Wharton Management & Technology Program Produces Unique Alumni Joint Degree in Business and Engineering Attracts Diverse Students
The Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, which combines a Wharton undergraduate business degree with an engineering degree, produces some of Wharton’s most distinctive alumni – from investment bankers to environmental engineers to an astronaut.
Only 55 undergraduates each year are admitted to the interdisciplinary program. In the words of Rob Weber, W’82, an adjunct professor who also graduated in the program’s first full class, “Top high school students … look on the website and say, ‘This looks like something interesting. I’ve always liked math and science. I think I’ll apply.’ We get some of the best students in the country. We get renaissance kinds of people.”
Alumnus in Space
If the Program in Management & Technology wanted to make a billboard, it might choose Garrett E. Reisman, who graduated in 1991. Reisman went to Cal Tech for his Masters and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and then worked at TRW in its space and technology division. In 1998, he became an astronaut.
“Like most kids, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do when I applied to college. But I had a great high school physics teacher, and when I saw I could get an engineering degree and learn about business, too, I knew this was for me,” said Reisman, who grew up in northern New Jersey.
“Somewhere during my fifth year, it dawned on me that by getting my engineering degree and doing whatever else I was doing on campus, it was exactly what I read a mission specialist might do. I thought, ‘Well, this might not happen, but it’s a possibility.’ Now here I am.
“Had I not gone to M&T and not studied with people like Professor Hamilton, this couldn’t have happened. There was nothing like it to compare. My engineering training was unparalleled, and knowing business has helped me immensely in evaluating projects at NASA, which is what astronauts do when not on specific missions.”
Another renaissance type is Eileen McCarthy, Eng’02, W’02, who was the president of the M&T club, did research for Wharton professors, was a campus peer leader, and found time to be the captain of the synchronized swimming team.
“When I was in school,” she recalls with a chuckle, “my best friends were studying engineering, but they were also the ones with the busiest schedules beyond class. That’s a sign of the M&T, over-achieving type.” Now she is working with water resources as an engineer for Hazen and Sawyer in New York City. “Everything about the program and everything I did at Penn comes together for me here. I can go into meetings with other engineers and because I had the Wharton courses, I understand the social and business impact of the projects.”
Connecting Past to Future
Program director William Hamilton, WG’64, Ralph Landau Professor of Management and Technology, is particularly concerned with raising awareness of the program among prospective candidates. To that end, the program will host a Management & Technology Summer Institute on campus in July 2005, exposing high school students to a three-week, for-credit course on the principles of management and engineering.
In addition, Hamilton wants to get alumni more involved in networking and even coming back to campus to mentor students. There are now 1,400 M&T alumni, a great number of whom are already leaders in their fields. They are listed in the database of the program’s new website.
“We’re really looking to nurture the community at the alumni level,” said Weber. “Alumni do want to give back, and we want to make it easy for them to do so.”
