Chapter 04: Multiple Majors Train a Problem-Solver
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Description
Ms. Kaul traces her educational track, noting the evolution of her interests in high school, the impact of an internship she had in an artificial lung laboratory, and her initial interest in becoming a physician. Her father talked her out of it, spurring her toward an alternative interest in “being in the driver’s seat of healthcare.” She explains how her college major in chemical engineering (Carnegie Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, B.S. conferred in 2000) taught her how to approach and solve problems. She also talks about her additional majors in English and Public Policy, the latter providing a framework for her study of Information Technology. (She worked on her Master of Information System Management, conferred 2001, while she was finishing her undergraduate work.) She discusses the lessons she learned through this cross-disciplinary work, stressing her interest in applying her knowledge to the complexity of real business applications.
Identifier
KaulR_01_20160224_C04
Publication Date
2-24-2016
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Overview; Professional Practice; The Professional at Work; Discovery, Creativity and Innovation
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting. We kind of went back to that issue of innovation, the definition of it, and how it fits in a culture of an organization. But I didn't want to lose the track of kind of your background. And we were starting to talk about your selection of focus and interests, your undergrad was in engineering, chemical engineering, if I'm remembering correctly.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Yeah.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
0:39.25.7 How did that happen?
R. Kaul, MBA:
0:39.26.4 That happened because I got an internship working in an artificial lung lab, and realized that I was really interested in what we were doing, but a lot of people in the lab were actually chemical engineers, because a lot of the principles in designing this lung ended up being chemical engineering principles, which wasn't something I even, at that stage of the game, I mean, knew about. Like, they didn't teach you in high school what chemical engineering was, right?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. I mean, I notice as I was looking through your CV, you have this really interesting group of internships and fellowships and stuff. I mean, what an amazing array of -- because that was in 1996 that you were in that.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Yeah. And that was --
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So you were a freshman?
R. Kaul, MBA:
That was right before I was a freshman, in the summer before being a freshman.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow. So how did you get into that? You were a laboratory technician, artificial lung program?
R. Kaul, MBA:
Yeah, I just -- it was a local lab, (inaudible). You know?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So why did you even want to do that?
R. Kaul, MBA:
What made me --
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Why didn't you want to go to riding camp or something, I mean, you know.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Oh, well --
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, I mean, that's an unusual choice!
R. Kaul, MBA:
Oh, god, I see. (laughter) Well, I mean, I always had to have a job.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Right, sure.
R. Kaul, MBA:
From a financial standpoint. And I was looking for something that was going to start to jumpstart me. And I was always a math-science person.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK.
R. Kaul, MBA:
You know, I never particularly cared for, -- I shouldn't say it that way. In high school, I went to a high school that required a lot of writing. A lot of paper writing. So at that kind of immature age, I kind of was sick of doing writing, and thrived in math and science and whatnot. So I just always knew I was going to be going in the math and science route, always had an interest in healthcare, just because I was surrounded by it, and with my mom's situation and everything. So it just looked like a -- when you're that young, I can't profess, I can't pretend that it was the most strategic thing I did. It just ends up being, well, I'm interested, I'm a math-science kind of person, I'm not really -- I'm kind of sick of doing all this paper writing and such. I'm interested in healthcare, I had the notion that I might like to be a doctor at the time. So I, -- but I had this notion that I didn't want to just do a pure science, because I didn't like being over theoretical, I liked engineering because it was the practical application of science. But I, at that time, intended to go to medical school.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting.
R. Kaul, MBA:
And actually, it's actually my father who talked me out of that. Somewhere along the way we talked about where I was headed, and we, were talking about at that time, it was the time of HMOs kind of taking over the world in the sense of kind of controlling what doctors could and couldn't do, the political theme at the time in the area of health care. Do you remember that?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I do, indeed.
R. Kaul, MBA:
So given that that was sort of the setting, what we talked about was perhaps being in the driver's seat of, the administrative side of healthcare, where you can start to influence how HMOs have an impact on the clinical setting, and how technology can impact the clinical setting, might be a more impactful way than specifically being the doctor, especially given my interest areas. So it was a little bit, like I said, a product of the political climate, more than it was --
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, sure. Well, you can never, I mean, plan how your life happens to you, you know?
R. Kaul, MBA:
0:43:50:3 You know? So I got to kind of the end of chemical engineering and sort of realized I didn't want to be an engineer. So --
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So what did you -- what did that experience give you, though? What did the training at that kind --
R. Kaul, MBA:
Being a Chem E?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Being a chemical engineer taught me how to think, how to problem-solve and how to not be intimidated by any problem. When I first started in engineering, I remember my first assignment at Carnegie Mellon and being completely intimidated and completely thinking, how am I supposed to solve this? And the way things were set up in Engineering is, they never gave you all the information to solve the problem. You had to make a set of assumptions, which wasn't something I was used to. When you're in high school, there's a question and an answer. In college, or at least in Engineering, there is no question and answer, it's about thinking about, well, I don't have all the information. So what are some reasonable assumptions I can make to get to a reasonable answer? And kind of adopting the mentality that there's no problem that can't be solved. It's just a matter of figuring out what assumptions you can and can't make, and understanding the context of what you're trying to do, and how to use the information provided to you. So more than teaching the engineering, it taught me how to approach problem-solving, and how to think. So if I could do it again, I'd do it again.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
There you go.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Even though I have no interest in being a chemical engineer.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. Yeah. So you went to Carnegie Mellon -- we kind of skipped that part -- and you got your degree in 2000, if I'm remembering.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Yeah, I did a double major in Chemical Engineering, and Engineering and Public Policy.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK.
R. Kaul, MBA:
And I really liked that Engineering and Public Policy because it was the intersection of how technology influenced policy, what you could only do as a double major to an engineering discipline. And I was so interested in that, in my last year I joined an accelerated master's program, where I did my first year of a master's degree while still in my undergraduate. And it was actually a master of science in Public Policy and Management. And I know you're looking at my resume saying, "That's not what you ended up with."
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, OK, so --
R. Kaul, MBA:
That's because I changed.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, OK. Interesting. Yeah.
R. Kaul, MBA:
So I did the first year of the Master of Science of Public Policy and Management while I was still an undergraduate. And that was the time, again -- when I think back, I was very influenced by what was sort of happening in the world. That was the time of the dot-com era, right, where people were being offered amazing packages off -- in the job market to go work for these startup companies, and tech companies. I mean, people were, driving off campus right out of college in their brand-new BMW. I mean, it was crazy times, right? You remember those times?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I do.
R. Kaul, MBA:
So, also in the kind of next door to the Public Policy program was a new program started by -- it was a university-wide program called Master of Information Systems Management. And the reason it was next door is, the Public Policy School administered it, even though it was a university-wide program that was supposed to take the principles from the Computer Science School and the Business School and the Public Policy School together to kind of create more of an integrated management degree around technology. So I started kind of getting interested in that. I mean, being in Carnegie Mellon, you were, by default, very computer-literate. You were engaged in the -- because it's an engineering and it's a computer science school. So I started getting interested in that, so I shifted after I graduated from Chem E out of the Master of Science of Public Policy and Management Program into the Master of Information Systems Management Program. I was able to transfer some credits over, at least the ones that related, and then did that program. And while I was doing that program, the dot-com became the dot-bomb. (laughter) So that was unfortunate, right?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yes, and there are revised expectations for people.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Yes. Very different expectations when I graduated. So truth be told, didn't really know what I wanted to do that that point, but wanted to get an experience outside of Pittsburgh.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well let's just -- pause just for a sec. Because you talked about what it was that you learned, what kind of impact your Chem E experience had. What about these public policy information systems? You know, what was kind of the deep takeaway in terms of your own development?
R. Kaul, MBA:
Public policy, what was really great about that -- I loved the public policy. The -- what's really great about that is it took everything I was learning in engineering and made it real in terms of how it impacted people. How it impacted society. And that's really the part of technology I liked. It's not technology for technology's sake that I like, that interests me, it's how it actually makes an impact, and how it can drive value, how it can do good. So that's what attracted me to it, and that's what I learned, is all the ways, both limitations and opportunities, in the kind of social and economic setting, as it relates to technology. Then when I went into the Master of Information Systems Management, I went deeper into that intersection of technology and business and started becoming more business-oriented, kind of, e-commerce, and how you're going to transform technology into a business, not necessarily into a policy or a societal impact, but more of a, how would I spin this out into a company? And how do I truly leverage information systems and understand enough about information systems and to function in that space effectively? I'm not a computer scientist. I would never bill myself as a deep technologist. I know enough about technology -- what the program teaches you is enough about technology so that you can manage technology; you know what questions to ask, you know enough about a space to be -- I always say I know just enough to be dangerous. Could I be a developer? Sure, I guess when I graduated I worked as a developer for a few months. But I would never say I could now, and was probably a little opportunistic when I did a little engagement as a developer. I wouldn't have really gone on that path. But so I think that the Information Systems Management gave me that -- this hard-core business and the translation of technology to business, and overall management background, how it relates to managing teams of people, how you build an organization to develop technology, those kinds of things. The processes, the roles, how you evaluate it.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting.
R. Kaul, MBA:
So that was really -- it was an interesting program.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And it was -- am I remembering correctly -- it was new?
R. Kaul, MBA:
It was a new program. I think it was in its second or third year.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Right. Right. The figuring out phase is often really interesting in things like that.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Yeah. At the university it just started, and it's still going. So it's still a very good program.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Cool.
R. Kaul, MBA:
So I should note that that's where I met my husband.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And his name?
R. Kaul, MBA:
His name is Sid. He was doing a Master of Science and Information Technology, so...
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting. And what does he do?
R. Kaul, MBA:
He's a director of Strategic Innovation at General Dynamics. Similar kind of role. Anyway, so from there, I went to -- so then I didn't really know what I wanted to do. There was a lot of interesting things, but the economy had turned. And I knew I didn't want to be a chemical engineer. You're not going to get management position out of school, because I didn't have any real work experience. So I, went to consulting, thinking that that would give me broad exposure.
Recommended Citation
Kaul, Rebecca MBA and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 04: Multiple Majors Train a Problem-Solver" (2016). Interview Chapters. 1263.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1263
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