Moving On Up Already

As I write this (which is in Honolulu, Hawaii, thanks to classes being primarily online with flexibility to go anywhere), I’m near the last weeks of Spring Quarter – Core 2 classes of my first year at Kelley! These classes include Financial Management, Operations Management, and Marketing Management. Financial Management wrapped up a few weeks ago and it was educational to learn how to analyze data and make capital budgeting decisions. It was definitely one of the challenging classes for me personally! Currently, in Marketing Management, we’re up to study brand and developing and managing distribution of solutions – as someone who comes from a communications background, these topics are always fascinating to me. For Operations Management, we’re now in our final weeks and running through what’s called the “Littlefield Simulation,” which will challenge us to utilize many of the decision-making theories frameworks we’ve been taught the past few weeks, such as queuing theory, inventory theory, capacity theory, and more. From my career standpoint, I find operations management to be really fascinating because in my current role some of it is operations-related. (We always want to keep the project moving and the team productive!)

In exciting news, I’ve obtained a new role at Xbox Game Studio’s Undead Labs as a Senior Producer! I’m stoked to move up in positions in hopes this leads me closer to a leadership role within a game studio. To share a little more on what a producer does (as people may not know this) – the producer’s role is similar to a project manager, the role is to make sure the product gets made. We’re responsible for scheduling, tracking the project, and making sure the team which consists of engineers, game designers, artists, and more are all aligned to the overall vision of the project. I enjoy it a ton and in order to grow my career, even more, I’m planning to leverage the services that the program has to help me get there. This includes career coaching, the Kelley network, and within the Kelley Direct Program, there are classes geared toward Professional Development and Career Management. One class I hope to take is actually about building a development plan to move my career forward and it also teaches students to leverage their own skills, values, personality, interests, and potential to move up the ladder or when seeking roles outside their organization. This class I’m aiming to take in the Winter quarter.

For the upcoming summer quarter, which starts near the end of May, I’m taking Strategic Competitive Analysis and Leadership and People Management, which I’m excited to apply to my new role. 

In my next update, I plan to share which major I’m choosing within the Kelley Direct Online program and how I hope to apply it to my current career!

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