A MEM Degree Ten Years in the Making

It was 2013 when Matthew Anderson decided he wanted to earn a master's degree from Northwestern University. He didn't know what the degree would be, but Anderson, who was an undergraduate at Northern Illinois University, saw what friends of his were doing at Northwestern and knew he wanted a similar opportunity. 

"I knew at the time I wanted to get in there someday to experience some of the best-in-class lectures and work with some incredibly bright people," Anderson said. 

Ten years later, he realized his goal. 

Anderson graduated from Northwestern's Master of Engineering Management (MEM) program in June after going to school part-time while working at grill manufacturer Weber. He started the program while working as a supervisor for drafting and documentation and left as a manager, a promotion he said would not have happened without MEM. 

"Before I only saw and could see through a window from my department out to others," Anderson said. "Now I am able to put myself in their shoes and see how we can come to win-win solutions. My technical and influential communication has substantially increased thanks to the confidence I have gained through learnings from MEM." 

And there were plenty of learnings, from discovering what venture capitalists look for in a business in Technical Entrepreneurship to learning how to make data-driven decisions in Operations Excellence. It was Strategic Management for Engineers, though, that wound up being Anderson's most memorable course, in part because he now applies frameworks learned in the class to both his professional and personal lives.   

"Strategic Management was a class that truly wrapped every class together in a beautiful bow and that was the gift that I left Northwestern with," he said. "The movies always portray college classes to be this atmosphere where everyone is so enamored and engaged, and I never thought that would be the real deal, but this was the one class that actually made me feel that way. I didn't want it to end." 

MEM taught Anderson technical skills, but it also helped shift his mindset to better understand the type of worker he was and how to use his strengths to help himself and his company grow. That is just what he's doing. 

Anderson's team is responsible for document creation, control, and translation of technical information via computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting to internal and external consumers. The goal is straightforward: control the quality and performance of the company's products. 

Anderson is responsible for ensuring the CAD is aligned with manufacturing and quality requirements while being easily accessible to other team needs within the company. 

"Discovering I'm a context thinker helped me understand myself more and how I can work with that mindset to my advantage," he said. "I don't need to know everything. I don't need to be the one to provide the solution, but I need to be able to facilitate the communication and ask the right questions to help us all get there." 

Knowing what to ask, how to ask it, and why it matters all came from MEM, Anderson said. He spent 10 years envisioning a Northwestern degree with his name on it. Now having his diploma is bittersweet, he said. He was happy to graduate, but he was sad his time in the program came to an end.  

The best way to continue leveraging his MEM experience is to continue applying the frameworks and knowledge he learned in the program to his work at Weber.  

And that is exactly what he plans on doing.   

"We have a lot of challenges that have become very clear to me after MEM and I can see the finish line," he said. "Now it's a matter of pulling together the strategy to help us get there, and that's exciting for me. The immediate application of my learnings is exciting."