In our Alumni Spotlight series, we ask alumni to tell us about their careers and how their UVA experiences prepared them for life after the Lawn.
Meet Brendan Rogers, a 2017 Systems and Information Engineering grad who minored in Engineering Business and was actively involved with Days on the Lawn, INCOSE, U-Link, and First Year Players. After actively exploring consulting as a student, Brendan now works for a small consulting firm in New York City.Tell us about your career and your current job.
I am a consultant at a small firm called Mars and have been there since March 2018. Before Mars, I was a consultant at Accenture. Though Mars is small, the projects are interesting and the clients I've worked with have been major players in their industries. So far, I've worked on a variety of interesting projects such as:
Assessing opportunity for global retailer to leverage store network to be more competitive in the e-commerce space
M&A due-diligence for industrial equipment manufacturer considering a $3.4B acquisition
Distribution network evaluation for consumer unit of a major power generator manufacturer
Trade spend optimization in LatAm for major consumer products company
What does a "day in the life of you" look like?
As a junior analyst I am typically performing research and analysis for my project. I spend a fair amount of time in Excel making and tweaking models. I also help with slide creation (displaying the results of my research and analysis in a clear, consistent, and easy-to-understand way), which often involves making graphs, tables, and other visuals.
How have your experiences and education at UVA shaped your life after college and your career path thus far?
The Systems curriculum provided opportunities to get experience with modeling and analyzing data. It also helped me get experience in presenting findings on slides in a way that a non-technical person could understand. Moreover, I worked a lot with teams on projects at UVA (both within and outside of SEAS), most of which were similar in size to teams I'm on in my job now. Lastly, UVA is a target school for many consulting firms so it was helpful to have firms coming to Grounds and also to have other students to go through the process and practice cases with.
How has UVA Engineering helped you innovate and lead in your current role?
I came into my job at Mars and also my first job at Accenture with better technical acumen and experience than peers who studied liberal arts. As a result I was able to jump into Excel and PowerPoint without having to spend time learning basic functionality, where buttons were, key formulas, etc. I also had a better background on hot technologies like Tableau as well as general programming that can be very useful in consulting and allowed me to differentiate myself by suggesting faster, easier ways of solving problems using these tools.
Tell us about an event, class, advisor, professor, or mentor that really impacted your career path/choices.
During my Intro to Engineering class my first year (before I had chosen a major), a woman who'd studied SIE at UVA and went on to become a consultant spoke to my class about her career. Her discussion of what she did and how her SIE background helped her in her career was the most impactful experience I had in deciding what major and career path to pursue. As far as career choices, I think that leaving UVA for a semester to explore alternative potential life paths was most impactful. My first year GPA was 3.06, and after leaving and seeing what kinds of opportunities and lifestyles would be in store for me by not finishing at UVA, I became motivated to return to UVA and vigorously pursue a higher GPA so I could get interviews at consulting firms.
How did engaging with the Center for Engineering Career Development (CECD) support your goals and vision for the future?
CECD advisors were very helpful in providing:
Emotional support and cheer
Space and phones for phone interviews
Resume and cover letter advice and reviews
Programming and other resources to help with recruiting and behaving in a business setting (e.g. cover letter & thank-you note guides, professionally-taken headshots for LinkedIn, business etiquette seminar with outside speaker)
With your professional perspective, what skills do you think are vital for current UVA Engineering students to learn?
Some core things like working well in teams, planning and delegating work, fluency in frequently-used software (like Excel and PowerPoint), and basic programming knowledge are the top ones that come to mind. Anything that can differentiate you from a non-engineer will likely be helpful. For example, none of my positions have required programming experience, but when people got wind that I knew it, I was often consulted as people thought I might be able to help them complete tasks quickly and efficiently, and I developed a positive reputation.
For current students hoping to go into your field, what are some of the most effective things they can do right now to prepare themselves for future success?
Probably the biggest thing is to aim for as high of an overall GPA as possible. On a few occasions I went to resume reviews and was told that everything looked good except the GPA. Of course, go to all the events and talk to employees at the firms you're interested in. Other than that, getting strong experience in meaningful extracurricular activities will be good as it will demonstrate well-roundedness and give you something interesting to talk about in interviews. There are often more opportunities to show initiative and innovation as a CIO leader since class assignments have requirements and parameters that need to be met, whereas CIO events and activities are not as narrowly laid-out and systematically evaluated. For instance, if you are planning a country-music themed dance for a CIO but have an idea that a funky fashion show would be more appealing and fun, you could pivot, but if your teacher wants you to code a 9x9 minesweeper game for a project, you likely can't submit a different game, even if you think it would be more fun to play or more useful from a learning perspective.