Joseph Goings
Marketing & Management Track
(Mechanical Engineering '08, University of Virginia)
“When I started out at U.Va., I wanted to be a design engineer,” says Joseph Goings (Engineering ’08, M.S. in Commerce ’09) . “Then I had two internships in business development, the first at Aerojet and the second at Lockheed Martin, and I began to feel like you could have a lot more impact by being on the business development side—and that’s when I became interested in becoming a manager.”
It was with this goal in mind that Goings decided to attend McIntire’s new M.S. in Commerce Program. “I’ve always been very systematic with solving problems, breaking them down into small pieces,” he says. Now, thanks to the program’s strong team-based orientation, Goings says he’s learning to use his strengths in combination with those of others. “We each bring our own skill sets to the group,” he says. “For example, there’s an English major in our group, and she’s very good at writing clear, eloquent statements for our reports. But I can help with the technical aspects of the projects, like designing things on computers. So we’re really learning how to effectively meld our skills together in a way that I think will be useful in a real business setting.”
Goings says he’s also finding the integrative nature of the program’s curriculum to be extremely valuable. “A lot of the engineering classes weren’t really linked together,” he says. “But here, with the integrated core curriculum, they want you to be able to understand all the different aspects of the cases you’re reading, and they want you to be able to participate in a discussion and offer your opinion.” What’s more, Goings explains, “at the end of the semester, instead of having exams in each specific class, you have one that integrates all the subjects together—so you’ve really got to understand all of your classes and bring them together.”
Goings says that when he puts his new people and business skills together with the outstanding contacts, advice, counseling, and coaching he’s getting from McIntire’s Career Services office, he should be in prime position to embark on a successful career.
“Coming to the M.S. in Commerce Program was one of the best decisions I’ve made,” Goings says. “I applied to a lot of jobs during my fourth year, but I have found that companies are taking a lot more notice of me now.”