Ep. 08 - Alumni Stories - Rachel Manca

WBS Podcast #8 - Rachel Manca

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Welcome to the WPI Business School podcast, where we catch up with our incredible alumni and students.

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You will hear why they chose WPI, how they chose their program of study, how they got involved on campus activities, and what their WPI experience has been like.

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I'm your host, Bengus Tulu, Professor of Information Systems and Technologies here in the Business School, and I'm excited to welcome Rachel Manka.

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Rachel is a Class of 2020 alum with a bachelor's in management Information Systems, and she is currently a senior Cyber Security Analyst at Boston Scientific.

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Rachel, it's great to have you with us today.

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Thank you.

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Excited to be here.

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All right, so I want to first start with a quick update and a related question.

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We recently renamed our Management Information Systems program to Information Systems and Technologies.

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As you know, our program is focused on developing a deep understanding of business technology, information and users to prepare students to design, implement and leverage systems that are the backbone of organizations and society today.

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I like to refer to us as the bridge between technical and business worlds where we need to embrace our strong technical and business acumen while keeping our focus on the users and information needs.

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Rachel, what do you think of this name change?

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Yeah, I think it, it's definitely a change to help me current market needs.

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I was looking at the program guide for what classes are being offered now, and I noticed there's a lot more AI, analytics, fintech.

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So I think that definitely speaks to kind of where technology's evolving and where there's needs in the market.

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And IT definitely helps to build broad set of skills that you can be used and adapted across a lot of different areas.

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Great.

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Now let's talk about your journey at WPI.

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How did you learn about WPI and Information systems program?

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Yeah, so I grew up locally, so it's always been kind of part of my life.

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In middle school, I competed in definition imaginations that state competition tell the WPI that if she has to host for like high school state basketball games.

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So I used to attend those.

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WPI would send researchers and professors to my high school and it like a science club and present to us.

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My dad's also an along, so he would take me to the tech advisors Network that the Business School runs, the incubator program.

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So I would sit in on those.

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He took me to like the National Academy of Inventors kickoff thing that WPI hosted a couple years ago.

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He's in that.

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So when I was touring around, like nothing really just felt like home like WPI did.

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It's just kind of always been there, always been part of my life, and I always wanted to like be there one day.

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I started as a computer science major, but then I found that I wanted more of a balance between technology and business.

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So I switched over to MAS after sophomore year and definitely found that there was more like that balance versus just the straight tech.

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That's wonderful.

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It seems like you grew up at WPI.

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Literally, you grew up at WPI and I know you landed an internship while you were at WPI in Boston Scientific.

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Tell us a little bit about how you ended up with this internship in your radar 1st, and then how did that internship turn into this full time job that you currently have as a senior cybersecurity analyst?

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Yeah, so it wasn't exactly on my radar when I walked into the WPI career fair.

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I had heard of Boston Scientific from a lot of friends that were studying biomedical engineering at WPI and were really interested in the BOSS scientifics like mission and values and like kind of building the devices.

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When I was in the WCI career fair and I had my list of copies I want to talk to, I pulled off for the sacks.

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I was lost and the read that BOSS Scientific read my name tag in class year and realized that was the right profile that they were looking for for IT internships and she just walked over and started talking to me.

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She walked away from the booth and came over and I was really sold.

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Listening to her talk about how the IT department, Adboss Scientific can help really with the patient cared, how IT was part of making an impact that on patients.

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Adboss Scientific and they had some great opportunities available in their cybersecurity department.

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I talked to their director of cybersecurity who was also the career fair and I walked out of there and immediately applied after.

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While I was there, the internship at Boss Scientific kind of leads into an opportunity to apply to the two year rotational program.

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So after the summer was over, I was offered a role in the technology leadership development program.

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So it was a two year program where I rotated through four different teams.

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So I worked on manufacturing, sales enablement, cybersecurity, cloud team and there was all sorts of training on like leadership presentation skills like public speaking.

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So it's like a really cool program to kind of transition from college to post grad like so I kind of like that bridge.

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So yeah, they kept with it and it was it's been a great place to be.

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I think this is such a kind of new current team.

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Every time I talk to our alumni, we're hearing this leadership program are only end up in these leadership programs and they get to actually experience every kind of IT related job that they could have in an organization before they pick what they want to do.

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So you ended up in the cybersecurity world by actually knowing what other options are available.

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So that's great.

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And can you make the connection between your current role and the education that you had and how it prepared you for this role?

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Yeah, I didn't think my education definitely prepared me for the current role.

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There's definitely a lot of skills that I brought in from the courses I took.

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So the project management type skills, which I know doesn't scream Cyberstreet in general, but bringing those types of skills into the team, I definitely feel like gave me advantage.

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And looking at the overall like systems, when you're in working as cyber security incident, you have to understand where the data is flowing, where it's been, where it's going, how it's connected into the network.

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So you have to be able to look at that holistic system viewed in order to understand exactly what's happening and where there might be a hole in your system where someone might be hiding.

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So all those kind of skills LED into building a cyber analyst profile there.

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But yeah, I mean, we're always proud of our ability to bring that systems perspective to our students while they are learning to be technically savvy and business savvy and be able to communicate across these different disciplines.

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So I'm not surprised.

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And you picked security to be the place that you apply these skills, and that's wonderful.

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And I think one of the interesting memories that you may recall from your WPI time and education is what we're also interested in picking on any class, any professor, any advice that you remember of that you say?

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That's what really stuck with me.

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Yeah, I definitely think that system analysis design class was good for a holistic view.

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The telecommunications class was also really beneficial.

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I think networking is definitely a complex topic when you're looking at such a large enterprise, global company.

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So being able to like track data flows is so complex, and I think that helped provide a good foundation.

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With a shout out to Professor Corzetta.

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I did my MTP with him.

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We ended up designing a business intelligence solution for the Business School.

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And through that process we get to use Tableau.

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And that was something I was able to directly bring into my team.

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I looked when I joined the team that I'm on now, they're making all these like manual PowerPoints and they're pulling data from everywhere like every month.

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And I looked at it and I was like, well, this sucks like a really long, slow TDF process.

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And then I said, let me have those PowerPoints and I'll show you like what this would look like in Tableau.

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And I created this whole Tableau dashboard that's readily available and in one central location all times.

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And then the other team saw it.

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And now I have this like Betrick's enterprise I've got going on internally.

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So those skills definitely translated directly into my job role.

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That's wonderful.

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That's so good to see our courses being directly applied.

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I will let professor courts at NFL and I know that our students are always busy with a lot of courses.

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We have these terms.

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We have a lot of courses that you're taking, but we also know that our students have fun on campus.

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So tell us a little bit about how you got involved with campus life.

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Did you join any clubs, teams?

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What else did you do at WPI?

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Yeah, during my time, I was heavily involved in Greek life.

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So I served as an officer of my sorority and I lived in Greek housing.

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I was also a member of the concert band.

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I was on that officer group as well.

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I was also in order of Mega and Omar Khan Delta Cabo, which are two leadership societies that a lot of activities and everything fits right?

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Everything fits.

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WPI is a place where you can excel in your academics and you can also have fun and find the joy that you want to find because we have so many opportunities here that despite being a small campus, you wouldn't notice how many opportunities exist.

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So is there any WPI tradition that stuck with you because we have a number of them.

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Yeah, there's number.

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I was trying to think earlier and I think crossing your old bridge is a fun tradition.

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Like when you go over the bridge, there's a lot of like anticipation.

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You're with all these new people, you've just met them.

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And then the second thing you cross that there's still some anticipation because you're going into a new stage of life, but this time you're crossing with a bunch of old friends.

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So it's a nice bookend experience to like the WTI experience.

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There's nothing like the bridge.

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Even the faculty lives to be on the bridge and high five students going in and going out.

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So I think we all have a common love about WPI there.

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All right, so now that you're out of WPI, you're an adult, you're working, had some time to think about this.

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If you were to go back and give your college self one piece of advice, what would that be?

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Think if I would tell specifically my freshman self to attend office hours he supplies to academic Resource Centre resources more and build better connections with professors in TA.

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I feel like that was something I learned by senior year, but something that would have helped me more as a freshman.

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Yeah.

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Stay connected with faculty.

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Right here at WPI.

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We actually have plenty of opportunities.

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We have a great student to faculty ratio and we want to see our students.

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That's why we are here at WPI and then not in another college.

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So I'd really appreciate you bringing that up.

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How about a college hack that you still work with that runs in your life?

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Something that you are relying on The 30 should.

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I taught me to keep my Outlook calendar up to date.

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I was booming out in high school, but then at WPI, all these like meeting invites and keeping calendars up today.

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So I think a lot of time management and past prioritization skills because, but the seven week terms, you have to learn to prioritize what needs to be done when it needs to be done and keep moving or else, yeah, adapting to all the different changes.

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Beautiful.

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And since you already talked about how you were balancing different activities at WPI, your courses and your other club activities, how do you keep work life balance now?

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What's your secret?

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Oh God, I love that secret.

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I just finished the Masters, so I was doing a lot of work.

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So recently I've been trying to find that balance.

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So I've been trying to pick up rock climbing, golf.

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I do a lot of reading, and then I spend a lot of time with family.

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I have a lot of local families, so it's nice to be able to connect with all of them and spend time with them.

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That's wonderful.

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Yeah.

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Social connections is one of the things that I try to keep definitely time for to balance life and work.

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It's not always easy.

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My last question to you, and this can go in any direction at this point, but what would you say to someone considering Business School at WPI as a student?

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Any suggestions, recommendations?

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I think if you're considering the Business School at WPI definitely allows you to gain a really balanced education with a strong foundation in engineering and technology because you have all those engineering and like STEM classes available too.

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It's a great opportunity to be exposed to innovation, different research, and like real world practitioners.

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I like the classes, like there was an MIS class where we had people come in and judge us on like different projects that we did.

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The MTP presentations, you usually have local people come in and judge those.

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So there's a lot of good connections to like real world practitioners and what you're using in school and how that applied in like real life work.

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There you go, you heard it, everyone.

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WPI Business School rocks.

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This has been an amazing conversation.

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Rachel, Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and insights with us and with everyone listening.

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And thank you to our listeners.

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

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Until next time, remember STEM plus business equals impact.