You may have additional questions that are best answered by our partner offices on campus:

• Office of the First Year (OFY): first-year advising & academics, orientation, FPOPs, and/or MIT’s First-Gen Low-Income Program
• Student Financial Services (SFS): financial aid, scholarships, student employment, and advising on financial literacy
• Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP): applying for undergraduate research opportunities, deadlines, eligibility, and funding questions
• International Student Office (ISO): visas and travel, employment/work visa authorization, and OPT/CPT

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

In a panel event held in September 2024, two MIT alums along with a Sanofi employee shared their insights and offered advice to those interested in careers in biopharma and health sciences. Read on for the summary of the event. Thank you to the panelists and to Kien Phuong ’26 (Computer Science & Molecular Biology major), MIT Biotech Group, who moderated the discussion.

• Eli Lilly – Nicole Yang ’15, Senior Advisor (MIT, PhD in Chemical Engineering; Postdoc at Harvard Medical School)
• Moderna – Bill Kelleher, Associate Director, Technical Development Operations (MIT, Chemical-Biological Engineering)
• Sanofi – Giulia Del Cane, Head of Ethics & Business Integrity Projects and Compliance Officer for Enabling Functions, Global Specialty Care (Università Cattaneo, MBA)

What are the differences between college and work?

Solving complex problems is something that takes place every day, and there is a different mindset to approaching complex problems. One such complexity would be combining technical thinking with organizational approach. This combination goes beyond what is typically done during an MBA program, for example. Also, at work one can finally understand how much research costs, and learn how to control this cost through the balance of risk management and making-things-happen approach.

What do you enjoy most about working in biopharma & health sciences?

The science, the fast-paced environment, the passion seen in others. Working in biopharma also offers an overall good learning experience. Roles are often very cross-functional, and involve working with digital teams, researchers, and manufacturers. As a result, one gets to wear a different hat in every meeting.

What challenges do you face in your work?

Work involves generating data every day. Some of this data is very important and requires adapting, good communication, and adjusting to other people. For example, some people need a lot of details when discussing a data set, but not everyone.

In industry you are a part of a team, while in grad school you work on your own project. Developing soft skills is very important, especially communication skills. These skills involve not only presenting, but most importantly conveying your points and adjusting to different audiences. Overall, understanding science was easy, but managing people was challenging and took some adapting.

At work, one needs to make decisions very fast and fully understanding other teams (e.g. R&D) can be challenging. If a team is international, potential language barriers can create additional challenges.

What advice do you have for those who want to pursue this field?

You study or have studied at MIT, so take a moment to appreciate how good you are and have the confidence. Trust yourself, but keep your options open. Definitely take the time to work on your soft skills: you can be great, but if you don’t convey your ideas well, you will not be selected for positions. Learn active listening, but understand and accept the fact that there will always be some miscommunication within teams.

Your goal should be to find your passion. The best way to do that is to talk to alums, explore and learn, follow up on things that get you excited, develop you leadership skills, learn how to run meetings and present.

When considering applicants for internships, employers look for technical skills, but also for what about the company stands out to a student and how that ties to their experience. Do your homework, research the company, and be strategic about what internships you apply for. Make sure you resonate with the company, and fit with their values and mission.

Lastly, become comfortable with failure. Build your bravery to take risks and mess up. One panelist shared that they used to be uncomfortable in front of leadership because of a fear of failure. Eventually, they ended up embracing failure and perceiving mistakes as a learning opportunity.

How do you achieve work-life balance?

This is definitely a challenge. After starting a family, working long nights is much more difficult, if at all possible. To balance work with life, define what you want to accomplish and seek a supportive network. It can also play to your advantage to look specifically for an employer who provides flexibility for working parents (so that they have the flexibility to catch up on work when available).

In general, aim to work for a company that reflects your values and recognizes your talents.

What is the future of technology and healthcare?

Artificial Intelligence is having a huge impact on the pharma industry. That comes with an unwritten requirement to use AI data in an ethical way, even when regulations are not yet in place. It is a very powerful technology, and the possibilities are amazing (with ChatGPT being a good example of that). The field of genetics medicine is also exciting and carries a lot of potential.

Written by: Kamila Madry, Career Fellow

In a panel event held in September 2024, four MIT alums shared their insights and offered advice to those interested in a career in the field of mechanical engineering. Read on for the summary of the event. Thank you to the panelists and to Dr. Brian Anthony, Principal Research Scientist, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, who moderated the discussion.

• Chartwell Consulting – Marianne Olsen ’19, Engagement Manager 
• Diversified Technologies, Inc. – Megan McCandless ‘20, Senior Engineer
• Lexington Medical – Jameson Kief ‘20, Director of Engineering
• Radia – Thad Daguilh ’19, Mechanical Engineer
  

How did your time at MIT prove to be useful? Please discuss skills, classes, and your overall insights.

Since working with people is a huge part of a job in the field of mechanical engineering, essential skills include learning how to interact with peers outside of the classroom, how to communicate effectively with others, and how to work through text. Think of customer-service-level communication skills.

At work, every project is different, and MIT experience helps with learning everything very fast. Also, the MIT experience allowed for gaining an understanding how to make things real and deal with real-life components that aren’t made perfectly. Although, design controls and the rules behind following various ISO standards was something learned in internships, not necessarily at MIT.

The most useful and recommended classes are 2.001 (Mechanics and Materials I) and 2.002 (Mechanics and Materials II). The 2.002 class is especially useful in aerospace. Additionally, having a basic understanding of Course 6 (Computer Science) is very helpful given the increasing use of software in the field of mechanical engineering.

In general, explore the field and check out different industries, aerospace and beyond, as it all comes back to the same fundamentals. Take internships, find out what you want, go back and take classes that suit your needs. Be solid on the fundamentals, but remember that you don’t need to understand everything deeply right away. Also, know how to get back to your MIT knowledge, take notes during classes and keep those notes, because your knowledge is going to fade away with time. Finally, take broader classes, don’t get too narrow in your education. Your passions might completely change or you might not get the job you were hoping to.

What other skills/traits/experiences should a great candidate have?

As teamwork is essential in the field of mechanical engineering, hiring managers are looking for students who have been on any team (including sports), and had a chance to learn not only how to communicate and cooperate, but most importantly how to fail as a team. A great candidate has to be able to work with people, understand their emotions and life outside of work. You will be spending a lot of time with your coworkers, so being interested in creating a healthy work environment is very important. Additionally, giving and receiving feedback are other key communication skills.

Having genuine passion and working on personal engineering projects, which involves building and learning from those projects, will always make a candidate stand out.

What advice do you have for current students?

Making things real can be very fulfilling, and MechE is an attractive field specifically because of how broad it is. Look for job that will give you real joy (for example, if you don’t enjoy working in CAD, don’t build a portfolio to get a job you won’t like). If you make mistakes, learn from them and move on. Talk one-on-one with alumni, ask them about their experience – what worked and what didn’t.

Take both practical and theoretical classes to find out what you like the most, whether it’s hands-on and making, or thinking about it. After each semester, take a moment to reflect on what you liked about it, and what you want to do more of. Step out of your comfort zone, don’t only interact with like-minded people, learn from people who have different experiences, become a well-rounded person. Talk to your peers, professors, alumni to learn what they do and figure out what you would enjoy. Practice being curious, find comfort in discomfort.

How is working different from studying at MIT?

At MIT, students are trained to solve a problem to get one correct answer. In real world, getting 80% of the desired result and having correct logic in enough. When solving an engineering problem at work, make sure you understand what the problem is. Specifically, don’t just be creative about a solution, be creative about framing the problem. Moreover, using ChatGPT to ask how people fixed a specific problem can help with getting the answers faster. In general, keep in mind that working is easier than being at MIT.

What are some of the things to know during a job interview?

If you get a chance to do so during the interview process, pay attention to how people interact in the workplace: do they chat, do they seem happy.

Ask your interviewers how they deal with failure: ask about a time when they failed, pay attention to whether they allow their employees to fail. Ask them what they currently work on to get a sense of their priorities. Additionally, ask them about what they like and don’t like about working at their current company.

Get curious about what your typical day at work would look like, and always be prepared to ask questions when asked “Do you have any questions?”. Make sure to come to the interview with a set of thoughtful questions in mind. Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for references from the employer. Just as they can ask you for references, it’s worth knowing that you can do so, too.

What does your job look like, and how did you find it?

A typical job of a mechanical engineer involves working in CAD, talking to users to understand their needs, and going back to CAD to test new features (sketch -> CAD -> prototype). On the other hand, a typical job of a researcher involves working on different research projects at the same time, working in CAD, building and testing, and writing grant proposals. It is important to note that a researcher needs to be good at documenting work as there are often long breaks in funding (if a project if federally funded). Those mechanical engineers who work in factories will typically spend a lot of time on the factory floor, meeting with high-level people and making sure that projects are taken care of holistically.

Internships are a great way to build experience. Try to be proactive about it, though. If you know your company of interest is in town, send emails and try to meet. Additionally, go to conferences, present your work, and network with people.

Remember that MIT Alumni might be your best network yet. One of the panelists applied for jobs at 230 places. After not having received a single job offer, they eventually reached out to an MIT alum working at their current company.

Written by: Kamila Madry, Career Fellow

In a panel event held in September 2024, four MIT alums shared their insights and offered advice to those interested in a career in the financial services sector. Read on for the summary of the event. Thank you to the panelists and to Urmi Samadar, Assistant Dean, Master of Finance Program, MIT Sloan School of Management, who moderated the discussion.

• Balyasny Asset Management – David Xu ’18 (MFin), Senior Quantitative Researcher
• Citadel Securities – Justin Lim ’21 (BS, MEng EECS), Quantitative Researcher
• Five Rings – Yuqiu Fu ’23 (PhD in Math), Quantitative Researcher
• Jane Street – Joshua Lee ’22 (BS in EECS & Math), Quantitative Trader

What are some possible roles in the finance sector suitable for MIT alums?

Depending on individual interest, there are many different roles that MIT alums can have in the finance sector.

When it comes to trading, different roles are possible. For instance: the actual manual trading, software engineering, quantitative research, or modeling. For those interested in hedge funds, the possibilities include researching new ideas, as well as making predictions and executing them (using statistics and mathematics). MIT alums would also be great candidates to do research, which in the finance sector typically entails collecting and using alternative data, and monetizing ideas in systematic ways.

Regardless of a specific role, the finance sector typically involves long working hours, 10 to 11 per day (but not weekends).

How did you decide on your career paths? What resources did you find useful in making a decision?

There are a few ways that make it much easier to make a decision regarding a career path. Going to career fairs tops the list, as it quickly offers numerous opportunities to talk to different companies and learn what skills they look for. Another great way is to do several different internships, which is particularly useful when deciding between academia and industry. Both of the above also create natural opportunities to network, get to know the people, and make those valuable professional connections.

Job interviews: What do they look like and what skills do the recruiters look for?

Job interviews in the finance sector tend to be very technical, but a fundamental technical background is typically sufficient. What the recruiters are trying to gauge is whether a candidate’s thought process is correct. In order to assess that, the recruiters present tricky case studies. After the candidate gets a chance to work on a case for a moment, the recruiter will offer a new piece of information to test how the candidate is learning and adapting to new information.

Job interviews involving the use of Python are also to be expected. Depending on a role within a company, Python is often used on a daily basis.

For those doing research, it is known that first ideas usually do not work. A good candidate will be able to find out why those first ideas didn’t work and offer ways of improving them. Additionally, strong collaboration and communication skills, along with agility are very important.

Can you share your thoughts on professional growth within organizations?

After completing an onboarding tutorial, new employees are given significant responsibility very quickly. They are also offered a lot of recognition and can almost immediately have impact. There is room for asking a lot of questions and doing a lot of research. Progression within organizations is very dynamic, but there are no linear A-B-C promotions.

Which MIT experiences (classes/clubs/resources) did you find the most helpful?

Software engineering class; Introduction to discreet math; Any statistics-related class; Analytics of finance class; Financial engineering class; Advanced corporate finance; Machine learning (at CSAIL); Trading clubs; Alumni database; UROP.

Written by: Kamila Madry, Career Fellow

Want more resources and advice? Check out our curated page for considering which majors might be right for you.

Scavenger hunt

Using resources from the Alumni Office, including the directory and Alumni Advisors Hub, find alumni who meet the first criteria and then identify their undergraduate major of study. At the end of the scavenger hunt, reflect on the linearity (or non-linearity) between majors and career paths. You might begin to realize that there is quite a bit of variety out there when it comes to careers associated with different majors, and that is okay!

Major bingo

Instead of traditional BINGO cards, how about using some MAJOR cards to help you identify what different majors can offer to you? You can play with your friends or you can evaluate four (or more) majors against each other simultaneously. You can decide to use any bingo pattern you choose—but in the end remember that you might already know which major is the winning one for you.  

Get social

Sometimes it helps to get a sense of your future by immersing yourself into it. Afterall, when you are in a major you will be surrounding yourself more and more with faculty and students who are researching and studying that material. Adopted from the Bench Test by Neil Pasricha, I encourage you to seek out ways to connect with and listen to individuals who are in that major. Many departments host events, attend fairs, or offer classes that will give you a taste of a particular major. So don’t be shy, and get involved!

Decision list

Now that you have assembled a good amount of information about different majors you might need to evaluate them side-by-side. CAPD has put together this evaluation page, but you can modify or add columns to make it your own.

I hope this helps you have a little bit of fun as you explore this topic. If you think of other ways to creatively explore or select a major, I would love to hear about them! Email me at epavesic@mit.edu.

Self-assessment

Self-assessment is a great way to help you identify your strengths and interests. Depending on your preference, you might be able to find a place to start your research on major selection. 

Currently, CAPD offers the following assessments by appointment:

• StrengthsQuest
• Strong Interest Inventory
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
• CareerLeader
• SkillScan

Feel free to schedule an appointment with a CAPD career advisor to see if any of the assessments meet your needs.

Planning your career

Instead of focusing only on majors, one could also think about their career plan and use it to determine what kind of major might be the most helpful in pursuing the field.

For example, if you are interested in medical school, you might want to pursue a major with biology or chemistry coursework, which could fulfill some of the med school prerequisites and help prepare you for classes in med school. However, as major doesn’t equal to career, you could apply to med school with any major.

• Linkedin: From the MIT LinkedIn page, use the “Alumni” tab to browse through upperclassmen and alumni of different majors and their career paths.
• Handshake: Browse through jobs and necessary skill sets required

This is simply a helpful way to narrow your possibilities! Choosing a major does not limit you to only one career choice, and choosing a career path does not limit you to only one possible major.

Ask around

People around you are the best resources for personalized advice. Hearing about their stories could provide great insight into the major-picking process. Here are some ways you could start the conversation:

• Who you can ask
  • First-year advisor & associate advisor
  • Undergrads in the years above you and graduate students
  • Professors
  • Alumni 
    • Advisor’s hub
    • Alumni Directory
    • LinkedIn
• Questions you can ask:
  • Why did you choose this major?
  • What skill have you learned from your major?
  • What are some of the possible career options for your major?
  • What do you like and dislike about your major?
  • What other major did you consider?

Resources offered by CAPD

CAPD provides many great resources that help students to not only explore different majors but also pursue long-term career goals. Some include:

• CAPD resources & advice
  • Career development process
  • Tips on identifying your skill and interest
  • Internship search advice
  • Academic career and med school overview
• Upcoming events
  • Informational interview nights with alumni
  • Resume reviews
  • Infinite Careers Alumni Speaker Series
• Book an appointment with a Career Advisor

Past surveys

MIT students all love numbers, and surveys are the best way to visually see students’ experiences within different majors and what experience the majors could offer. 

• Perception of academic majors
• Summer Experience Survey

Most importantly, try it yourself!

Here is a list of more MIT resources and programs to get hands-on experience:

• Major exploration courses
• Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP)
• Micro-internships during IAP
• PKG center‘s social impact internships
• MIT-Washington Internship 
• MIT Global Experiences – MISTI
• Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)
• CAPD’s Career Interest pages

Although there are many ways and resources for you to find out your interest, you should never feel pressured to make the decision!

Remember, if you are not ready to declare your major yet in the spring of your first year, there is always the “undeclared” option for you. Plus, switching majors is very common, even in junior or senior year.

No matter which major you decide to pursue, it will never define you and your future career.

Want to see the presentation version of this information? See the PDF below!

By Yan Wu ’24