Vivi Nguyen ’04, M.Eng. ’05

Vivi Nguyen ’04 was a Cornell electrical engineering major with an engineering management minor when she took two ORIE courses and got involved in research at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. “I began to see the bigger picture—how businesses are connected and how technology is used in an economic setting,” Nguyen says. “I decided that I wanted to learn more applications of engineering to the real world. In ORIE, I have learned optimization, simulation, and information technology techniques to apply in the business setting.”

Having earned her Master of Engineering degree in ORIE, Nguyen is now pursuing her “dream job”: a post in merchandise planning. “I would use prediction techniques and customer data to determine amounts of products to initially put on the shelves, and of what color, sizes, etcetera, and analyze sales to determine when to put items on sale and by how much,” she explains.

Nguyen says her graduate experience in ORIE was rewarding, both academically and socially. “The M.Eng. class was about 80 students, and many of us grew close quickly. Also, the project team that you are assigned gives you another opportunity to get to know a few people very well.”