Meet USC Marshall’s MBA Class of 2019

Liang-Yun (Jack) Lin

University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: I am an emerging professional consultant, now developing my leadership skills at USC Marshall.

Hometown: Taipei, Taiwan

Fun Fact About Yourself: I love popping dance and meeting people through dancing. I even jammed with legendary poppers – Suga Pop and Popin Pete (members of the Electric Boogaloos).

Undergraduate School and Major:

Undergraduate – National Taiwan University; major – Electrical Engineering

Graduate – University of California, Los Angeles; major – Electrical Engineering

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

Maxim Integrated (2012 – 2017)

Member of Technical Staff, IC Design (2014 – 2017)

Associated Member of Technical Staff, IC Design (2012 – 2014)

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: At Maxim Integrated, I led a global team of 10 engineers from the United States, France, Singapore, and Thailand to roll out a new product for our Chinese customer and won a $10 million contract. To meet the requirement of reducing schedule by 40% to three weeks, I analyzed and streamlined testing processes and persuaded the team to adopt the new flow. Maxim adopted the documentation and workflow as the gold standard in its operations.

Looking back on your experience, what one piece of advice would you give to future business school applicants? Analyzing our weaknesses and creating strategies to overcome them is the key to succeed at GMAT. Pure practice is not enough. We need to deeply review our wrong questions, thinking about why we were wrong, why the questions are created in that way, and how we could be correct next time when we see similar questions. After a deep dive of those questions, we need to summarize our own guidelines or rules. Finally, we need to make sure we execute our strategies and improve in both accuracy and time.

What was the key factor that led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA and why was it so important to you? The USC Marshall MBA program places great emphasis on building up communication skills. According to the 2016 GMAC corporate recruiters survey report, communication skills were ranked the most important skills among employers. Additionally, USC Marshall was ranked by consulting employers as the top school for communication skills. To pursue a consultant position post MBA and succeed throughout my career, I believed that USC Marshall would helped me develop my communication skills professionally and thus chose the program.

What would success look like to you after your first year of business school? Success will be achieving a great balance of 3 Cs – courses, community, and career. Through taking courses, I hope to develop strong technical and interpersonal skills and prepare myself to be an emerging leader in the consulting industry. At the same time, I want to take the full advantage of the Trojan family, building my life-long network in this collaborative community.