Tia Esposito, MSCM '20
It turns out ultimate frisbee has more of a connection to supply chain management than Tia Esposito, MSCM '20, could have anticipated. After joining the undergraduate ultimate frisbee team at U-M and helping coordinate travel, Tia found that the planning and logistics work she was doing for the team was actually pretty interesting. Inspired, she went to the university's career office to see where her interest in logistics could find a home — and ended up creating her own major in operations management. This gave her the ability to take a few courses on the Ross campus, where she started thinking about what her journey after graduation could look like.
Tia envisioned herself pursuing a career in third-party logistics, but ultimately felt that furthering her education with a master's degree might be the best way to gain technical and hands-on experience in the industry. The one-year MSCM program at Ross seemed like the right fit.
As Tia explained,
Ross fits a lot of really valuable work into a short period of time, and they do a fantastic job setting up people with recruiters. For example, recruiting starts on day one, and most of the program meets with the Career Development Office biweekly for interview preparation.
Tia also appreciated how diverse the MCSM program is: “I'm learning alongside people who have had work experience for 10 years, and experience working in other countries.” This diversity throughout her cohort is an added benefit that she didn't think about before coming into the program. She's been able to learn from and get to know her classmates even better through a number of different extracurricular initiatives and as a member of the MSCM Student Association, which plans social events in addition to working closely with the school on program development. Many MSCM students also live in the same residence hall, which Tia said often served as a central study spot and meeting place for her and her classmates.
Tia said her time in the program debunked traditional myths: “I thought business school has the stigma of being very competitive internally, but my program is not at all that way. It's very cooperative; everything is celebrated.” She described her peers as a cohesive group, and shared how “it's really nice and impressive how respectful everyone is of each other.”
Another myth Tia held before joining the program? That the required math would be too tough. However, she said Ross set her up for success right from the start, particularly through the program's summer "bootcamp." All MSCM students take a statistics pre-course and take part in a multi-week bootcamp, which Tia described as a helpful way to get everyone on the same page. She said bootcamp helps students know they aren’t alone and that “knowing Ross is going to help you get to a foundational level was a huge relief.”
Tia was able to apply what she learned to a real-world context during the Supply Chain Consulting Studio, an immersive, semester-long course that gives student teams the opportunity to solve pressing challenges at real corporations. "I consulted with Toyota Manufacturing of Mississippi on an internal logistics problem. My team was tasked with analyzing a congested area of the assembly plant and providing multiple solutions. We offered low-cost, immediate solutions as well as long-term, highly technical solutions," Tia said.
The experience of working with Toyota professionals on a very real and serious problem for them was invaluable. We were able to travel to the plant twice and spend a few days walking the lines, questioning the engineers, and brainstorming together. My team was absolutely incredible.
For those who are thinking about applying to the MSCM program, Tia shared this piece of advice: “Think about how you can talk about yourself and your experiences, and less about what's on your resume and your test scores. “ She emphasized that Ross is “more interested in knowing about you."