Meet Victoria Sneddon, MTM Class of 2020

Victoria studied computer engineering at UCSB before completing her MTM degree in 2020. She is currently a Senior Engineering Project Manager at Arthrex, a global medical device company and leader in new product development and medical education in orthopedics.

Q: What was your educational background prior to MTM and why did you want to join the MTM graduate program?

A: I went to UCSB for Computer Engineering, and I received my BS in it in 2019. While I was at UCSB I did an internship at Continental, and they were working on autonomous driving. I was an IT Software Intern, and while I was there I was feeling kind of lost, because I was not passionate about coding and I wasn't sure if I wanted that to be my only career option even though that was what my degree was in. While I was at Continental, I met a woman there who had done the MTM program, and she was a project manager. I didn’t know what project management was, so she taught me about it and she told me about how MTM helped get her to where she was in her career. So that is how I found out about MTM. I applied, got my master’s, and then I used that to get my current role as a Senior Engineering Project Manager at Arthrex. 

Q: Can you tell us more about your current role and how MTM prepared you for it?

A: I am a Senior Engineering Project Manager. I started out as an Associate Project Manager in 2020, and I used MTM as my stepping stone to bridge the gap between my engineering degree and where I wanted to go in my career, which was project management. So I was able to say MTM taught me the skills of a project manager, it taught me what project management was, and that helped me in the interview process to show that I didn't just have a computer engineering degree, I could speak the project management language–I knew what scope meant, and time management, and budgeting. Since I didn't have any experience in project management, having my master’s helped me get into the project management field. 

Q: How did your experience with the field project prepare you for your career?

A: My field project was at a start-up, and it helped me learn the way that people speak about business, or “corporate speak.” It taught me a lot about what a project manager was, because we worked directly with the project manager, and he would say “Okay we are going to have weekly huddles where we talk about the progress your team is making.” The field project experience gave me insight into how corporations actually work on a day-to-day basis. Having had no real experience in that area, it was really eye opening and taught me a lot. 

Q: What were some of the highlights of MTM for you? 

A: The biggest thing was the community. I made a lot of lifelong friends, and also one of my best friends that I made from MTM is also an engineering project manager, so we are always talking about our jobs, and asking each other, “Hey how do you handle projects like this, and have you had these challenges?” So I really appreciate the community and I feel like it is ongoing, I still get emails about events. So that is very helpful. I also liked the instructors, they were all very friendly and all had a lot of business experience and a lot of practical experience we could ask questions about. I felt like they all actually cared about the students a lot and cared about following up with us when we graduated to see where we ended up. Also, the courses–they give a broad overview of different departments you could end up working for. 

Q: As someone with an engineering background, what did MTM contribute to your skill and professional development? What career doors did it open for you?

A: When you go into college, you have one idea of what you want your career or major to be, but that might change over four years if you start feeling like, well, I don't even know what other departments exist in a company. For me, MTM helped take me from solely an engineering background to learning about business, and learning about marketing, and product and project management, which I had never taken courses in. MTM gives you a broader range of knowledge, which I think is really powerful, because you have some insight into each area. It also helps if you feel like you are not sure what direction your career is going to go. You have a year to try out so many different things, and it makes you feel more confident about where you want to end up. Career Services was very helpful. The Career Services manager would review our resumes and bring in speakers from different companies, so again, having faculty and staff that actually care about you and care about giving you advice for your career is very meaningful and very helpful.

Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriasneddon/

Learn more about MTM: tmp.ucsb.edu/mtm

Connect with MTM: https://tmp.ucsb.edu/connect-mtm