Meet Sabrina Chisholm, MTM Class of 2024

Sabrina is originally from Southern California and completed her BA in English at UCSB before joining MTM.

Q: Why did you want to join the MTM graduate program, and how did your undergraduate major in English influence your decision?

A: I graduated from high school in 2020 when the pandemic happened, and I went to community college for a year and I was a little bit lost; I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I thought, okay, I'll go into data science, since I had some coding experience. I took all these calculus and coding classes, and then I realized I didn't really like it. I always loved to read as a kid, so I switched to English during my time at UCSB. It was super fun, and I really enjoyed it, but I was kind of missing that tech side. I joined an undergraduate fellowship here at UCSB called Student Engagement and Enrichment in Data Science (SEEDS). I studied the TikTok algorithm and racial bias. We were studying how many people were attributing dance trends back to the person-of-color creators versus somebody else, by looking at things like whom people were tagging. It was tech-related and was super interesting, and I really liked it. When I was thinking about going to graduate school, I didn’t really want to go to law school or anything like that. MTM seemed way more interesting. It aligns with my partial tech background and has the room for creativity that I explored in my English major, and it combines both of those things, which I really like. 

Q: What has been your favorite MTM moment of the year? 

A: There have been a lot of great moments, I've had such a great experience so far. I think one of my favorite moments was fall quarter in entrepreneurship class. We were split up into different teams, and at the end of the quarter, we had to present our ideas to the entire class and the professor. I was able to lead my group, and we decided we wanted to make a frozen yogurt shop in Isla Vista, and make it Santa Barbara-themed and super fun. We had a really awesome presentation. We had a skit at the beginning and we dimmed the lights so it was a very dramatic entrance for everyone on our team to come in and give the entire class ice cream and frozen yogurt, and everyone, including Professor Tripsas, were really excited afterward. This kind of learning is one of the great things about this program. MTM is very business focused, but there's also a lot of creativity in tech, and this combination is an important and valuable part of MTM. 

Q: What is something you have learned that you look forward to using in your next job? 

A: There's so much honestly, I feel like I'm learning something new every day, which is super exciting for me. In particular, in Matt Beane’s class fall quarter for project management, he had us teach ourselves how to use different coding languages using ChatGPT. At first, it was really hard and kind of frustrating. But once we got the hang of it, we understood and developed the skill in prompting Chat in how to learn something new. I feel like at any job, you're going to be learning new things, and there's things maybe your subordinates or your higher-up people can't explain to you that you're just going to have to figure out, especially with coding languages, and I feel like I'm really going to utilize those skills moving forward. 

Q: What has been your favorite course so far and why?

A: My favorite course in the program has been Marketing, which I had in winter quarter with Professor Bogart. I found marketing to be super fun and exciting to learn about. I've done two different marketing internships during my time at UCSB, and I always felt like Professor Bogart was talking about things that were super relevant to things that were happening in the internships. I'm really interested in going into marketing after I finish my graduate degree, so I felt like it was very applicable to my career. 

Q: What is your field project and what skills are you using to solve this business challenge?

A: My field project is with Deckers Outdoor Brands and we were tasked with strengthening their Go-to-Market Process. I’m using a lot of skills from my project management class (organizational systems, Gantt Charts, Project timeline crashing). I’m also utilizing a lot of communication and networking skills within the Deckers company. 

Q: What is your favorite part about going to grad school in Santa Barbara?

A: I grew up in Los Angeles, about an hour and a half away from here. Growing up, we would go camping in Santa Barbara all the time and I absolutely loved it. Santa Barbara is just so beautiful. I feel like there's always something to do. There's not as much traffic here as in L.A., which is nice. I can easily drive to downtown SB and in 15 minutes be at my favorite restaurant down there. I really like Lilac Patisserie or Mizza, and then I can go to East Beach and enjoy the sunset. I actually work at a luxury tennis club while I'm getting my degree here, and that's been super fun, too. It’s beautiful and the people are just so nice and inviting. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I think this is the best place ever! 

Q: What are roles or industries you’re considering pursuing after MTM? 

A: Marketing has always been something I've been really interested in, so I'm going to look for roles in that kind of sector after this. In addition to that, I will be looking for roles in the hospitality industry in Santa Barbara, since I have experience there as well. 

Q: Do you have any advice for prospective MTM graduate students?  

A: I think for anyone looking at the program, a Master's in Technology Management is equivalent to a modern-day MBA. It's going to continue to be a super important program as we keep evolving as a society with new technologies such generative AI. If you’re enrolled in MTM classes, you’re at the forefront of understanding these dynamic technologies. It's really important to understand and shape their impacts, so I think it’s a great thing to study that's differentiated from other areas and that can provide job security, which you’d want out of a Master’s program. 

Q: What’s your favorite new technology?

A: DALLE-3 in ChatGPT! 

Connect with Sabrina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sabrinachisholm0/

Learn more about the Master of Technology Management graduate program at https://tmp.ucsb.edu/academics/master-technology-management