I’m responsible for the MS&E collaborative affiliates program. We provide career advising for students as well as assistance in job and internship searches. We work to foster connections between students and alumni and host many events that support our students as they begin to think about their professional life beyond Stanford.
Within MS&E, I’ve had the freedom to push and create our career programming — it’s almost been like starting my own company, that same entrepreneurial feel. I’ve loved finding ways to showcase the varied careers you can pursue with an MS&E degree. I’ve also really loved highlighting the diversity in our alumni population. I make it a point to ensure that our event panels are balanced and include people from different races, genders, ages and ethnicities. And, in our alumni spotlights, I aim to share stories that help illustrate the array of people who have gone through our department and the many different pathways they’ve taken post-graduation. I hope by doing this, we might help more people be able to see themselves here.
I’m also very passionate about building lifelong relationships with all our graduates but especially our Black and Latinx alumni; I check in often to see how we can collaborate now and in the future. It’s important they know we’re not interested in just a one-time connection for an event but over the long term as well.
MS&E is a great place to do this work; it’s multidisciplinary, eclectic and very social. There’s a real sense of doing impactful work to give back. Our students and alumni care about more than just creating new technology or becoming famous founders. I’ve heard so many of them talk about social impact and using technology to create a better society and connections between people and the systems that serve them. Their drive and desire to do better inspires me to do the same, and that’s why I enjoy working here so much.
Related spotlights
Lara Weed
Sebastian Fernández
