MIT Students Get People-Savvy

Think MIT students are all computer geeks with awkward personalities? Think again. The super-brains at this elite Cambridge college are learning some "people skills" to help them gain success in the big bad business world after they leave the security of the campus. Really.

"A lot of MIT graduates go out into the real world and fall on their faces because they don't know how to work within a company," Tanya Goldhaber, a senior mechanical engineering major, told The Boston Globe. "They expect their bosses to be impressed by their creativity, but they don't deliver the product on time.''

Goldhaber participates in a two-year engineering leadership program, which launched last fall with the help of a $20 million gift from technology entrepreneur and 1948 alum Bernard M. Gordon. The program was hatched because the school realized that while its students possess superior technical skills, they often entered the workforce with little business savvy, which means they would cede leadership positions to people who often knew much less about the products actually being produced.

"One of the pretty clear messages that has come through is that MIT graduates work hard and are analytical and creative, but they don't rise to influence their organizations in a larger way,'' said Edward Crawley, director of the Gordon engineering leadership program and a 1976 MIT graduate. "Can we reinvent ourselves in the image of our foundation? Can we rediscover our roots?''

They are certainly trying. Goldhaber said she was skeptical of the program at first, but now clearly sees its value. So does fellow program participant Vijay Umapathy, who noted, "I don't want to see talent and knowledge from MIT graduates going to waste because they don't have the ability to lead a team."

So, it looks like the stereotype of the engineering geek might be going the way of the slide rule. We suppose it's about time.

Photo courtesy of juandesant via Flickr.