Emily Ashikari (MTM ‘26) graduated from UCSB with her degree in electrical engineering in 2022. After several years working in the semiconductor industry locally at Atomica, Ashikari returned for a Master’s in Electrical Engineering alongside a Master’s in Technology Management. Learn from Emily about her experience working towards two degrees, returning to UCSB after starting her career and more!
Find Emily at her LinkedIn here!
Q: What made you interested in pursuing the MTM program? Also what made you want to pursue the MTM program alongside your Master's in Engineering instead of just one or the other?
A: I always knew I wanted a dual degree in some way, which is why I did the [Technology Management] Certificate as well in undergrad. When I was looking for grad schools, I looked for something that had both a management and an engineering aspect–I ended up getting into UCSB for engineering. Knowing that I wanted that managerial aspect, and knowing that MTM was only nine months, it fit perfectly where I could kind of make my own dual degree.
I always saw myself as more of a social engineer. I'm never going to be the most technical person in the room. But I think one of my strengths as an engineer is being more social and more personable. So I always knew I wanted more of the people management route in engineering.
I'm originally from New York, so I looked at some programs on the East Coast, and then in California. Honestly, it's very hard to move out of San Barbara. So everything about UCSB drew me in again.
Q: Tell us about your time in between your degrees, such as working in the semiconductor industry.
A: I worked for two years at Atomica, where I was a Process Integration Engineer. I will say I really, really valued the experience I got from there. It's a small company, so I got to do so many different things and learned so much from a lot of really experienced people. And it helped me stay in Santa Barbara, which is what I wanted.
When you leave undergrad, you still really don't know what you want to be when you grow up. You just learned how to learn, so getting experience under my belt taught me what exactly I wanted to pursue within my career. It highlighted my strengths and weaknesses as an engineer so that I could go back to school, work on those weaknesses, and really hone in on those strengths.
Q: Tell us about your MTM field project, and the transition between your site project role to earning a full-time position at the company.
A: My field project was at Teledyne FLIR. We were a five-person team of MTM students from different backgrounds, and we worked on AI implementation within design engineering workflows–analyzing the workflows that they currently have within design and then analyzing whether or not AI can speed up inefficiencies within their workflows.
I'm going to start as a process development engineer toward the end of July. What I wanted to do for the past year (in MTM) was to work with Teledyne. So I was really excited when I got that field project. The MTM program gave me the foot in the door to network really easily, and do the listening tour that our career counselors had talked to us about in the beginning of the year, but do it in a much more formal way. The field project really got me in the door to meet a lot of people at the company and get to know what the company did really closely and then put me in the right place to talk to the right people.
I will say our field project was with the project managers at Teledyne, so not directly related to the work that I will be doing. However, it was great to meet everybody there and understand what the Teledyne FLIR culture is like as well.
Emily Ashikari and her fellow MTM field project group members at the Teledyne FLIR building in Goleta.
Q: What have been your favorite parts of the MTM program?
A: The field project is definitely one of the most valuable things from MTM. It gets you work experience while you're still a student, which is great, and teaches you how to be a consultant, which is also definitely a valuable experience. Past that, I think just the ability to try so many different things with so many different people–MTM is very unique in the way it recruits from all different backgrounds, all different undergrad majors, people at different places in their careers. So it gets you working with people you wouldn't necessarily work with in your typical day job, which I think is an extremely valuable experience.
Q: Any advice for current or future students of the MTM program?
A: Use every part of it that you can. The program is only nine months, which is great, but it's also your nine months to go after it and do as many things as you can. I was someone who did the New Venture program, I was also a TA. . .I basically tried to squeeze the most out of the degree I could.
I highly suggest that you go to every networking event you can, every career services opportunity, and just meet as many people as you can.
Emily's New Venture team, CoListable, at the New Venture Fair 2026.
Emily presents for the CoListable pitch during the New Venture Finals 2026.
Q: Is there any advice that you have for engineering undergrads thinking of pursuing MTM?
A: Get comfortable being a little uncomfortable. There aren't as many engineers in the program, so I think what's really cool is you're going to be working with non-engineers most of the time, and they will lean on you for some technical advice or technical experience. You might not be the expert in the room on a certain technical subject in a lot of these groups, but you will be looked at that way–dig deep and understand that you just learned how to learn as an engineer. Just try to solve problems and help your teammates as much as you can.
I would just say that as an engineer, in the program, it's a little different from what you had in undergrad. So while you're not going to get a hard homework assignment every week andwork on one problem for hours in the library, you're going to be working in groups, which takes just as much time and effort.
Learn more about the MTM program
Learn about the E+TM (Engineering and Technology Management) Fellowship Program