

35:15
You're going to work on it in a team.

35:17
And WPI really focused on that.

35:19
Michaela, thank you for sharing all of your experiences and all of your insights.

35:23
It's been a pleasure.

35:24
Thank you.

35:25
Thanks for having me.

35:26
It's been nice catching up with you and thank you to our listeners.

35:30
If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and share it with someone who might be considering a WPI Business School program for the next step in their learning journey.

35:40
Until next time, remember STEM plus business equals impact.