The MHC SoCal Digest Issue 6
A Message From The Board
The SoCal Club Board reminds everyone to save the date Saturday May 11 from 10 am to Noon for the club’s Annual Zoom meeting featuring a presentation from MHC Faculty member, Dr. Olivia Aguilar, Leslie and Sarah Miller Director of the Miller Worley Center for the Environment and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and her colleague, Angie Gregory, College Sustainability Program Manager. At the meeting you will also vote on a new slate of officers and directors for the club’s upcoming fiscal year.
A reminder that our Club events calendar for this Spring is very full. Check out the opportunities for alum engagement on our website.
Finally, in this Digest issue read about our Club alums working in the areas of business, engineering, and finance. MHC Seen Around SoCal shares pictures from our January meet and greet event with President Holley and several other Club outings. Moho Buzz provides links for President Holley’s podcast interview with Inside Higher Education and for the college leadership webinar held earlier in February facilitated by the Alumnae Association.
LEADING LIGHTS
Jennifer Wirth Symington
In 1987, when Jennifer Symington walked across the stage at Mount Holyoke College, and received her diploma, no one could have guessed that she would one day have a corporate job.
She was heading to a career in the arts. Today, she works at American Honda Motor Company, and has for more than 30 years.
At Honda, Jennifer fills the role of Privacy Officer and is Director for Data Privacy and Customer Experience Governance. Among the questions posed to Jennifer was this one: What classes or experiences at MHC prepared you for a job at a corporation?
In her answer, Jennifer pointed to her chosen major, Theatre Arts. She explained that those majoring in Theatre Arts must develop multiple skills, such as research, writing, storytelling, design, and development. Moreover, Jennifer highlighted the fact that she had focused on directing.
As a result, she learned how to select talent and how to lead a team. In addition, she became skilled at managing and scheduling events, as well as resolving conflicts.
What sort of teams answer to Jennifer? She oversees teams that work on designing customer-facing digital products. She also oversees a team that manages consumer data privacy compliance. At the present time, they have an added challenge, namely that of adapting to the shift from gasoline-powered automobiles to electric vehicles. While dealing with the challenge that industry-change brings, Jennifer and her teams work to maintain each customer’s trust and deliver an excellent, personalized customer experience.
Because Jennifer works with teams, we asked - What have you learned about the importance of team building and dealing with a team that exhibited interdisciplinary skills? Jennifer indicated that she had learned to set aside time for understanding colleagues and stakeholders. She had also learned to seek the reason for any one team’s method of operation.
Jennifer had some advice for any young alums that might one day have the privilege of leading a team: Value the team’s efforts. Offer feedback to the group and the individual members. Learn how to put different kinds of people together in a variety of combinations.
Jennifer offered some advice for current MHC students, regarding Artificial intelligence (AI). She encourages students to read about and experiment with AI. She urges students (and alums!) to network with those with others who are working with AI. She concluded by stating that the AI-supported world requires intelligent curiosity – and we all know that’s an MHC attribute!
Sherri Tan
Five years into the 21 st Century, Sherri Tan completed a double major in Statistics and Economics. She then spent close to 10 years in Sales and Trading at bulge bracket investment banks on Wall Street. Following Wall Street, she enrolled in The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. There she obtained an MBA in Real Estate and Finance.
Our newsletter editor asked Sherri to offer information about the classes or experiences at MHC that nurtured her interest in pursuing a graduate degree in business, and then electing to focus on real estate and finance. Sherri pointed to a short experiment carried out by a MHC economics professor, where students had to make decisions under imperfect information conditions. Her performance in that experimental game revealed her aptitude for making sales and investment decisions. Her awareness of that aptitude ignited her passion for finance which motivated her to pursue a Wall Street career. After a decade as a fixed income salesperson helping Asian central banks and sovereign wealth funds invest in US and European bonds, Sherri decided it’s time to take those skillsets and explore investing on a smaller but more impactful level. That is why she earned the MBA.
What had Sherri learned with respect to the benefits of business school? She finds that the biggest asset is the network of business connections (i.e. her classmates), primarily in the finance and real estate industry. Sherri has also learned additional aspects of entrepreneurship, marketing, and organizational leadership that she is able to put into practice in her ventures post-graduation. Sherri cautions that to get the most out of business school, one should ideally have a clear vision of what one wants to achieve from it.
At this time, Sherri is a full- time investor operationally involved in some of her investments. She invests in minority-owned start-ups and small businesses since these founders tend to be underserved and needed the most help when it comes to raising funds and or strategy guidance to jump start their ventures. Some of the ventures Sherri has invested in are “ Matter of Fact”, a patented skincare start-up founded by her Asian-American business school classmate; “Gingko Real Estate”, a real estate fund utilizing machine learning algorithm to acquire single family homes in peripheral areas of high job growth and Fleurish L.A., a profit with purpose bridal boutique with an approachable luxury concept serving brides in Los Angeles.
SPOTLIGHT ON YOUNG ALUMS
Rebecca Rodgers(left)
Get acquainted with Rebecca, a former Mathematics major at MHC. Having graduated in 2015 she then received an MS in Aerospace Aeronautical/Space Engineering from USC. Rebecca currently serves as Senior Systems Engineer with Advanced Space.
We asked Rebecca what types of courses she pursued at MHC that led her into space science. She said her first semester she enrolled in Multivariable Calculus with Professor Margaret Robinson and almost immediately her passion for mathematics encouraged her to become a Math major. This was a switch since she had originally expected to study International Relations and Linguistics, but became captivated with STEM. Interestingly, a course “Logical Thought” taught by the Philosophy Department really constructed for her how math was a language that could be used to describe and abstract problems. She studied abroad in Budapest where she really leaned into the applied side of mathematics. Upon returning she took Engineering courses as part of the five college consortium offerings including Fluid Dynamics and Thermodynamics which prepared her for graduate school. During her studies at USC, she joined the Space Engineering Research Center working with a team to build a 3U CubeSat-and over a few years there, was able to gain hands on experience integrating and testing hardware with a multi-disciplinary team.
It may seem obvious given her field of work that AI figures significantly, but she provided us some fascinating insight. She adds “ AI and LLM’s are powerful tools, but like any tool, the value of the result will be correlated with the quality of the input. I would emphasize in any domain engineering-computer science, aero and astronautical, mechanical- for students to focus on the fundamentals. Being able to understand and explain problems at the most basic levels is more valuable than having sophisticated output and often a prerequisite for correctly using the output of models and recognizing their limitations.”
Our newsletter editor inquired as to Rebecca’s biggest challenges working as a systems engineer in spacecraft. She noted: “anticipating how one decision in one subsystem will have ripple effects across the entire system. All design decisions are inter-connected, not just in physical hardware, but across the technical and programmatic resources like cost and schedule. These design decisions ultimately will have to operate in the most remote and harsh settings, where you cannot make hardware changes and are often severely limited in the software changes available. The satellite must autonomously detect and manage its faults, and anticipating those faults and designing a system that can isolate and recover issues, while still executing its mission on schedule and within budget, is an enormous balancing act.”
Emma Anderson (not pictured)
Meet Emma a Homework Platform Support Specialist with Flatworld, a digital college-level textbook publishing company. After graduating from MHC in 2015, she completed a Certificate in Publishing from Columbia University. We asked what classes and experiences had sparked her interest in the publishing industry, and she indicated she took a lot of literature classes as an English major. So of course, fiction publishing was something she was aware of, and she’s always been a bookworm. Two classes really stood out-both on essays- one focused on reading and one on writing essays and different kinds of short form nonfiction writing. Both classes got her looking at essay collections and narrative nonfiction. She also found her literature classes offered a breadth of writers and time periods and spawned further interest in the publishing business.
Emma interned for several summers at a tech company that makes simulation software used by researchers and companies. She started off editing Power Points to push new branding ideas for the company. She moved from editing some videos and writing step by step instructions on demos of how to use the company’s simulation software to then posting them as a blog to those in the industry. Emma also worked on research for e-books which really got her thinking about the possibilities within digital learning and publishing. We asked her how artificial intelligence (AI) is influencing the industry. She said “Flatworld is starting to use it for some support (functions). So we’ll script videos demonstrating how someone can do something in our online books, how to access the study questions, etc. and then AI will create a voiceover. Our sales team is also using it to create personalized videos, using AI that actually learns how they speak and look, and then creates them talking to professors from a script, instead of their creating an individual video.”
What are some of the challenges she faces working in digital higher learning? She noted that one of the major aspects of her work involves checking reports from students and professors about errors they think they’ve found in homework questions which require extensive background research. Figuring out what kinds of tools are most useful to professors and students is another part of her role which means she interfaces frequently with her marketing team to develop new products.
MOHO BUZZ
Highlights from On-Campus Events
As many of you are aware President Holley is now leading a strategic planning effort for the college and is articulating her vision for the institution’s future. Listen to a recent podcast featuring President Holley! You can also review a recorded webinar session she and other members of her college leadership team recently held for alums (titled “The Future is Now: Updates from Leadership).
MHC SEEN AROUND SOCAL
Great visit to the Hollyhock House!
Great visit to the Hollyhock House!
President Holley January event!
Club News
TPlease note that a new slate of officers and directors for the SoCal Club will be voted on at the upcoming May 11 th annual Zoom meeting. You will receive information about the slate a month ahead of the meeting so you can become familiar with your new leadership team.
We want all our alums posting to our SoCal Club “The Gates” Group Chat. Just click on the link to join the conversation focused on how artificial intelligence is impacting the workspaces of our alums, a topic we discussed with our interviewees for this current issue of the Digest.
Gifting to Champion our Moment(tum)
Alums are enthusiastic about the SoCal Club’s future. And with the assistance of fabulous volunteers, we can proudly report accomplishments to date. But there is much more to do to ensure we are self-sustaining in the future.
Did you know: MHC does not provide financial assistance to local Clubs? Therefore, the SoCal Club’s capacity to organize events, secure venues, engage speakers, communicate, build out the regional concept, and provide members with assistance for fee- based events rests with you!
Please make a gift at any of these levels: -$500- $100- $50-$25
The SoCal Club is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization. All gifts may be tax deductible to the extent that the laws provide. If your employer provides opportunities for matching gifts as part of charitable initiatives, please let us know by contacting mhcalumssocal@gmail.com.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!
VOLUNTEER WITH THE CLUB
Those of you interested in volunteering with the Club, do let us know now. Email Club President, Andrea Lange at langeandrea92@gmail.com to see how your passions for working with your fellow alums intersect with our Club’s future needs!