Career In Operations Research example essay topic

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE I've always had a fascination, or rather, a sort of veneration for Scientific Management, and of course, Taylor ism. Many didn't approve my idea of wasting time on a degree in Operations Research and Management Science, or so they called it. But for me, the plan was always the same: Follow my heart. Wild as it may seem, losing out on a chance to do an MBA and straightaway getting into the higher salary brackets, pursuing a career in Operations Research, a not so illustrious career choice as thought by many Indians, was what confused many people. Yes I have a dream, that of running an organization of my own, but I have my own ways of going about it. This was all they got from me.

I made my choice, to pursue a challenge, a passion. A choice to diverge from the mainstream path into an exclusive specialization in a single intellectual realm, with a serious commitment. Getting an M.B.A. makes perfect sense for a lot of people, most M.B.A. 's. are successful. But getting an M.S. in Operations Research makes even more sense in my particular case: it is the perfect academic supplement to my engineering background, one I need to become a leading edge high-tech consultant in the field of Management Science. Detailed technology understanding plus profound business and group skills, is a rare combination that really can get the career rocket roaring and this is the mix of knowledge and skill I intend to gain during my graduate program in Operations Research. This is certainly true for me, and I think that this is one of my most important and convincing reasons for taking up a degree in Management Science.

I can make a niche for myself, specialize in something as sound in theory and practice as OR, yet not wanting in any of the skills needed by a manager. Having spent considerable time in the field during my internships at the Defense Research and Development Lab, the Nuclear Fuel Complex and Voith Turbo, an exclusively Operations Research oriented career certainly is the opposite of what I am interested in. No error, but that is what I exactly do not want. A specialization very dedicated can work wonders with a career but one that is too completely stuck does not.

Guaranteed career progression comes only of mastering a core competence yet not lacking other relevant skills. This I believe in, and hence follow. During my internship at D RDL, I was assigned to the Production Planning and Control Division, and was asked to lead a group of 5 to work on various jobs like Scheduling, Machine Assignment, Resource Allocation and Routing. It was a demanding job, especially because we had to learn it the hard way.

No teachers, only books. A mistake was unimaginable. We hadn't yet come across the subject of OR in the class work as it was scheduled in the next semester. We groped to solution by Trial-and-Error method and often, speculations. Only after some advice from senior officers did we get to know of the existence of a mathematical theory for all such problems. The science of Operations Research.

In subsequent internships, I worked with other teams in developing OR solutions and generating algorithms. We even developed software for Voith Turbo. It was then that I was caught in the intrigue of OR. So what is it I am truly interested in? I want to be where the wars of business are fought, with brains as weapons. I want to go to office at 9, with a handful of challenges and come back home at 5, satisfied that I could win a few of my not-so-easy wars, and learnt a couple of lessons about what not to do.

This is where, I believe, I can make my best contribution. In short, I want to be where the action and the challenges are. I want to be where I am not guaranteed an easy job, but where I have to face challenges that always find me. For the career I want to make, in terms of abilities, I believe I am well equipped with my engineering background.

OR demands a lot of quantitative skills, and I've had 24 credits of Math in my degree. I have scored a 740 on the GMAT, with a 92% in Math. As for the programming element, in addition to the C language included in my undergraduate course, I have acquired proficiency in other contemporary programming languages, viz. C++, Visual Basic and Java. In terms of attitude, I have never felt more confident and positive. Through industrial exposure, I have come a long way in getting myself prepared for the task.

And here are my concrete plans after graduation: I shall take up a job for some time in an organization dedicated to providing OR solutions to gain the necessary work experience. It can be in the UK, or Europe or Asia. I aspire to come back to India after graduation and start an enterprise of my own, committed to providing OR solutions and giving the essential commercial exposure to the science in the Indian industry. But frankly, these are just a few options I can pinpoint now, and I am sure that many more will become apparent through my experience during the program. Abiding by my belief in continuing education, I plan to pursue a part-time degree in Decision Support Systems, which is a bridge between the hard technique oriented science of OR and the soft practice centric Management. Apart from aspiring a successful career, I have always tried to balance my economic wants and my social responsibilities.

I do not call myself a social activist but I never let a chance to get involved in community development pass by. I had a chance during my first year of college, which was not as demanding as the subsequent years were, to participate in a pilot project by the Tata Consultancy Services, a literacy campaign making use of sophisticated audio-visual aids and state-of-the-art computer software. Throughout the summer vacation, I immersed myself in the campaign, and to be very frank, was satisfaction personified when I saw my adult students being able to read a newspaper in the local language. The second participation was in social data acquisition. It was a micro-level planning campaign by the state government that needed huge educated manpower. Engineering students from various colleges were invited to join the campaign and I did utilize the chance to take up some social responsibility.

Some day, I hope to balance these two facets of my life, closest to perfection, and shall be in pursuit till then..