Interviewing future leaders at Carnegie Mellon - Heinz College graduate students

It's truly inspiring to speak with young graduate students who passionately feel about positively changing the world. This week I was asked to join a small team interviewing graduate students (Carnegie Mellon - Heinz College) who are seeking employment in late winter or late spring to put their degree to a good use.

The most exciting part of the interview was seeing how most students in my group were able to discuss concrete problems from an end-to-end perspective. Here is a general observation about the future leaders:
- they can effectively organize and leverage team members' time and skills; they are have a disciplined and patient approach for deciding who would lead and how the tasks should be distributed
- they continue to learn and care a whole lot about learning opportunities their employer offers
- they are open to new ideas and observations; change is not a distant concept, it's a way of life
- they are data driven at all the right places; they understand the value of business intelligence and they know how to formulate a problem so that the right data is gathered and analyzed so that the right insight can be provided in a timely manner
- they are professional and passionate
- they are fearless and ready to tackle new challenges
- they know they can and shall change the world

On my journey to Pittsburgh I was wondering if this trip was the best use of my time. On the way back I realized that I learned from the students as much as they learned from me. This was time well spent.


Constantin K.
Firebrand Architect®
SoftwareArchitectures.com
FirebrandArchitect.com