My Journey To The Mit Sloan School Of Management Admission Essays Examples

In relating my deep-rooted motivation and drive to seek admission to the MIT Sloan School of Management, I must emphasize the uniqueness of my current work environment involving rapid manufacturing machines and highly complex production processes. I am fortunate to have gained specialty knowledge about the future of manufacturing and instrumental in bringing innovations into manufacturing technology. I would like to pursue innovate management practices much same way. My life journey brought me to the doors of the MIT Sloan School of Management primarily because I yearn to be principled, and innovative leader generating novel ideas to advance management practices across the world.
I am a Polish-American with excellent command over Polish and English languages. Since the early High School days, I always knew and wanted to be an engineer. I thought engineering is challenging and can accommodate my innovative ideas. However, soon after starting first engineering classes, I realized that it is not exactly what I expected from the engineering major. Engineering at the undergraduate level has almost nothing to do with creativity researching or building, but mostly involved applying formulas and solving for unknowns. As I am going through the engineering school, I soon realized that completing any project requires an immense number of people and decided to be a manager instead of being one of the many engineers.
Thus, to realize my dreams of pursuing cutting-edge innovations and seeking challenging tasks, I thought that I could not be just an engineer. I needed to be a phenomenal leader in the pursuit of innovation and advancing the state of the art technologies. However, my personality and adventuring spirit did not permit me to abandon undergraduate engineering. Consequently, I completed my Bachelor of Science with Mechanical Engineering Technology as a major and Manufacturing Technology as the minor. I have been on the Dean’s Honor list for both the semesters in 2013, the year of my graduation.
As I was seriously considering seeking admission to MIT Sloan School of Management in summer of 2013, an opportunity to practice what I learned in engineering came across my way. Always ready for a challenge and wishing to prove my engineering skills, I accepted a job offer from Figulo (acquired by 3D Systems), Boston, MA. While working, I got obsessed with 3D printing because it could let me the reduce number of people necessary to manage while completing big projects. The fact that it does not require qualified people is a big advantage.
During my tenure at Figulo and 3D Systems, I was introduced to the rapid manufacturing technology that allows designing, prototyping and production at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional processes. I was fascinated and became obsessed with it since it does not require years of technical skills, effectively allowing not only engineers, but also non-technical people to create feasible products. In a short period, I am managing the only machine shop in the world that 3D prints ceramics. It is an amazing management experience despite the fact that my work experience is not as extensive as I wish it to be. With my unique knowledge, I am convinced that I can make significant contributions in the management classes.
I had the unique experience of being part of rapid manufacturing startup and managing the only rapid manufacturing center that produces ceramics. While my work tenure and experience may be short, it gave me a unique knowledge about the future of manufacturing and allowed me to develop my first management skills. The uniqueness of our production process did not permit us to use traditional workshop management techniques and provided opportunities for us to develop our management techniques. Overall, 3D printing and rapid manufacturing appear to be the future of manufacturing in USA.
In this essay, I would like to relate two main problems that we struggled on our production line. We were losing almost 25% of manufactured objects just in the first step of manufacturing process due to errors in machines that were not industrial strength. The productivity of the machines was also poor, producing only about 80 parts per machine on a weekly basis. In spite of being a complete rookie in rapid manufacturing, I promised to reduce failure rate by half. Very soon, I realized that serious machine modifications would be incredibly time consuming with our limited resources. I opted to change operation practices to reduce machine failures. One thing I learned in engineering school very well was that quantifiable data is the key to solving almost all problems.
Consequently, I collected over 4400 data points over the course of three months and analyzed the data for patterns. Machine errors occurred due to two main factors, human error and seven different components wearing out. To eliminate Machine wear related errors I created a software that predicts when and what component is going to wear out. Based on this information, machine operators started to replace worn components ahead of time. As a result, we did decrease the machine failure rate by 5-fold and increase the production rate by 3-fold.
My other accomplishments at Figulo and 3D Systems include creating a comprehensive operation manual. The manual of operation instructions is very much appreciated by workers as well as the management. Following its introduction on the production line, the workflow has become very smooth and made works tasks easier, thus boosting productivity.
In summarizing my engineering education and work tenure at Figulo and 3D Systems, I do not regret obtaining Mechanical engineering degree. It gave me a good feel for common sense in next couple of years in rapid manufacturing. Currently, companies are slowly exploring the rapid manufacturing idea. Life cycle of the products is decreasing at an exponential rate. There is going to be a moment in near future where traditional manufacturing approach with its slow deployment speeds will not be able to catch up with the demand. The quality of traditional manufactured objects will be nowhere near compared to rapid-produced products due to inferior complexity and insufficient ability to make small daily-product-design adjustments.
In conclusion, I always sought challenges and designed innovative approaches to solving common sense problems, as well as complex technical issues. I would like to be a pioneer in exploiting novel technologies for the development and well-being of humanity. I am just not interested in developing another phone, or a smart thermostat. I am an information omnivore, and I like to learn pretty much about any and everything.
I sincerely trust that the story of my journey to the MIT Sloan School of Management convincingly portrayed my deep-desire to seek higher education in management. I hereby submit my candidacy for admission and look forward to further discussions.